The 2025 season of Go Back and Fetch It! began with a familiar face and a fresh lesson. Returning guest mentor Sherrie Fernandez-Williams - author, poet, and educator - opened the first session by guiding fellows through the heartbeat of storytelling: voice.

A writer, teacher, and arts leader, Fernandez-Williams has spent years nurturing creative communities across Minnesota. She is the author of Soft: A Memoir and the poetry collection Goddess of the Whole Self. Her work appears in We Are Meant to Rise, The Florida Review, and Duke University Press, among others. A 2021–2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, she also co-curates the Queer Voices Reading Series in partnership with Quatrefoil Library and Hennepin County Libraries.

Fernandez-Williams invited participants to consider the many qualities that shape a writer’s voice. Through readings, discussion, and writing prompts, the group examined how authentic voice emerges through honesty, specificity, and the willingness to dwell in gray areas. The group read from The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras and reflected on how these qualities interplay to create writing that feels grounded and alive.

A highlight of the session was a shared exploration of “Wade in the Water” by Tracy K. Smith - an ekphrastic poem written for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters. The poem’s invocation of history, movement, and layered love inspired discussions about lineage and the ways expressions through music and dance can be layered with history and identity.

Writers responded with original work inspired by a personal memory - some revisiting moments of reconciliation and reshaping it through rhythm and tone. The energy in the room was grounded and open, with thoughtful connections forming across experiences and disciplines.

As the session came to a close, the group left carrying Fernandez-Williams’ reminder that truth is greater than fact. With that, Year 2 of Go Back and Fetch It! is officially underway.