WINSTON-SALEM, NC (OCTOBER 3, 2019)—The Center for Women Writers at Salem College will present a panel discussion called “Embodiment: the Body in Space” on Friday, October 18 from 12:30 until 2:30 p.m. The panel will feature four award-winning writers: Cameron Awkward-Rich, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Kenning JP García, and Brenda Iijima. The panel is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided; RSVP to cww@salem.edu.
The panel will feature a discussion about bodies in public and private spaces, bodies as public or private properties, body as nuisance, body as spectacle, body as particle. The panelists will discuss who gets to take up space and how and why and what it means for bodies to demand space.
“The Triad is hungry for panel discussions on current, relevant topics and who better to hold those conversations than literary artists, activists and other artists,” said Metta Sáma, Salem College Assistant Professor, Director of the Creative Writing Program and Director of Center for Women Writers.
Cameron Awkward-Rich is a black, trans writer and educator, who lives in Northampton, Mass. His first collection of poetry, “Sympathetic Little Monster” (Ricochet Editions, 2016), was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. His second collection, “Dispatch,” winner of the 2018 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice award, is forthcoming from Persea Books in December 2019. Awkward-Rich earned a PhD from Stanford University and is an assistant professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Rosebud Ben-Oni is the winner of the 2019 Alice James Award for “If This Is the Age We End Discovery” (2021) and the author of “turn around, BRXGHT XYXS” (Get Fresh Books, 2019). She has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and CantoMundo.
Kenning JP García is the author of the no(t)vel “OF (What Place Meant)” and “Slow Living” (West Vine Press) as well as several speculative epics including “ROBOT” and “Yawning on the Sands.” García is a diarist, antipoet, and humorist living in Albany, NY where xe studied linguistics at SUNY Albany.
Brenda Iijima’s involvements occur at the intersections and mutations of poetry, research movement, visual arts, floral, faunal and mineral consciousness and ecological sociology. Her current work focuses on missing persons and submerged histories, extinction and other-than-human modes of expression. A developing project involves choreography and vocalization centered on Fort Massachusetts, in Iijima’s hometown of North Adams, Massachusetts. She is the author of seven full-length collections of poetry and numerous chapbooks and artist’s books. Iijima’s most recent book, “Remembering Animals,” was published by Nightboat Books in 2016. She is also the editor of the “eco language reader” (Nightboat Books and PP@YYL). Iijima is the editor of Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, located in Brooklyn, NY.
Founded in 1996 by Annette Allen, the Center for Women Writers supports, encourages and promotes the writing and writing lives of nonbinary, women and trans writers across the globe. CWW hosts a variety of panels, workshops and readings in order to facilitate a dynamic and growing literary arts environment in the Triad.
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