The Get Lit festival!
During this reading and discussion, five award-winning women writers will share poetry and prose, and discuss writing against patriarchal expectations—both overtly and implicitly—within their work and in their writing lives. From persona poems in the voice of the Russian fairytale witch Baba Yaga commenting on contemporary America, to centering the Latina experience in tales of settler colonialism, to autobiographical poems that recount and confront sexism in the workplace, to personal essays about a mother fighting to wring out the “toxic” from her son’s masculinity, these writers subvert the narrative to form a more powerful female identity.
Featuring:
Kristen Millares Young
Kristen Millares Young is the author of the novel Subduction, a Paris Review staff pick called “whip-smart” by the Washington Post, a “brilliant debut” by the Seattle Times and “utterly unique and important” by Ms. Magazine. Subduction is a finalist for two International Latino Book Awards for best novel and best first novel. From 2018 to 2020, Kristen served as Prose Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House. Her prize-winning investigations, essays and reviews appear in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, the Guardian, and elsewhere, as well as the anthologies Latina Outsiders: Remaking Latina Identity, Pie & Whiskey, a New York Times New & Noteworthy Book, and Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19. She was the researcher for the New York Times team that produced “Snow Fall,” which won a Pulitzer Prize. From 2016 to 2019, she was board chair of InvestigateWest, a nonprofit newsroom she co-founded to protect vulnerable peoples and places of the Pacific Northwest.
Brooke Matson
I am a poet, writer, book designer, and educator in Spokane, Washington, where I am the founding executive director of Spark Central, a non-profit dedicated to igniting creativity, innovation, and imagination. I am a National Board Certified Teacher and the sole proprietor of Matson Creative, a boutique book design service focused on creating innovative books and brands.
Sonora Jha
Sonora Jha was born in India, where she had a successful career as a journalist in Mumbai and Bangalore before moving to Singapore and then the United States to earn a Ph.D. in Political Communication. She is now a professor of journalism at Seattle University. She is the writer of an essay collection, How to Raise a Feminist Son, and a novel, Foreign. She is the 2016-18 Writer in Residence at the Richard Hugo House and is an alumna and Board President for Hedgebrook Writers’ Retreat.
& More!
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