General BioTamryn Spruill's entire professional life exhibits a genuine commitment to service.
Mainstream media's marginalization of athletes in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) spurred her decision to pause her career in academics and report on the disparities in media coverage, pay, and working conditions of women athletes as a freelance journalist. Her journalistic work has been cited in scholarly articles; her article “Critical Assist” (The Red Bulletin, 2020)--about two WNBA athletes who opted out of the 2020 season to devote their time to social justice initiatives--won the Southern California Journalism Award for Best Sports Commentary, Print/Online. Spruill has appeared on panels discussing race, homophobia, and gender presentation in media’s suppression of women's sports, the WNBA in particular, including for the University of Texas and Loyola Marymount University. An individual speaking engagement at the University of Tennessee did not transpire because of scheduling conflicts at the university. |
"Crude Selfie" (acrylic + ink on paper).
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Spruill's words appear in books by authors writing about women in sports, and she appears on film in Unfinished Business, a documentary by Alison Klayman (Motto Pictures, 2021), about the history of the WNBA, which debuted at Tribeca Film Festival and secured a streaming deal with Amazon Prime.
Spruill has also served as a subject-matter expert for NPR, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets.
She has devoted the past five years to writing and revising COURT QUEENS: A History of the WNBA & the Power of Persevering Women (ABRAMS Books, release date forthcoming). Spruill's aim with this book has been composing an inclusive work that thrusts previously-suppressed narratives to the forefront, giving voice to women whose stories were either not sought or erased.
Spruill has also served as a subject-matter expert for NPR, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets.
She has devoted the past five years to writing and revising COURT QUEENS: A History of the WNBA & the Power of Persevering Women (ABRAMS Books, release date forthcoming). Spruill's aim with this book has been composing an inclusive work that thrusts previously-suppressed narratives to the forefront, giving voice to women whose stories were either not sought or erased.
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ACTIVIST created the Change.org/FreeBG petition that tallied 405,830 signatures, received an official response from the Biden-Harris Administration, and secured the release of Brittney Griner from wrongful detention in Russia AUTHOR COURT QUEENS: A History of the WNBA & the Power of Persevering Women (ABRAMS Books, release date forthcoming) PIONEER first woman (thus, the first Black woman and the first queer woman) to lead Swish Appeal, a women’s basketball site, as its editor-in-chief JOURNALIST bylines include Harper’s BAZAAR, The Red Bulletin, The New York Times, SLAM, ZORA, Teen Vogue, The Athletic, Deadspin, Swish Appeal, and Newsweek REFORMER launched a collective action lawsuit against Vox Media, and won; continually speaks against discriminatory hiring which produces a status quo of biased reporting |
Spruill started the Change.org/FreeBG petition leading to the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from wrongful imprisonment in Russia. For years she researched and wrote about the implications of the league's athletes playing in other countries during the offseason. Editors during the time that Spruill began her career were disinterested in WNBA-centered stories let alone those exploring geopolitical contexts. It seemed at times, according to Spruill, that editors passed on some story pitches because accepting them would reveal their ignorance on those topics. Spruill acquired some of her knowledge on Russian politics as an editor in the early 2000s for English-language publications in Belarus including the magazine Belarus & Business and newspaper The Minsk Times.
But the sports-viewing population in the United States, thus, remained ignorant of these issues until Griner's detainment in Russia in 2022 thrust them into the international spotlight. Spruill attended State Department meetings by invitation and followed guidelines offered by the department's experts in future public statements and writings on Griner's case, including updates to the petition and op-eds for Newsweek. When Griner was freed from imprisonment in Russia and returned to the United States in December of that year, public statements of acknowledgment and thanks by everyone from Griner herself and others in her camp to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris never once mentioned Spruill or Change.org. And the Women's National Basketball Players' Association (WNBPA or "players' union") and its members publicly accepted credit for leading a movement they neither launched nor joined quickly. For Spruill, the WNBPA's two-month silence on Griner -- just two years removed from leading the nation on social justice initiatives in 2020, which included a call to #SAYHERNAME -- was an unfortunate, if not dystopian, irony. Spruill devoted her career toward amplifying and advocating for the WNBA, beginning during a time when the league was harshly suppressed and mentioned only as the butt of crass jokes. She viewed mainstream media's treatment of the league as an injustice that must be rectified; media decision-makers, especially in sports, were mostly white and male and the WNBA was made up primarily of Black women. Yet the athletes who challenged America to say the names of dead Black women killed by police, such as Breonna Taylor, were now wielding the Master's tool of erasure against another Black woman. |
Spruill was already dealing with the traumatic aftermath of writing almost exclusively about police violence against Black bodies after the high-profile killing of George Floyd. The pain of being erased, thus, was heightened, Spruill says, who also lived in fear of Griner suffering a fate similar to Otto Warmbier's tragic demise, while also providing in-home hospice care to a loved one, and writing chapters for COURT QUEENS.
The inner turmoil of these colliding flooded from Spruill's fingertips, she says, fast, furious, and sometimes fully-formed.
High-Profile American: Elegy for the Erased is Spruill's memoir, in poems and essays chronicling behind-the-scenes events of Griner's ordeal and related personal hardships. Spruill explores her Blackness and womanhood within broader social themes of money and power, individual vs. collective, social hierarchies, and capitalism's corrupting force on value systems. Spruill also examines the way the aforementioned society-based themes produce skewed cultural narratives and a falsehood-laden historical record. High-Profile American remains under consideration with a major press as of August 2024. Spruill is also fielding other offers through JL Stermer, her literary agent, at Next Level Lit.
As COURT QUEENS nears the end of the revising stage, Spruill seeks opportunities to once again share her knowledge in college classrooms or workshops.
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In addition to impressive professional experience, Spruill has brought her excitement for the written word to college classrooms, teaching English, literature, and creative writing to undergraduates who are prompted to explore, for example, the ways in which identity, gender, and nationality influence an author's creative work, or the placement of an author's work into historical contexts. Online asynchronous courses work best for Spruill until after the release of COURT QUEENS.
She is also happy to accept on-campus positions located in or near the South Shore of Massachusetts, where she cherishes every moment with her beautiful family: Dani, the love of her life, an ornery elder kitty, and a magical Pisces boy. |
Spruill holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Journalism.
In her personal life, Spruill spends her time painting the pages of gorgeous notebooks in illegible black-ink scribblings or silly (and sometimes grotesque) sketches. Her favorite journal--soft leather, its pages pulp-textured--is divided into five sections, each the length of an individual poetry collection or novella. Spruill has filled two-thirds of the journal with two complete collections of poems and will not stop writing until it is filled with two more poetry collections and a novella!
When she is not splattering ink on paper, Spruill seizes every opportunity to lose herself in sound, playing her may instruments: guitars (acoustic and electric), bass, keyboard, upright piano, harmonium, ukulele. And singing--always be-bopping melodies and capturing them in her iPhone's Voice Memos for future use. She has two EPs in the making and will blast them into cyberspace in due time.
In her personal life, Spruill spends her time painting the pages of gorgeous notebooks in illegible black-ink scribblings or silly (and sometimes grotesque) sketches. Her favorite journal--soft leather, its pages pulp-textured--is divided into five sections, each the length of an individual poetry collection or novella. Spruill has filled two-thirds of the journal with two complete collections of poems and will not stop writing until it is filled with two more poetry collections and a novella!
When she is not splattering ink on paper, Spruill seizes every opportunity to lose herself in sound, playing her may instruments: guitars (acoustic and electric), bass, keyboard, upright piano, harmonium, ukulele. And singing--always be-bopping melodies and capturing them in her iPhone's Voice Memos for future use. She has two EPs in the making and will blast them into cyberspace in due time.
Short Bio
Author, educator, freelance journalist Tamryn Spruill has made it her life's work to amplify marginalized societies, fostered cultural understanding, and pioneered change. COURT QUEENS: A History of the WNBA & the Power of Persevering Women (ABRAMS Books, release date forthcoming) is a first-of-its-kind book on the history of the WNBA. She is represented by JL Stermer at Next Level Lit.
She is the winner of the LA Press Club's 2020 Southern California Journalism Award for Best Sports Commentary, Print/Online for "Critical Assist". Her writing also appears in Harper’s BAZAAR, The New York Times, SLAM, ZORA, Teen Vogue, The Athletic, Swish Appeal, and other publications.
Spruill is an artist, musician, and poet at heart.
She is the winner of the LA Press Club's 2020 Southern California Journalism Award for Best Sports Commentary, Print/Online for "Critical Assist". Her writing also appears in Harper’s BAZAAR, The New York Times, SLAM, ZORA, Teen Vogue, The Athletic, Swish Appeal, and other publications.
Spruill is an artist, musician, and poet at heart.