You won’t want to miss this great lineup on May 16th:
Ethan Gilsdorf is a nerd who writes a lot. He wrote the travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, which was named a Must-Read Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards. His work has also been cited in the anthology Best American Essays 2016. His articles, commentaries, essays and film and book reviews, and poems have appeared in the New York Times, New York Times Book Review, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Esquire, National Geographic, and Boston Globe. Gilsdorf is the cofounder of GrubStreet’s Young Adult Writers Program (YAWP) and serves on GrubStreet’s board. Read more at ethangilsdorf.com.
E. Dolores Johnson’s writing on race has appeared or is forthcoming in the Buffalo News, the Writers of Color Anthology, Narratively and Lunch Ticket. Her multigenerational memoir in progress about mixed race life takes the reader on the journey of the browning of America and changing attitudes about race-mixing. She is looking for a publisher. Johnson completed the Memoir Incubator program at Grub Street and studied creative writing at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation. She has been awarded residencies at Djerassi, Blue Mountain Center, Ragdale, and the VCCA. She has consulted on diversity for think tanks, universities, major corporations and nonprofits. Johnson holds a Harvard MBA and a Howard University BA. Follow her on twitter@ elladolo and FB at Dolores Johnson.
Timothy Patrick McCarthy (@DrTPM) is an award-winning scholar, educator, and activist who teaches at Harvard University, where he is Core Faculty and Director of Culture Change and Social Justice Initiatives at the Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He is author or editor of five books from the New Press, including Stonewall’s Children: Living Queer History in the Age of Liberation, Loss, and Love, forthcoming in 2019. He is the host and director of the “A.R.T. of Human Rights” series. Find him at https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/timothy-patrick-mccarthy
Robert Pinsky is a poet, essayist, translator, teacher, and speaker. His first two terms as United States Poet Laureate were marked by such visible dynamism—and such national enthusiasm in response—that the Library of Congress appointed him to an unprecedented third term. Throughout his career, Pinsky has been dedicated to identifying and invigorating poetry’s place in the world. Known worldwide, Pinsky’s work has earned him the PEN/Voelcker Award, the William Carlos Williams Prize, the Lenore Marshall Prize, Italy’s Premio Capri, the Korean Manhae Award, and the Harold Washington Award from the City of Chicago, among other accolades.
Stan Strickland is a vocalist, saxophonist, and flutist. He is the leader of the Stan Strickland & Ascension and the Stan Strickland Trio, and has performed with the Boston Pops, Take Six, Herbie Mann, Marlena Shaw, Pharaoh Sanders, Danilo Perez, and Yusef Lateef. He is a professor at the Berklee College of Music.
Shuchi Saraswat‘s photographs and prose have appeared or are forthcoming in Ecotone, Tin House online, Women’s Review of Books, and Quick Fiction. Her essay “The Journey Home” received a special mention in Pushcart XLII 2018 and will be anthologized in Trespass: Ecotone Essayists Beyond the Boundaries of Place, Identity, and Feminism, published by Lookout Books in Fall 2018. Excerpts of her novel have won her the Gulliver Travel Research Grant from The Speculative Literature Foundation and fellowships and scholarships to Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Writers Omi at Ledig House, The Writers’ Room of Boston, Tin House Summer Writers’ Workshop and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is Curator of The Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith, an independent bookstore in Boston, and is the Advocacy Coordinator at GrubStreet.
True Colors: Out Youth Theater is a program of The Theater Offensive and the country’s largest and longest-running LGBTQ youth theater program, using a community-based theater approach to train and activate LGBTQ and allied youth leaders ages 14-29. True Colors’ youth write and produce their plays with guidance from experienced teaching artists and activists.
Artistic Noise exists to bring the freedom and power of artistic practice to young people who are incarcerated, on probation, or otherwise involved in the justice system. Through visual arts and entrepreneurship programs in Massachusetts and New York, our participants give voice to their experiences, build community through collaborative projects, and learn valuable life and job skills. Artistic Noise creates safe spaces where court-involved youth can be seen, heard and supported on their path to adulthood. We believe the practice of making art offers opportunities for young people and communities to transform.
Resistance Mic! 