Lawson felt isolated in the small town where golf courses outnumbered people who looked like her. After receiving my bachelor's degree in December 2019, from Appalachian State University, I began scrolling through LinkedIn job listings. ArtistYear is a yearlong program in which recent grads in the arts go to low-income schools and teach their practice. There was a six-month gap between getting the offer and moving to start my job, so I moved back to Charlotte temporarily. I had spent a year at Appalachian State University in Boone, another small North Carolina town, so I thought I was prepared.

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