De Las Islas: A Celebration of Cuba and Puerto Rico
The Borderlands Reading Series and the Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference present " De Las Islas: A Celebration of Cuba and Puerto Rico," a mixed-genre reading of poetry and fiction with Achy Obejas, Jennine Capó Crucet, and Nicole Sealey on Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 7:30 p.m. in Carson Ballroom at Old Main, Arizona State University Tempe campus (400 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281).
The event will also be live-streamed. To watch the live stream, visit https://asunow.asu.edu/asulive.
While encouraged, RSVPs are purely for the purposes of monitoring attendance, gauging interest, and communicating information about parking, directions, and other aspects of the event. You do not have to register or RSVP to attend this event. This event is open to the public and free.
Sponsored by archi[TEXTS] and the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University.
About the authors
Achy Obejas is the critically acclaimed author of "The Tower of the Antilles," a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN Open Book Award and the Aspen Word Prize. Her previous books include "Days of Awe" and "Ruins." As a translator, she's worked with Junot Díaz, Wendy Guerra and Rita Indiana, among others. Born in Havana, she currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Jennine Capó Crucet is a novelist, essayist, and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. Her novel "Make Your Home Among Strangers" was the winner of the International Latino Book Award, a New York Times Editor's Choice book, and was cited as a best book of the year by NBC Latino, the Guardian, and the Miami Herald. She is also the author of the story collection "How to Leave Hialeah" (winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Prize and the John Gardner Book award), and of a forthcoming essay collection, "Never Imagined Me Here." Her writing has been awarded an O. Henry Prize and Picador Fellowship, among other honors, and her work has appeared in venues including Medium, the Los Angeles Review, Guernica, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and on PBSNewsHour. Raised in Miami, she’s currently an associate professor of Creative Writing and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska.
Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida, Nicole Sealey is the author of "Ordinary Beast," finalist for the 2018 PEN Open Book Award, and "The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named," winner of the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her other honors include a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, a Daniel Varoujan Award and the Poetry International Prize, as well as fellowships from CantoMundo, Cave Canem, MacDowell Colony and the Poetry Project. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming to Best American Poetry 2018, The New Yorker, The New York Times and elsewhere. Nicole holds an MLA in Africana studies from the University of South Florida and an MFA in creative writing from New York University. She is the executive director at Cave Canem Foundation and the 2018-2019 Doris Lippman Visiting Poet at The City College of New York.
[archi]TEXTS is a program founded by ASU poet and Professor Natalie Diaz to foster collaborations between people who embrace poetry, literature and story.