Hannah: TCKs and the Arts

Hannah is a Third Culture Kid who grew up between Ghana and the USA. She is the founder of TCK Art website ‘cUlture MiKs‘.

“My TCK experience was a lonely one, full of transitions and travel and impermanence; and my way of dealing with that was to create art.  As a child, I wrote songs and poetry and stories because I believed I was the only one who felt the way I did.”

Hannah spent much of her time in Ghana without the company of other TCKs, unaware that other people like her existed.

In an interview with TCK Care, she explains, “I didn’t know anybody else like me. No one had ever told me they felt like me, so a lot of my art in my younger years came out of that sense of ‘I must write because there’s nothing out there that really expresses me.'”

It was only when she returned to the USA for university that she found a community of TCKs online, who shared her experience and emotions.

“That’s why I made [the website] – to be a resource for people to find other TCKs who feel things similar to them. It’s like, ‘hey, you’re not alone in this, we all feel this way.'”

Now, Hannah’s website is a source of comfort, inspiration, and solidarity for TCKs all over the world, with a wide range of contributors. She’s collected a range of poetry, music, videos, and paintings dealing with themes of identity, home, and culture, and she is still open to submissions! If you like to express yourself through art or are interested in other peoples’ TCK experiences, Culture Miks just might be the place for you.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

Thomas Merton
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Literary Journals Looking for Diverse Writers

Is there anything as cathartic as processing your experiences, identity, and emotions through writing? If you decide your writing needs a home online, it can be a little daunting! Where do you even start?

This list will point you towards a few of the literary journals and e-mags that excel in promoting voices from a range of cultures. Why not just submit, and see where it takes you?

A Gathering of Tribes – In their words, ‘A Gathering of Tribes is an arts and cultural organization dedicated to excellence in the arts from a diverse perspective.’ They publish poetry, prose, essays, and reviews.

The Acentos Review – Latinos, this one’s for you! Accepting work in Spanish, English, Portuguese, or a combination, this magazine is looking for work from Latinx writers.

aaduna – This journal is particularly interested in providing a platform for writers of colour. In their words, ‘aaduna welcomes all work that addresses multicultural themes, and bolsters human dignity. ‘

Apogee – Their focus is identity politics, so if you have writing or art around the themes of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability or intersectional identities, definitely worth checking these guys out!

Callaloo – ‘A journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters’. A very reputable journal publishing poetry and essays by writers of African descent.

Cha – This journal publishes work with Asian themes, and work by Asian writers. They are an English-language online journal, based in Hong Kong.

Human/Kind – This journal focuses on Japanese short-forms of poetry and art, talking about the human experience, culture, and current events. They describe themselves as a community that ’embraces diversity’, and they accept non-English submissions (providing they come with a translation).

Kweli – In their words, ‘Kweli’s mission is to nurture emerging writers of colour and create opportunities for their voices to be recognized and valued.’

Solstice – Solstice is a literary magazine searching for high quality writing and photography from diverse perspectives. In their words, ‘We publish underserved writers, or writers on the margins. We publish writers of diverse nationalities, races and religions, and also writers from diverse cultures within our culture.’

Sukoon – This magazine works to showcase literature and art with Arab themes, discussing the diversity of Arab identity and experience. They publish work in English.