Assetou Xango started their journey to Wilkes University in Colorado. Angelique Palmer started hers in the desert of New Mexico. While the student and faculty member’s paths had different first steps, each led to the discovery of a home in the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
Xango, a poet and spoken word artist, heard Palmer present on a panel at Margins, a literary conference, in Colorado. Xango was searching for guidance on publishing a 43-page poetry manuscript in progress. Palmer offered some advice and mentioned that she was a mentor in the creative writing program at Wilkes.
At the time, Xango was not looking for a master’s program, but the discussion sparked an interest.
“As a Black lesbian who’d been in spoken word for years, I figured if she was there and other people like her were there, this was a probably a place that could know my voice, honor my voice and help me make my work the best it could be and make it publishable,” says Xango. “And I was right.”
Xango graduated with their master’s degree in 2025 and is now working toward the master of fine arts degree. Their creative thesis project, Weave, combines poetry and essays featuring themes of love, abuse, wholeness, connection and identity. The work crosses temporal boundaries and borders, transitioning from the past to the present and from the U.S. to Palestine to West Africa.
“I’m playing with the idea of displacement. Writing about it is alchemy. I’m taking this thing and putting it on paper in such a way that it makes me feel like I have power,” says Xango. “And the whole point is I don’t. Yet somehow, I’m able to weave this together. I’m able to make connections and write stories to make meaning, and that makes me feel whole and like an active participant.”
Xango has long been an active participant in the spoken word community, which comes with a wealth of artistic freedom. “What I love about poetry in spoken word, and now writing, is that all I need is a pen and a paper,” says Xango. “I have a lot of my poems memorized, so I can just show up. I like the lightness of it. I like that it’s just creating. Barefoot on a stage is my happy place.”
While the creative writing program allows Xango to stay true to their spoken word roots, it also provides access to publishing industry professionals that they haven’t experienced before. As part of the master’s coursework, every student’s creative thesis goes to an outside reader, typically an agent, editor or producer connected to the creative writing program. Students get written feedback to help improve their projects and a one-on-one meeting with the outside reader. Xango’s outside reader was Ibrahim Ahmad, executive editor for the Viking Books team at Penguin Publishing Group.
“It’s such an incredible networking opportunity,” says Xango. “It’s huge to have that entry point into the world, to have someone actively in the industry take time to read your work. They’re invested in a way they would probably not be if you were just a manuscript on their desk.”
For Xango, Wilkes provides both creative satisfaction and a professional home. They’re currently a member of the residence life team and a coordinator for international student support. The position comes with an apartment in University Towers and an opportunity to pursue another passion: fostering community for students and helping them navigate the college experience. “It feels important to be in the mix and be part of that energy,” Xango says.
Moving toward the completion of their creative writing journey, Xango works with Palmer, the mentor who launched their Wilkes journey. Palmer recalls meeting Xango at the Margins conference.
“I did a poem, and they connected with a poem. We were supposed to know each other,” says Palmer. “I gave them the information from Wilkes that I was supposed to give to anybody who talked to me at the conference, but I just wanted to know them, and I wanted them to know me. And I wanted to see where they were gonna go.”
Like Xango, Palmer’s journey to Wilkes was somewhat serendipitous. She was selected to the 2015 A Room of Her Own writing retreat, where she presented a spoken word poem in the desert in Chama, New Mexico, with a lightning storm rolling in. The filmed performance caught the attention of Phil Brady, executive editor of Etruscan Press, a non-profit press which partners with Wilkes University. Etruscan convinced Palmer to publish her book Also Dark with the press. When she came to campus to record the audiobook, she met David Hicks, director of the creative writing program, who invited her to be a mentor in the program.
“David was standing outside the booth and I hugged him because I thought I knew him,” says Palmer. “The rest is history. It’s all because I did a poem in a desert.”
From Colorado and the desert to Wilkes University, Xango and Palmer have been working through the final MFA requirements and finding their way in creative writing’s relatively new spoken word track. As Xango approaches the end of the program, they’re revising Weave, creating new spoken word, drafting a love story about healing and letting the energy of words — and the guidance of their mentor — lead them to the next step on the journey.
“People have gone through many transitions in this program, and their mentors have been able to work with them. There are a lot of really beautiful things about the way you get to work with your mentor,” says Xango. “The mentors are really good at holding space for where you are, which is also another brilliant part of the program.”