06/22/2023 UPDATE: Recording now available on our YouTube Channel. Click below to watch the reading.
A summer reading to celebrate our community of authors!
Wednesday, June 21st at 7 pm EDT!
Join CBAW for Glowing in the Bright, a summer reading to celebrate our community of authors! We welcome Sunu Chandy, Amber Flame, Sarah Herrin, Arthur Kayzaykian and Laura Joyce-Hubbard as they read from their newly published works. Hosted by Hari Alluri.
PLUS: Stay after the reading for Open Visual Art Studio with Veteran and Artist, Shaun Smith. Bring anything you want to work on, in any medium, and create art with our community.
About the Authors
Hari Alluri (he/him/siya) is author of The Flayed City (Kaya Press) and chapbooks The Promise of Rust (Mouthfeel Press) and Our Echo of Sudden Mercy (Next Page Press). He is co-editor of We Were Not Alone (Community Building Art Works) and co-founding editor at Locked Horn Press. Recipient of the Vera Manuel Prize for Poetry, siya has received grants, fellowships, and residencies from the BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, The Capilano Review, Deer Lake, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and others. His work appears through these venues and elsewhere: AALR, Apogee, Four Way Review, Marías at Sampaguitas, Poetry, ti-TCR, and—via Split This Rock—Best of the Net 2022. @harialluri | https://linktr.ee/harialluri
Sarah Herrin (they/them) is a queer non-binary poet based in Colorado. They have a BFA in Sequential Art & Creative Writing from the Savannah College of Art & Design. They are the author of three poetry chapbooks including, One Thousand Good Answers and The Oceanography of Her. Sarah is owner and editor of Beyond The Veil Press, an indie publisher of poetry and art for mental health awareness. https://www.etsy.com/shop/SarahHerrinPoetry
Amber Flame is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, activist and educator, whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. In her writing, Flame explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and the interstitial joy in it all. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame’s work is published in diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Nailed Magazine, Winter Tangerine, and Split This Rock, with her first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame’s second book of poetry, apocrifa, launches May 2023 from Red Hen Press. As Program Director of Hedgebrook, she builds events and programs that amplify the voices of women-identified writers, and continues to work as a writing instructor in community and for currently and formerly incarcerated women and youth. In her spare time, Flame is working on a third poetry collection, making music with her band Last of the RedHot Mamas, making art, and raising her awesome kid. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks. https://www.theamberflame.com/
Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a social justice activist through her work as a poet and a civil rights attorney. She’s a queer woman of color and lives in Washington, D.C. with her family. Sunu is the daughter of immigrants from Kerala, India. Her collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was selected for the 2021 Terry J. Cox Prize, and published by Regal House in March 2023. Sunu’s work can also be found in publications including Asian American Literary Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Poets on Adoption, Split this Rock’s online social justice database, The Quarry, and in anthologies including The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood and This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. Sunu is also the legal director for the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and on the board of the Transgender Law Center. Sunu earned her B.A. in Peace and Global Studies/Women’s Studies from Earlham College, her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law and later, her MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Queens College/The City University of New York. Sunu was included as one the 2021 Queer Women of Washington and one of Go Magazine’s100 Women We Love: Class Of 2019. Sunu is delighted to celebrate her first collection of poetry, My Dear Comrades, with all of you and with the book’s fabulous cover artist, Ragni Agarwal. https://www.sunuchandy.net/
Arthur Kayzakian is the winner of the 2021 inaugural Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings, which was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is the recipient of the 2023 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also the winner of the Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition for My Burning City. He serves as the Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has appeared in several publications, including Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, Portland Review, Chicago Review, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Witness Magazine, and Prairie Schooner. https://www.artkay.org/
Laura Joyce-Hubbard’s nonfiction and poetry appear or are forthcoming in Poetry, The Iowa Review, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere. Recent awards include winner of The Iowa Review’s 2022 veteran writing award and the 2023 AWP Nonfiction Intro Journals Award. Her nonfiction was selected as a “Notable” in the Best American Essays 2022. She is a twenty-year veteran of the US Air Force where she piloted C-130s. Laura is a fiction editor for TriQuarterly and currently serves as the inaugural Highland Park Poet Laureate in Illinois. https://linktr.ee/laura.joycehubbard
About our Facilitator
Shaun Smith is a Retired U.S. Army Veteran and Fine Artist based in Northern Maine. Shaun served 10 years as a Combat Medic with a tour in Afghanistan. During that time, he was awarded The Combat Medic Badge for providing care under fire and a Purple Heart for injuries sustained from a VBIED. Shaun found comfort in art therapy as a way to express his experiences, leading him to enroll into an art university. Shaun graduated from The Academy of Art University of San Francisco with a Bachelors in Fine art Painting in 2021. Shaun dedicates his time to painting landscapes, wildlife, and peaceful moments. SGHS Studios Facebook Group
CBAW Marketing & Communications Manager
Rob Haney is an artist, writer, and graphic designer with a passion for making slick-looking and fun images that catch the eye and draw viewers in. Rob worked for over 10 years in retail banking and management in their previous life, before returning to school and earning an Associates of Arts with Honors from Rock Valley College in 2012. An early addict to Twitter, Rob enjoys liking and resharing cool stuff and interacting with people who hold similar interests on the internet. When not online, Rob writes and reads poetry, creates both physical and digital artwork, and watches British mystery shows.