With all that is going on in the world right now, it can be difficult to imagine writing a poem or prose piece that is not shaped by the present moment. Yet, how do writers write about current events and societal problems, even long-standing ones, as they continue to unfold in real time? 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 feature authors whose work tackles issues of racial and social justice and violence. Celebrated writers and community leaders Joseph Jackson, Toni Jensen, and Scott Woods will speak about their own work, the process of creating it, and will discuss how writers place their work in conversation with current events and use language to upset the status quo and challenge long-accepted narratives.
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ASL interpretation will be provided.
This series is made possible by a grant from the Maine Humanities Council.
Joseph Jackson is the Executive Director of Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition (MPAC), a group that engages in direct action and advocacy with MDOC on behalf of prisoners and their families. In addition, he is the Director of Leadership Development with Maine Inside Out (MIO) and a founder of Maine Youth Justice, a Campaign calling to end Youth Incarceration in Maine and reinvest the dollars spent on Youth Incarceration into community services and support for youth. While incarcerated, Joseph earned his Associate’s and Bachelor’s degrees with summa cum laude honors from the University of Southern Maine in Augusta. He has published poetry in the online news journal Village Soup and in the Bangor Daily News.
Toni Jensen is the author of Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land, which is a finalist for the Dayton Peace Prize and a New York Times Editors’ Choice book (Ballantine 2020). An NEA Creative Writing Fellowship recipient in 2020, Jensen's essays have appeared in Orion, Catapult and Ecotone. She is also the author of the story collection From the Hilltop. She teaches at the University of Arkansas and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is Métis.
Scott Woods is an Emmy award-winning writer and event organizer in Columbus, Ohio. Woods is the author of Urban Contemporary History Month (2016), We Over Here Now (2013) and Prince and Little Weird Black Boy Gods (2017). He has been featured multiple times in national press, including appearances on National Public Radio. He is the founder of Streetlight Guild, a performing arts non-profit. He is a 2018 Columbus Foundation Spirit of Columbus Award recipient, as well as the Greater Columbus Arts Council winner of the 2017 Columbus Makes Art Excellence Award for his event series “Holler: 31 Days of Columbus Black Art", and was named the first-ever “Face of Columbus” by Columbus Alive. He is the co-founder of the Writers’ Block Poetry Night and a regular contributor for LEVEL magazine. In 2006 he became the first poet to ever complete a 24-hour solo poetry reading…a feat he bested seven more times without repeating a single poem.
MORE ABOUT MWPA’S Beyond the Page Series:
Hosted and facilitated by Maine Lit Event Fellows, Samaa Abdurraqib 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.