The DocSong Fellowship: Supporting Teaching Artists in Maine

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to support artists.

Not in the abstract sense—not “the arts need funding” or “artists are essential workers” (all of which is true!)—but in the specific, daily work of helping someone become the practitioner they’re trying to be.

Malcolm Brooks, our founder, has always understood this. For years, he’s mentored teaching artists not by training them and sending them off, but by staying connected. By answering questions months after a workshop ended. By listening to rough drafts of songs and helping someone hear what their storyteller was really saying. By checking in when a project got hard.

I studied with Malcolm. So did Hazel Delehey, who he mentored as a teenager and who now teaches documentary songwriting herself, still working with him. Nora Willauer, our former Executive Director, learned from Malcolm before building the teaching artist training that’s now trained over 60 artists worldwide. Khalid Taylor and Will Foote, both teaching artists and board members, were also mentored by Malcolm.

What strikes me about all these relationships is how they continue. Hazel didn’t learn from Malcolm and move on—she’s still in conversation with him. They have lunch regularly and collaborate on songs. The mentorship didn’t end; it evolved.

That’s what we’re trying to build on: relationships that last, support that continues.

What This Year Taught Us

This year, through Music in Conversation, we gave 15 teaching artists resources and creative freedom to write songs in their communities. We didn’t tell them what to create or how to do it. We just provided support and got out of the way.

What they brought back surprised me every time.

Renovare Music partnered with a Black women’s beekeeping collective in Cleveland. Clara Schneid wrote about holding a friend through a mental health crisis, turning an impossible situation into a song that holds universal lessons on love and boundaries. Laurie Rodriguez told the story of leaving her faith community to protect her son. Ellen Waimerdam told a story about losing two front teeth in a game of catch one summer, and created a stop-motion film to accompany her song!

Each song was completely different. But watching them come together, I kept noticing the same pattern: the teaching artists who created the most compelling work were the ones who knew their communities intimately. They had relationships built over years. They understood which stories needed telling and why. They knew how to hold complexity without simplifying it.

We couldn’t have created those songs. We could only support the artists who could.

That insight—that our job is to resource artists, not do the work ourselves—is shaping everything about what comes next.

The DocSong Fellowship

In January 2027, we’re launching something new: a fellowship program for three Maine-based teaching artists.

Each fellow will receive $10,000, a dedicated mentor, and nine months of sustained support to lead documentary songwriting projects in their communities. Not just a workshop or training, but an entire project cycle from planning through public performance, with someone checking in every two weeks asking how it’s going and what they need.

The model is Malcolm’s approach, formalized. We’re taking what he’s always done—staying with people, supporting them over time, helping them find their way—and building a structure that lets us do it for more teaching artists.

Here’s what fellows will do: spend nine months working with a specific community, creating 3-6 documentary songs with storytellers, recording at least one professionally, and sharing the work publicly however makes sense for that community. Along the way, they’ll have a mentor—an experienced teaching artist—meeting with them every other week. They’ll join monthly calls with their cohort of fellows. They’ll get training, resources, troubleshooting help, and someone to talk to when the work gets hard.

Because it does get hard. Documentary songwriting asks you to hold someone else’s story with care, to find the song inside a conversation, to create something that honors both the storyteller’s truth and your own artistic integrity. That takes time to learn and ongoing support to sustain.

Who It’s For

We’re looking for Maine-based musicians who already see their work as community practice—who understand their artistry as inseparable from service, connection, or change.

Maybe you’re a musician who’s been working with a specific population and wondering how documentary songwriting could deepen that work. Maybe you’ve taken our teaching artist training and want support to implement a full project. Maybe you’re already doing this work and need resources to do it more sustainably.

We’re particularly interested in supporting at least one fellow from rural Maine (communities under 2,500 people) and at least one fellow representing a marginalized identity in Maine. Because documentary songwriting works everywhere, and we want the fellowship to reflect that. Our goal is to support musicians who are ready to do this work and giving them what they need—time, money, mentorship, community—to do it well.

Why We’re Building This Now

There’s a practical reason: 2026 is our building year.

We’re hiring a second staff member to coordinate our core programs, including the fellowship. We’re creating the systems fellows will need—application processes, mentor training, documentation templates. We’re continuing Music in Conversation and supporting other teaching artist projects. We’re doing the unglamorous infrastructure work that makes sustainable programs possible.

But there’s also a deeper reason: we’re watching arts funding shrink while artists face increasing pressure from AI and economic instability. Teaching artists need support. Not just encouragement or visibility—actual resources, ongoing mentorship, and investment in their work.

The fellowship is our way of saying: we believe in you. We’re going to support you not just for a week or a workshop, but for nine months. We’re going to stay with you while you figure this out. We’re going to help you build something sustainable in your community.

What We’re Building Toward

I keep thinking about what happens after the first three fellows complete the program.

Ideally, they’ll keep using documentary songwriting in their communities. They’ll have relationships with organizations, a body of work to share, and the confidence to keep going. And within a year, maybe they’ll be ready to mentor the next cohort of fellows themselves.

That’s how the network grows. That’s how Malcolm’s model of mentorship multiplies—not through one person training hundreds of people, but through practitioners mentoring each other, sharing knowledge, supporting the next generation.

I imagine fellows forming regional connections, maybe even local DocSong chapters where teaching artists continue practicing and teaching together. I imagine a network of musicians across the country using documentary songwriting in their communities, all connected through shared practice and mutual support.

We’re starting small—three fellows in Maine—because we want to build something we can sustain, not something we have to abandon after a year because we didn’t have the infrastructure to support it.

How This Happens

We’re raising $35,000 from individual donors by the end of this year to fund the fellowship. That covers the three stipends, mentor compensation, and the coordination it takes to support fellows well.

If you’ve been following along with our work—if the vision of teaching artists creating connection in their communities resonates with you—this is how you can help make it real.

We can’t launch a fellowship without the funding secured. We won’t ask three teaching artists to commit nine months of their lives unless we know we can support them properly. Your gift helps us do this right.

Support the DocSong Fellowship

What Comes Next

Applications will open in Summer 2026. If you’re interested in applying—or you know someone who might be—sign up for our email list and we’ll let you know when applications go live.

In the meantime, I’ll keep sharing what we’re learning about supporting teaching artists, why this work matters, and what we’re building.

For now, I’m sitting with what it means to formalize Malcolm’s approach—to take something that’s always felt personal and intuitive and build systems around it without losing what makes it work.

It feels both exciting and vulnerable. Exciting because we’re finally doing something we’ve talked about for years. Vulnerable because we’re making a public commitment, and now we have to follow through.

But mostly it feels right. Like we’re building on solid ground, honoring what Malcolm started while expanding it so more teaching artists can experience what so many of us have: sustained mentorship that helps us become the practitioners we’re trying to be.

Thank you for being part of this.

Always,

Caroline