The name is dumb (we know) but come join us anyway as four writers of color fire up the Pacific Northwest with prose, poetry and (possibly) music. Featuring Quenton Baker, Santi Holley, Shayla Lawson and Jane Wong.
Featured Artists
Jane Wong‘s poems can be found in places such as Best American Poetry 2015, American Poetry Review, Poetry, AGNI, Third Coast, New England Review, and others. A Kundiman fellow, she is the author of Overpour from Action Books, and How to Not Be Afraid of Everything, which is forthcoming from Alice James Books. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at WWU.
Quenton Baker is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. His current focus is anti-blackness and the afterlife of slavery. His work has appeared in The Offing, Jubilat, Vinyl and elsewhere. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Southern Maine and is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. He is the recipient of the 2016 James W. Ray Venture Project Award and 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust, and is a 2019 Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence. He is the author of This Glittering Republic (Willow Books, 2016).
Shayla Lawson is the author of three books of poetry—A Speed Education in Human Being, the chapbook PANTONE and I Think I’m Ready to see Frank Ocean—and the forthcoming essay collection THIS IS MAJOR (Harper Perennial, 2020). Her work has appeared in print & online at Tin House, PAPER, ESPN, Salon, Guernica, & others. She curates The Tenderness Project with Ross Gay and writes poems with Chet’la Sebree (pronounced Shayla, no relation). A MacDowell and Yaddo Artist Colony Fellow, Shayla Lawson is a member of The Affrilachian Poets & currently serves as Writer-in-Residence and Director of Creative Writing at Amherst College.
Santi Elijah Holley was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, spent some time in southwest Colorado, returned to Michigan, then moved across the country to Portland, Oregon, where he has lived since 2004. His essays, short stories, reviews, and journalism have appeared in numerous outlets, including The Atlantic, The Guardian, VICE, Tin House, Atlas Obscura, Paste, The Outline, Topic, Sojourners, Pacifica Literary Review, The Portland Mercury, The Stranger, and Longreads. His work has been cited in Best American Essays 2018, and he is a recipient of the 2017 Oregon Literary Fellowship for nonfiction, awarded by Literary Arts. He is currently writing a book for Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 music book series about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Murder Ballads album.
Holley is also a working DJ, who usually performs under the moniker DJ Blind Bartimaeus. In addition to regular nights at bars and clubs in Portland, he has also opened for touring bands, performed at weddings, private parties, corporate events, and festivals, including the Pickathon music festival, Soul’d Out music festival, and Oregon’s culinary Feast festival.
Click the links above for writing and upcoming DJ dates.
