IN-PERSON: Reading in Ardmore
Char & Stave reading in Ardmore series run by Chris DeMento
More information to come.
Photo by Tammy Chan on Unsplash
IN-PERSON: National Book Awards
I’ll be joining Heid Erdrich, Rick Barot, Jonathan Farmer, and Solmaz Sharif as one of the judges for the National Book Awards in Poetry. Our work will be complete and we will just be celebrating the amazing work that we had the honor of reading this year! My mother, Dr. Norma D. Thomas, will be accompanying me!
IN-PERSON: Swarthmore College
Guest class visit in the class of Professor of Moriel Rothman-Zecher
VIRTUAL: Class visit at San Francisco University High School
From the Teacher
"Encounters": Our class does not exist in a bubble. Therefore, the purpose of starting each class with an Encounter is to tie together the past, present, and future to provide a most holistic look at Latinidad. Encounters will come in a range of forms and genres including but not limited to songs, quotes, podcast episodes, comicbooks, paintings, music videos, interviews, children’s books, TikToks, TV show clips, poems, musical numbers, and more.
Monday, November 6th [1:45PM - 3:00PM PST]
Tuesday, November 7th [8:50AM - 10:05AM PST]
-Encounter with a published Acentos piece / journaling on it (10 minutes)
-Talk on the History of The Acentos Review and all its iterations over time (20 minutes)
-Time for the students to explore the website and talk about what they find (10 minutes)
-Service Activity with The Acentos Review (30 minutes)
-Close things out (5 minutes)
IN-PERSON: Residency with the Rami e Radici Artist Group
Esperimento Sul Respiro (Breath Experiment), a self-governing residency with sites in Lucca and Como, will launch with its first residency, hosting 4 members of the Rami e Radici Artist Collective of Italian people of color during the Lucca Comics festival.
IN-PERSON: New York University
¿Y dónde está mi gente?: An Evening with Three Afro-Latina Poets
Tues. Oct. 17 th , 6-7:30 pm
20 Cooper Square
Co-sponsored by the Dept of Art & Public Policy, Tisch School of the Arts and The Latinx
Project at NYU with support from Some Contemporary Poetries, NYU English Dept and
Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts
6:10 pm:
Welcome: T. Urayoan Noel, The NYU Latinx Project – 5 min.
Introductions: Solena Ornelas, Masters student, Dept of Art & Public Policy – 7 min.
Poets: Jasminne Mendez, Yesenia Montilla, Raina Leon: 15 min. each (order to be specified
after conferring with poets)
Dialogue moderator: Pato Hebert 15- 20 min. including questions from the floor
Followed by book signing and reception.
https://tisch.nyu.edu/art-public-policy/events/-y-donde-esta-mi-gente---an-evening-with-three-afro-latina-poets
IN-PERSON: Bloom Writers, Brooklyn NY
With Jasminne Mendez and Yesenia Montilla, we are on the road again with the Tres Leches/Tres Golpes tour, this time offering a collective reading and writing prompts in the Bloom Writers community. 12:30-4pm EST.
Macalester College Latinx Heritage Month
Latinx Heritage Month Final Showcase that is scheduled for Friday, October 13th from 5 - 8pm in Kagin Ballroom Second Floor.
Final Schedule
5-5:25 Twin Cities Latin Band
5:30-5:40 LSU Co-Chairs Opening Remarks
5:40-6 Alicia Severiano Folklorio Performance (Student Performance)
6:05-6:25 Dr. Gonzalo Guzman Speech (Macalester Professor Speaker)
6:25-6:35 INTERMISSION
6:40-7:00 Grupo de Danzas Colombianas
7:05-7:25 Edwin Torres, Vice President of Public Affairs at NewPublica
7:30-8 Raina Leon, Professor and Poet
*The 5 minute spaces are for set up and set down and/or MCS introduction for next performer*
Residency at The Betsy in partnership with SWWIM
Supporting Women Writers in Miami (SWWIM) invited me to be a part of The Writers Room residency at The Betsy Hotel in Miami, offering a Meet the Artist program and then a reading with local writer, Susannah W. Simpson on October 4
IN-PERSON: Texas A&M
Creative Writing Workshops and dynamic reading at Texas A&M College Station
IN-PERSON:Texas A&M
Landscapes of Belonging reading and workshop at Texas A&M on September 21 as part of a poetry festival, More information forthcoming.
Photo by Jake Carter on Unsplash
TEACHING: It's Elementary
(Play and Writing the Self)
Back to Elementary
The most incredibly brilliant divergent thinkers are not in boardrooms; they are in daycare, preschool, and lower elementary grades. The rigors of schooling, researchers say, may free our minds in some ways while caging our imaginations. It's time to go back to your elementary freedom. In this workshop, we rediscover the generative magic of play through card games and physical activities (that can be adapted for accessibility). Together we summon the wonder and innocence of childhood in order to see ourselves and our world as new. We push aside the apologies that barb themselves within our throats. We boldly face our shadow creature fears and find an invincibility even in the darkest memory. We will draw our imagined heroes and those we love. We will study the work of writers of color and queer writers have the dexterity to step back through time to reshape the world. Ultimately, we will all come away with the foundations for transformational work by going back to elementary.
Times in EST. Online Session
With the Blue Stoop
Photo by Tammy Chan on Unsplash
TEACHING Entry to the Literary World
Teaching, Entry to the Literary World, at Blue Stoop Philadelphia
Do you love your poetry? For all poets of all experience levels introducing their work to a wider audience. Review essential elements and strategies to build an effective press kit, such as a bio, artist statement, and project proposal.
Mondays from 6-8PM EST
July 31-August 21
TEACHING: Stonecoast MFA
Workshop on worldbuilding. More information forthcoming.
Photo by Keith Luke on Unsplash
Book release for Remedies for Disappearing
Reading in celebration of the book release of Remedies for Disappearing by Alexa Patrick with Haymarket Books.
Times are EST.
Photo by Katrin Hauf on Unsplash
IN-PERSON: BOOK TOUR. World Above Featured Reading
Raina León will be a featured poet at the World Above Poetry Series, the monthly open mic and featured reading series at Stockton University's Noyes Art Garage in Atlantic City, NJ.
VIRTUAL: BOOK CLUB
Dr. Raina J. León and Dr. Norma D. Thomas talk about black god mother this body as part of the Black Freighter Press Book Club
Guest Spot on Black Writers Read Podcast
Guest spot on Black Writers Read with host, Nicole M. Young-Martin. You can listen to the podcast HERE
VIRTUAL. AWP, Seattle
9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. PST
Rooms 347-348, Summit Building, Seattle Convention Center, Level 3
F118.
Dismissing the Boundaries of Latinx Poetry
(Kenning JP García, Daphne Maysonet, Raina J. León, Darrel Alejandro Holnes, Victorio Reyes Asili)
The poets in this panel refuse to allow for a singular definition for Latinx poetry. Rather, these artists and antiartists see the domain of Latinx poetry as fluid, constantly open for re-definition. Such broadening of our understanding helps to demand space for the expanding dimensions of Latinx heritage, beyond borders and inclusive of Afro, Trans, queer, and feminist Latinx identities. Such boundary shattering poetry is manifested on the page in a wide range of styles, forms, and techniques.
Photo by Zhifei Zhou on Unsplash
IN-PERSON: Tres Golpes Reading and Book Signing
Jasminne Mendez, Yesenia Montilla, and Raina J. León read together on the Tres Golpes Texas Tour at Kindred Stories Bookstore at 2304 Stuart St. Houston, TX
IN-PERSON: Book Tour. The Long Devotion Reading at Basket Books in Houston, TX
Reading at Basket Books in Houston with Jasminne Mendez, Yesenia Montilla, and Emily Perez to promote, The Long Devotion, which explores poetry on mothering. More information to come.
IN-PERSON: Tres Golpes Texas Tour, Torch Wildfire reading in Austin TX
Jasminne Mendez, Yesenia Montilla, and Raina J. León read together on the Tres Golpes Texas Tour at Black Pearl Books, the only Black-owned bookstore in Austin, for Torch Literary Arts Wildfire series, 7112 Burnet Road, Austin, TX 78757
IN-PERSON: BOOK TOUR. World Cafe Live, Philadelphia PA (EST)
World Café Live and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts will come together to collaboratively present a cross medium discussion about America’s history and identity through 4 musical performances. As the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts presents its Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776–1976 exhibition (October 6, 2022 – April 2, 2023) highlighting some of the most acclaimed works of American art including new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color. World Café Live will commission 5 musicians and 3 poets reflective of those populations to come together to develop several evenings worth of performances that illuminate what constitutes American History and identity.
VIRTUAL: Merrimack College. Black feminism and mothering in and out of the academy
In this event, I’ll be joining a long tradition of Unity Days at Merrimack College while talking about Black feminist mothering in and out of the academy. This is a new talk for me that centers the knowledge, world shaping, and medicine that comes from the dream. In the talk, I also invoke the presence of my matrilineal ancestors and ask questions for us all to consider, such as when have you facilitated the rest of Black women? When a Black woman rests enough to dream, all the world trembles with a radical possibility!
10 am EST
IN-PERSON: BOOK TOUR. PA Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia PA
World Café Live and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts will come together to collaboratively present a cross medium discussion about America’s history and identity through 4 musical performances. As the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts presents its Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776–1976 exhibition (October 6, 2022 – April 2, 2023) highlighting some of the most acclaimed works of American art including new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color. World Café Live will commission 5 musicians and 3 poets reflective of those populations to come together to develop several evenings worth of performances that illuminate what constitutes American History and identity.
VIRTUAL: Hosting Two Rivers Reading Series
Two Rivers Reading Series celebrates Philadelphia, the arts, and activism! Our city of love is rooted in revolution and transformation, founded at the nexus of waters! This series celebrates that, inviting writers, artists, and other creatives to share 3 minutes of new, daring, risky work. The circle is opened and closed in music, each month from a different musician, and each night also includes significant time devoted to learning about change-making work done in community by an organizer from Philly. It is a night of vulnerability and connection innovation. Though it spotlights Philly doing what we do, all are welcome to hear and connect and dream together.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86533628611?pwd=aU5oRnJjbkVuVXVTZytNSUsySmo4UT09
Meeting ID: 865 3362 8611
Passcode: 668565
IN-PERSON: Chicago, Poetry Foundation Release of Latinx Poetics Anthology
Latinx Poetics (edited by Ruben Quesada) anthology celebration withJuan Morales, Tomás Morin, ire’ne lara silva, Sheryl Luna, Orlando Menes, Blas Falconer, Laurie Ann Guerrero, and others! The event will also be live-streamed via Zoom and recorded. Start time is 7pm CST.