FunTimes is pleased to announce that Anijah Wright, a sophomore at Lincoln University in Chester County, is the latest addition to the FunTimes media college internship program.

Anijah’s Lincoln University writing instructor, Assistant Professor David Amadio, says the FunTimes internship is a stellar opportunity and gives the aspiring professional writer a chance to get practical experience to complement her academic training.

Amadio describes his student as a “standout with a strong writing voice, mastery of the language, and great sense of English literary devices, who is advanced in her class.”

And make no mistake, there are no in-between-the-lines when it comes to Anijah. Politely forceful, she creates her own opportunities.

Determined to secure a workplace resume, she bugged Amadio, who calls her ‘tenacious,” to find an internship for her. Amadio notes that few internship opportunities existed in his department, but he remembered a chance meeting with FunTimes’ publisher Eric Nzeribe who visited the school recently. He reached out to Nzeribe, who has employed college interns from West Chester, Drexel, and Temple universities.

The FunTimes’ internship program is a collaborative effort with local educational institutions, demonstrating the magazine’s commitment to youth enrichment and development. Anijah will be a paid weekly contributor. Publisher Nzeribe says Anijah has hit the ground running with new assignments and is quickly building her work portfolio.

“Our strategic goal is to be part of the first chapter of young writers’ careers and give them a stepping stone to success through professional experience in journalism,” Publisher Nzeribe says. “In turn, it’s important to have some new energy and vibrant voices like Anijah in the presentation of our magazine, as we pivot forward into the future.”

The internship is part of FunTimes’ community journalism outreach to net fresh creative talent and writers of color of all ages — offering a platform of positive and informative current experiences. FunTimes is the premier culture and lifestyles magazine serving African, African, and Caribbean residents in the Mid-Atlantic States.

Anijah is the latest young participant to benefit from the program. A Cleveland, Ohio native, Anijah has 15 siblings, including a twin sister Ija. The responsibility of helping to care for her younger brothers and sisters has provided a sense of maturity early on for the 19-year-old. At Lincoln, a historically Black university, she is majoring in English Liberal Arts (with a Creative Writing track) and is a contributor to the school’s literary magazine, Simbaa.

Her main interests are poetry and journalism, skills that she is honing at FunTimes. In her first assignment, she examined the role of a local nonprofit that is serving young Black men, assisting them to effectively navigate the slippery terrain of the pandemic.

“I like exploring any topics that are focused around celebrating Black people because I feel we don’t get enough attention or recognition for what we do,” says Anijah.

She writes whenever possible in the course of her hectic school life. She already has penned “Honey,” a self-published poetry collection. Her prose comes to life at slam-poetry performances.

The poet in her knows her words are mere caterpillars ready to become lively sentences that blossom off the screen into butterflies. Her ambition is to parlay her writing passion into a full-time profession.  

And Anijah has a role model who is close to her heart. Her favorite writer just happens to be her late godmother Christina Jones, a professional poet.

“The poems she would write were so real and vulnerable,” observes Anijah. “She was the epitome of the strong Black woman. I hope to be like her one day. I lost her two years ago and I hope to be a fraction of the writer she was.”

Anijah says that wordsmithing gives her a measure of calm, ultimately connecting her to her kindred spirit.

“Writing makes me feel the closest to my godmother,” she says. “Writing makes me feel sane. If I’m not writing, I tend to live in my head. But when I write, I feel so much better about things that I cannot control. I write every chance that I get. Even if it’s just a line, I like to write down my thoughts.”  

And now as FunTimes’ newest intern, Anijah is poised for a promising future.

“She is very responsible, assertive, and very confident,” says her college instructor Amadio. “She knows what she wants and goes after it. Yet she is humble, takes criticism well, and there is power and confidence there. She has the potential to do great things.”

At FunTimes Anijah will help mentor high school intern Umme Orthy, manage social media, and perform an array of duties required on the staff of the big-city/small-neighborhood magazine.