CHANGEMAKER AUTHORS COHORT

For activists, organizers, and thought leaders

The Changemaker Authors Cohort supports those working toward racial and social justice to write and publish works that create durable narrative change, with professional coaching and support within a multiracial community. The program is co-created by Narrative Initiative and the Unicorn Authors Club, and partially resourced by the Ford Foundation.

For updates about future Changemaker opportunities, and our Club in general, please join our mailing list.

Team Unicorn members Raychelle Heath and Tria Wen at a convention table speaking with a prospective Unicorn. In the foreground, a scrawl of ink weaves between images of lotus flowers and ivy leaves. In the background, blue powder.

Coaching and Community

Writers selected from 2021 to 2025 for the Changemaker Authors Cohort enjoyed all of the benefits of the Unicorn Authors Club for up to a year, at no charge. In 2026, the Changemaker Authors Cohort will shift to supporting movement folks to create short-form nonfiction works (essays and op-eds). In partnership with Narrative Initiative’s Word Force program, the Spring 2026 cohort is by invitation only and focuses on health justice and equity. 

Changing the Story

“We are not submitting to the narrative that has been written for us thus far. We are taking back our narrative, because this is our home, this is our story, and it’s time we made our voices heard.”

Tiffany Yu
Author, The Anti-Ableist Manifesto
Changemaker alum 2024

Making Meaning

“When you look at something like the fight around reparations, when you look at something like the fight around climate disaster, these are the arenas in which grief is the storytelling medium. Being able to wield new narratives that translate grief into meaning is a way forward.”

Malkia Devich Cyril
Author, Radical Loss
Changemaker alum 2023

Arcs of Justice

“Longform writing is critical to the longterm work of creating ‘sticky’ narratives, which can endure for 50 years or more, deepening the values that should guide multiracial democracy.”

Rinku Sen
Executive Director, Narrative Initiative
Unicorn alum 2020

A Paradigm Shift

“What I would like to shift is for the immigrant rights movement to really understand itself as a racial justice movement. What does that mean in terms of our accountability and how we approach the work?”

Silky Shah
Author, Unbuild Walls
Changemaker alum 2023

Love, Justice, Race

“Our history has been hidden from us and distorted. This book is a love letter to poor white people and working class white people to say, ‘Let’s be on the side of justice, like our ancestors.’”

Beth Howard
Author, Rednecks for Black Lives
Changemaker alum 2023

Meet Our Changemaker Writers

2025 Cohort
2024 Cohort
2023 Cohort