A reading and party to celebrate the launch of Caroline M. Mar's chapbook, Dream of the Lake!
Join us for a stellar reading featuring Carrie alongside a lineup of her fellow BIPOC Writing Party members Christine Hsu, danny ryu, Lorraine Bonner, Mildred Thompson, Miles Johnson, Susan Ito, Tijanna O. Eaton, and Yeva Johnson.
Books will be available for sale. No cover, 21+, proof of vax required.
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About the readers:
Caroline M. Mar is the great-granddaughter of a railroad laborer and the author of Special Education (Texas Review Press) and the forthcoming chapbook Dream of the Lake (Bull City Press). A high school health educator in San Francisco, she is doing her best to keep her gentrified hometown queer and creative. Carrie is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, an alumna of VONA, and a member of Rabble Collective. She has been granted residencies at Storyknife, Ragdale, and VSC, among others. You can write to Carrie at P.O. Box 460491, San Francisco, CA 94114 – she’ll (eventually) write you back. If you want to be newfangled about it, follow her on IG @carolinemmar.
Christine C. Hsu is an essayist, playwright, and poet based in San Francisco. She has been published by The Bold Italic, xoJane, KQED, ABC News Radio Online, Yellow Arrow Journal, Lunchbox Moments, Slipform Poetry Anthology 2020, Mixed Mag, DropOut Literary Magazine, and NonBinary Review. Her plays have been performed by the Negro Ensemble Company, Crafton Hills College, and the Pear Theatre. Her essay, "China Doll," will be published in the Nonwhite and Woman Anthology by Woodhall Press the Fall of 2022. You can follow her on Twitter @HsuChristineC and find her work at hsuchristine0.wixsite.com/website.
danny ryu (they/them) is a trans poet of color who writes sad queer poems for sad queers. Their work can be found in Kundiman/Asian American Feminist Collective’s zine To Us and Ours, Write Now! SF’s Essential Truths: Bay Area in Color, and the trash. Find their work at https://linktr.ee/sadqueerpoet.
Lorraine Bonner was born and raised on the East Coast. She moved to California in 1970, and began working in clay in the early 90’s. Her work began in response to trauma, but soon evolved to embrace the larger political and spiritual themes of dominationism and the mutually reflective processes of the political and personal. She lives in Oakland and is a mother and a grandmother. You can find her work at lorrainebonner.com.
Miles believes that the world would be better off if there were no borders at all, but simultaneously reps his home, Washington DC, with fervor and gratitude. He loves his Granny and all the other Black folks who watch out and over him, following NBA basketball, and writing poems about comic books. You can find (some of) his work at blackandoutside.com, and if you're lucky you can find him on twitter/instagram @blackandoutside. If you're rich, you can find him on cashapp at $blackoutside and venmo @blackandoutside.
Tijanna O. Eaton is a Black poly kinkster queerdo pocket butch with a high school diploma and a rap sheet. Her upcoming book, BOLT Cutters, is the story of her twelve arrests in three years in the early 90s. She is the proud recipient of the Unicorn Authors Club's first Alumni award. Follow her on FB @tijanna and IG @thatsbennett2u and find her work at bolt-cutters.com.
Susan Ito is the author of The Mouse Room and editor of A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared in Growing Up Asian American, Choice, Literary Mama, The Bellevue Literary Review, Making More Waves, Catapult, Hyphen, McSweeney’s and elsewhere. She is a member of the Writers Grotto and teaches at Mills College & Bay Path University. Her memoir in essays is forthcoming from the Ohio State University Press. Follow her on Insta and Twitter @thesusanito and find her work at www.thesusanito.com.
Yeva Johnson, a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and musician whose work appears in Bellingham Review, Essential Truths: The Bay Area in Color Anthology, Sinister Wisdom, Yemassee, and elsewhere, explores interlocking caste systems and possibilities for human co-existence in our biosphere. Yeva is a past Show Us Your Spines Artist-in-Residence (RADAR Productions/SF Public Library), winner of the 2020 Mostly Water Art & Poetry Splash Contest, and poet in QTPOC4SHO, a San Francisco Bay Area artists’ collective. Yeva’s first chapbook, Analog Poet Blues, will be published by Nomadic Press in 2023. Follow Yeva on Instagram @yevajohnson.
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COVID Safety:
El Rio requires proof of vaccination (at least 2 shots). Masks are not required at this time.
The reading will take place in El Rio's back room. For those unfamiliar with the space, one wall of the room will be entirely open to the back patio to encourage air flow. The indoor reading portion of the event will end by 8pm sharp but guests are invited to stay and hang out on the patio after!