This conversation facilitated by MWPA’s two Lit Event Fellows—poet/community leader Samaa Abdurraqib and Penobscot fiction writer/Native American studies instructor Morgan Talty—will explore the experiences of BIPOC writers and editors in today’s publishing industry. Distinguished guests Valerie Boyd, Samara Cole Doyon, Jenzo DuQue, and Phuc Tran will speak to their own experiences writing, editing, and publishing their work and/or the work of other BIPOC authors and will explore the challenges and opportunities for BIPOC voices within this space.
This conversation is for:
**BIPOC writers who want to learn from other BIPOC writers about their experiences writing and navigating the publishing world.
**Non-BIPOC Writers who want to write, read, edit, and workshop more respectfully and inclusively.
**Workshop leaders, teachers, and editors who want to learn more about how to best support the vision and voices of BIPOC writers.
To RSVP for this free event and receive a link to the event on Zoom, please go here.
This event will have ASL interpreters.
This event is supported by a grant from Maine Humanities Council.
Valerie Boyd is a professor of journalism and narrative nonfiction writing, and the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence, at the University of Georgia, where she founded and directs the low-residency MFA Program in Narrative Nonfiction. She is author of the critically acclaimed Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, which was hailed by Alice Walker as “magnificent” and “extraordinary”; by the Boston Globe as “elegant and exhilarating”; and by the Denver Post as “a rich, rich read.” Formerly arts editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Boyd has written articles, essays and reviews for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Bon Appetit, Creative Nonfiction, The Oxford American, Essence and Atlanta Magazine, among other publications. Boyd has spent the past several years curating and editing a collection of the personal journals of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker. Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2022.
Samara Cole Doyon is a second-generation Haitian American raised in Maine–a state claiming half the roots of her family tree. She is a wife, mother, and teacher holding a BA in English and certificate of teacher training completion from the University of Southern Maine. She has been a regular contributor at Black Girl in Maine Media, has been featured in the Deep Water poetry column of the Portland Press Herald, and is the author of debut children’s book Magnificent Homespun Brown–a Coretta Scott King Honor Book for illustrations (Tilbury House Publishers. January, 2020). She is also author of the forthcoming children’s book Magic Like That (Lee & Low Books. Fall, 2021).
Jenzo DuQue was born into a Colombian community in Chicago and is based in Brooklyn. He received his MFA from Brooklyn College, where he served as an editor of The Brooklyn Review. Jenzo is a 2021 Periplus Fellow and 2021 Shenandoah BIPOC Editorial Fellow, whose work has appeared in One Story, Joyland, and Glimmer Train. Read more at jenzoduque.com.
Phuc Tran was a high school Latin teacher for more than twenty years while also simultaneously establishing himself as a highly sought-after tattooer in the Northeast. Tran graduated Bard College in 1995 with a BA in Classics and received the Callanan Classics Prize. He taught Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit in New York at the Collegiate School and was an instructor at Brooklyn College’s Summer Latin Institute. Most recently, he taught Latin, Greek, and German at the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine.
His 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s Ted Radio Hour. He has also been an occasional guest on Maine Public Radio, discussing grammar; the Classics; and Strunk and White’s legacy. He currently tattoos at and owns Tsunami Tattoo in Portland, Maine, where he lives with his family. Phuc is the author of the memoir, Sigh, Gone (Flatiron, 2020), which won the New England Book Award for Nonfiction.
MORE ABOUT MWPA’S Beyond the Page Series:
Hosted and facilitated by Maine Lit Event Fellows, Samaa Abdurraquib and Morgan Talty, this series invites guest authors and publishing professionals to discuss craft and issues that go beyond craft and explore topics such as culture, race, identify, authenticity, and how writers write within and outside of their own experience.