Essential Truths

You can also enjoy the event livestream directly on OACC’s YouTube channel!

[THIS IS A VIRTUAL EVENT HOSTED ON ZOOM; NO IN-PERSON GATHERING AVAILABLE.]

Join the East Bay launch of Write Now SF Bay’s newest anthology!

This fourth anthology features 130 BIPOC writers and artists responding our times with prose, poetry, and visual art reflecting today’s Bay Area realities. The pandemic and other events have tested every fiber of our being and shaken relationships with family, community, the nation, and the earth itself. As our basic assumptions about life were upended again and again, what essential truths emerged?

• This event is presented in partnership by the Oakland Asian Cultural Center and Write Now! SF Bay. It is FREE and donations are greatly appreciated to support our programs. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
  

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  Key Presenters

  Invocation by: Rafael Jesús González, Poet Laureate of Berkeley

  Readings and presentations by (listed alphabetically):

  • Adrian Arias, Peruvian visual artist, poet, and performance artist
  • Avotcja, poet, musician, DJ at KPOO and KPFA radio (https://avotcja.org)
  • Clara Hsu, Chinese American poet, director of Clarion Performing Arts Center (https://clarionmusic.com)
  • danny ryu, Asian American healer and poet, exploring themes of interconnectedness, memory, grief, (dis)integration, liminality, and queer trans/bipoc creativity challenging injustice
  • Darzelle Oliveros, Filipinx poet, student at City College of San Francisco
  • Dianne Leo-Omine, Chinese American writer and culinary and pastry arts consultant (https://sweetleoomine.com)
  • Elmaz Abinader, Lebanese American writer and poet, co-founder of VONA/Voices and English professor at Mills College (www.elmazabinader.com)
  • Kelechi Ubozoh, Nigerian American mental health and anti-Black racism writer, editor, speaker and consultant (https://kelechiubozoh.com)
  • Karen Seneferu, African American artist and curator, founder of The Black Woman Is God project (SOMArts virtual exhibit: https://somarts.org/tbwigvirtual2020/)
  • Sandra Bass, essayist, UC Berkeley Associate Dean and Director of the Public Service Center
  • Shirley Huey, Chinese American poet, writer, and zine editor (https://lunchboxmoments.com/About)
  • Shizue Seigel, Japanese American writer, artist, editor of Essential Truths  (https://www.shizueseigel.com)
  • Sridevi Ramanathan, Indian American writer and scholar in women’s spirituality
  • Susana Praver-Pérez, poet, Assistant Medical Director, Clinica de la Raza, Oakland (https://www.nomadicpress.org/store/hurricanesloveaffairsandotherdisasters)
  • Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia) is a formerly unhoused, incarcerated poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher, single mama and the co-founder of Poor Magazine (http://www.poormagazine.org)
  • Tony Aldorondo, Puerto Rican American poet/performer draws from his Puerto Rican heritage, Shakespearean training and well-traveled humanity.
  • Tureeda Mikell, poet, storyteller, energy therapist. poet in the schools (https://www.nomadicpress.org/store/synchronicity)
  • Wanda Sabir, journalist and educator, Wanda’s Picks radio show (https://wandaspicks.com) and College of Alameda