Press

“Beyond their individual accomplishments, their publications and their books in progress, what strikes me most about this group [of Shearing Fellows] is their commitment to and their real interest in engaging the university and wider Las Vegas communities. We’re eager to welcome them here and spend time with these amazing writers.”

UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute Announces 2023–24 Shearing Fellows, UNLV News Center

Chain-Gang All-Stars is the kind of prescient – and devastating, and lyric, and funny – work of fiction that shifts the way a reader sees the world. Here in Las Vegas, it’s an especially important read in light of work accomplished by prisoner advocacy groups during Nevada’s most recent legislative session.” 

Black Mountain Institute Hosts Fiction Writer Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah in Fall Opener, UNLV News Center

“In June 2022, [BMI Executive Director Colette LaBouff] got to work. …she’s here to tell us what she and BMI have experienced and accomplished over the past year.”

KNPR’s State of Nevada

“The [City of Asylum] Program brings writers to Las Vegas to work and live if they feel they are threatened and unable to work.”

KNPR

“The City of Asylum program at the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV supports writers whose freedoms have been stripped by censorship and whose lives may be in danger. For a year or two , selected writers are given a safe place to live in Las Vegas and the resources to create work that might not otherwise be possible.”

Las Vegas Weekly

“While fellows are brought to City of Asylum to pursue their own work, they are also heavily involved in the Black Mountain Institute, working with UNLV doctoral candidates and the local community.”

Vegas Magazine

“Another vital project was establishing the first City of Asylum writing fellowship program in the United States…”

Publishers Weekly