Chapbooks are often seen as a stepping stone to a first book, but previously this has been a form for historically marginalized communities, non-traditional poetics, and other kinds of cultural outliers. From the Black Arts Movement to the ‘90s slam scene, the chapbook lives as a form in its own right. These five writers of color discuss the chapbook's freedom to create physical artifacts that are not beholden to the dominant publishing industry's math, genre borders, or censorship.
Panelists: Aliah Lavonne Tigh (Moderator), Nandi Comer, Summer Farah, Stalina Villarreal, and Priscilla Wathington.
Seattle Convention Center location: Rooms 335-336, Summit Building, Seattle Convention Center, Level 3
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About the Panelists:
Nandi Comer is the author of American Family: A Syndrome (Finishing Line Press) and Tapping Out (Triquarterly), which was awarded the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award. She is a Cave Canem Fellow, a Callaloo Fellow, and a 2019 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow.
Summer Farah is a poet, editor, and critic who currently acts as the outreach coordinator for the Radius of Arab American Writers. Her work has been published in The Rumpus, LitHub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She has a chapbook forthcoming from Game Over Books in late 2023.
Aliah Lavonne Tigh(Moderator) is the author of Weren’t We Natural Swimmers, a 2022 Chapbook with Tram Editions, with poems appearing in the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day, Guernica, The Rupture, and others. Tigh writes and works in Houston, Texas.
Dr. Stalina Emmanuelle Villarreal is a poet, translator, and essayist whose book Watcha is forthcoming from Deep Vellum Publishing. She has published translations of poetry by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Minerva Reynosa, Maricela Guerrero, and Sergio Pérez Torres.
Priscilla Wathington is a Palestinian American writer & editor. Her chapbook, PAPER AND STICK (Tram Editions / 2021), draws from her humanitarian & human rights work. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Michigan Quarterly Review, Salamander & elsewhere. She is an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson.