Last fall, Managing Editor Akin Olla began piloting a concept for how Convergence can grow as a space which can develop the voice of organizers trying to communicate big strategic ideas. The result was the Max Elbaum Resident Writers Program (named after our longtime board chair). We received an amazing batch of applications from over 60 organizers from all over the country and chose two to join us for the next 12 months to work on honing their craft as writers and refining their ideas about movement strategy.
Each resident writer has a big question they will be exploring across multiple articles they’ll be publishing with us over the coming months. I’m excited to introduce the 2026 Elbaum Resident Writers: Delaney Vandergrift and Whitney Washington. In this episode, both join in back-to-back interviews to discuss what their organizing background and more details about what they’ll be publishing with Convergence this year.
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Episode Guests
Whitney Washington is a writer and advocate based in Huntsville, Alabama. She is a longtime advocate, having worked for political campaigns and progressive advocacy organizations in the South for more than a decade.
She is a regular contributor to Burnaway, a magazine of contemporary art and criticism from the American South and the Caribbean, since 2024. She is an alum of the Black Embodiments Studio’s Arts Writing Incubator, Tin House Summer Workshop, and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop; she was also a 2022 Periplus fellow. She has been published in Electric Literature, Oxford American, and Roxane Gay’s newsletter The Audacity.
Whitney is active in Alabama’s labor movement. She is the Vice President of the North Alabama Area Labor Council and a member CWA 3908.
Delaney Vandergrift is an award-winning social impact strategist and cultural worker. Currently, she’s the Senior Narrative Strategist at Down Home North Carolina. Previously, she worked for Showtime/MTV Entertainment & Paramount Media Networks as a Manager of Social Impact, creating high-impact strategies and providing consultation for both unscripted and scripted TV shows. Prior to this, Delaney was an organizer in her home state of North Carolina. She co-founded Refund Raleigh, an organization fighting to end police violence and economic exploitation by advocating for a city budget made by the people and for the people. Most importantly, Delaney is a proud alumni of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Outside of work, you can find Delaney building socialism in the south with the Democratic Socialists of America and boxing at Knuckle Up Boxing and Fitness in Raleigh, NC where her brother coaches her almost every week day.