Tag: Underrepresented Voices

WeHo Reads: Explorations Beyond Borders

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WeHo Reads: Explorations Beyond Borders
 
 

Time: May 4 @ 6:00 pm – May 4 @ 7:30 pm

 

The road to joy takes us across boundaries with Lisbeth Coiman, Myriam J. A. Chancy, Teresa Mei Chuc, and Sehba Sarwar.Even before the pandemic, writers and artists worked across borders to share their lives, passions, and sorrows. This event brings together poets and authors with an international perspective on joy, justice, resilience, and healing. Sehba Sarwar, author of Black Wings (Veliz Books 2019), is a transnational writer, workshop leader, artist, and community activist tackling gender, displacement, and border issues. Teresa Mei Chuc is a poet, editor, and teacher whose heritage, history, and writing transcend decolonization. She served as 2018-2020 Altadena Poet Laureate and is the author of Invisible Light (Many Voices Press 2018) and Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing 2014). Lisbeth Coiman is a bilingual writer, educator, cultural commentator, and rezandera from Venezuela whose collection Uprising / Alzamiento was released in 2021 (Finishing Line Press). Myriam J. A. Chancy is a Haitian-Canadian/American writer born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and subsequently raised there and in Canada and whose novel What Storm, What Thunder was released in 2021 in Canada (HarperCollins Canada) and the United States (Tin House).WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. More information Read More ...

 


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WeHo Reads: Trans | Future | Poetics

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WeHo Reads: Trans | Future | Poetics
 
 

Time: April 6 @ 6:00 pm – April 6 @ 7:30 pm

 

Our journey ascends to where poetry meets science fiction meets activism“Poetry is a weapon loaded with future” — Gabriel CelayaFor National Poetry Month, this event will bring together two established and two emerging trans poets in a reading and dialogue about the future and the intersections of science fiction and poetry, activism and language. Curated and hosted by West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace, readers include Ryka Aoki, LA-based poet and author of the new sci-fi novel Light from Uncommon Stars, Harry Josephine Giles, Scottish poet and author of Deep Wheel Orcadia, in conversation with young poets and organizers Simba the Poet (Nashville) and Ava Dadvand (from Los Angeles, currently writing and studying at Yale).WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. More information and events at www.weho.org/wehoreads. BookSwell, a literary events and media company dedicated to lifting up writers from historically excluded communities, is producing the WeHo Reads 2022 season with additional support from Beyond Baroque, Bookshop.org, Book Soup, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

 


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WeHo Reads: How We Gather | A Celebration of Women Who Submit’s New Anthology Gathering

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WeHo Reads: How We Gather | A Celebration of Women Who Submit
 
 

Time: March 16 @ 6:00 pm – March 16 @ 7:30 pm

 

We celebrate Women Who Submit’s new anthology GATHERING with editors and contributors.In response to Safer at Home in March 2020, Women Who Submit (WWS) began weekly, virtual Saturday check-ins where members shared space for creativity and self-care. Over the months members wrote together, cried together, and danced together. While WWS exists to empower its members’ efforts to share their writing with the world, this time brought in new needs beyond staying accountable and productive. And from this shared space came the theme for their 2nd anthology, Gathering, recently published by Jamii Press, which captures the essence of this collaborative online space from the creation of the editorial team to the stories, poems, essays, and plays published in its pages. This event will feature a performance of “Ahoy, Women Who Submit,” a collaborative poem created during Saturday check-ins and published in Gathering; a collaborative writing prompt facilitated by Hazel Kight Witham; as well as a panel talk with the Gathering editorial team and contributors to the anthology. Joining the event will be Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera, Noriko Nakada, Flint, and more. A moment of healing at the start of the event will be led by Thea Pueschel.WeHo Reads is a Read More ...

 


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Continue the Road to Joy with WeHo Reads: Justice and Resilience: A Journey in Poetry

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WeHo Reads: Justice and Resilience | A Journey in Poetry
 
 

Time: February 16 @ 6:00 pm – February 16 @ 7:30 pm

 

We look to the past with poets Lynne Thompson, Natalie J. Graham, and Lester Graves Lennon and writing prompts from Camari Carter Hawkins. Our journey toward justice and resilience continues during African American History Month. Los Angeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson will lead a conversation with Orange County’s first Poet Laureate, Natalie J. Graham, alongside poet Lester Graves Lennon. This discussion and literary reading will focus on incorporating history into poetry and the struggle for justice and peace. Camari Carter Hawkins will also lead the audience through guided journaling prompts. WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. More information and events at www.weho.org/wehoreads. BookSwell, a literary events and media company dedicated to lifting up writers from historically excluded communities, is producing the WeHo Reads 2022 season. Additional support is provided by UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and Poets & Writers as well as media partnerships with Bookshop.org, Book Soup, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

 


BookSwell is producing the WeHo Reads 2022 literary season!

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Great news! BookSwell has been selected by the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division to produce the 2022 WeHo Reads season. BookSwell founder and managing editor Cody Sisco proposed a series of eight online events on the theme of creating joy in the midst of sorrow that will take the audience on a memorable journey throughout 2022.

Literary communities have continued to struggle through difficult times and yet many writers are not only confronting sources of pain and injustice but also creating paths toward healing, lightness, and joy. We aim to recognize the contribution of writers and lift up their voices.

Stay tuned for more info!

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If you missed our events in 2020 and 2021, catch up on our YouTube channel or check out the highlights below:

  • WeHo Reads: Explorations Beyond Borders

  • WeHo Reads: Trans | Future | Poetics

  • Meet Prominent Members of Women Who Submit

    Cody Sisco first heard about Women Who Submit from Sakae Manning, a brilliant writer and friend who he met through the Los Angeles Writers Critique Group. When he started BookSwell, he asked Sakae to join the advisory group to guide our efforts to lift up the voices of marginalized writers. That led to organizing our first event at Lambda Literary LitFest 2019 “Intentional Intersectionality: Amplifying Queer Voices of Color,” which included a discussion about advocacy and community featuring Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, a co-founder of Women Who Submit. When Cody was developing the proposal for the Road to Joy for the City of West Hollywood Arts Department, he met Xochitl over drinks at Frogtown Brewery to brainstorm the event–the first time they had met in person since the AWP Conference in March 2020 before the full brunt of the coronavirus pandemic hit and when WWS launched their first anthology, ACCOLADES. Now it’s time to celebrate their second anthology, GATHERING. Women Who Submit seeks to empower women and nonbinary writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, supporting and encouraging submissions to literary journals, and clarifying the submission and publication process. Meet some of the influential members who will be participating in Read More …

  • Spectrum 1 News SoCal Covers WeHo Reads Event with Women Who Submit

    Amy Paffrath from Spectrum 1 News SoCal spoke with Women Who Submit member and author Thea Pueschel about navigating creativity and healing during times of sorrow and the WeHo Reads event on March 16. Check it out!

  • WeHo Reads: How We Gather | A Celebration of Women Who Submit’s New Anthology Gathering

  • Continue the Road to Joy with WeHo Reads: Justice and Resilience: A Journey in Poetry

  • The Road to Joy starts with WeHo Reads: Songs and Signs of Hope and Healing

    Contributors Shonda Buchanan A Pushcart Prize nominee, a USC Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities Fellow and a Department of Cultural Affairs City of Los Angeles (COLA) Master Artist Fellow, Shonda Buchanan is the author of five books, including the award-winning memoir, Black Indian. An award-winning poet, fiction, nonfiction writer and educator, Shonda has been a journalist for 25+ years, publishing in the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, AWP’s The Writer’s Chronicle, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Indian Country Today, and The International Review of African American Art. VP of Beyond Baroque Literary Art Center’s Board of Trustees, Shonda is also a Sundance Institute Writing Arts fellow, a PEN Center Emerging Voices fellow and a Jentel Artist Residency fellow. Finalist for the 2021 Mississippi Review poetry contest, Shonda’s memoir, Black Indian, won the 2020 Indie New Generation Book Award and was chosen by PBS NewsHour as a “top 20 books to read” to learn about institutional racism. Her memoir begins the saga of her family’s migration stories of Free People of Color communities exploring identity, ethnicity, landscape and loss. Her first collection of poetry, Who’s Afraid of Black Indians? was nominated for the Black Caucus of the American Library Association Read More …

  • RISING UP: Poets Take A Stand

    This reading featured four poets from different backgrounds who are concerned with issues of social justice. Lisbeth Coiman, Deborah J. Hunter, Teresa Mei Chuc, and Leonora Simonovis will share their poems of resistance to stand up to racism, dictators, and the machinery of war itself. This online event, produced by Lisbeth Coiman in collaboration with Bookswell, was free to attend via Zoom and YouTube. All proceeds from pay-what-you-will ticketed donations went to Stop AAPI Hate.