Summer Dispatches

Well, September is only a few days away and we’re in the swing of Virgo season! So as a triple earth sign with my moon and sun in Virgo, it makes complete sense that I’m now back on this blog. After a busy Pride month in June full of readings and celebrations, I took July and August off in order to reground and narrow my focus on my health and personal well-being. I also felt conflicted about posting here and promoting myself amidst all the current events in our world, from Black Lives Matters movement uprisings, to Lebanese people rebuilding their lives after the August 5th explosion, to losing beloved actors who represented characters that were life changing and groundbreaking. But, it’s also really important to find the bright spots amongst our current darkness in order to be

But I have really great news to share!

• The manuscript I’ve been submitting to presses for publication has finally found a home! I’m so happy to announce that my first poetry book, Scattered Arils, will be published by Milk and Cake Press in May 2021! It was important for me to find a press that aligned with the message of the manuscript and I’m really excited to work with the folks at Milk and Cake Press. You can check out their other poetry titles here.

• Colossus: Home debuted on August 25th! Over 40 Bay Area poets and writers came together to contribute to this anthology, where 100% of the proceeds go to Moms4Housing. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz calls it a "…poetic tribute to the courageous Oakland Moms, who challenged power and housed their families in a vacant home, exudes passion for social justice and direct action in the birthplace of the Black Panther Party…” I’m honestly really proud to be a part of this collection and there will be virtual readings a plenty to showcase our words and raise funds for Moms4Housing. Join us at Poem Jam hosted by San Francisco Poet Laureate, Kim Shuck, on September 10th, from 6:00pm-7:30pm!

• Speaking of the San Francisco Public Library, this past week my poem trials, was published for 08/28/20’s Poem of the Day feature. The series began mid-May in response to the Shelter in Place orders and is curated by Kim Shuck. There is such a wealth of talent here in the Bay Area when it comes to poets and poetry; it’s really magnificent to witness. I wrote my poem trials in April for the 30 poems in 30 days challenge for #NationalPoetryMonth. The poem responds to the last four lines of sam sax’s poem On PrEP or on Prayer [“when i say pre-exposure prophylaxis”] where the Speaker asks “you know each new medicine trails / our dead behind it like wedding cans / listen / you can hear them now can’t you?”

• Did you know that I run the RADAR Productions blog? Each month we feature a QTPOC literary artist, be it poetry, short stories, fiction, or nonfiction writers! We recently shone our GLOW spotlight on Sister Spit alumni, Celeste Chan! Celeste is an amazing multidisciplinary artist who ran some of the very first writing workshops I participated in that were specifically for QTPOC. Last year, I produced a lot of the poems that form the skeleton of Scattered Arils in her Writing Rainbow workshops, that were led by writers such as Nancy Au and Meliza Bañales. YAY queer community!

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