As readers, it can be exhilarating to come across a work of writing that subverts our expectations and fearlessly breaks boundaries and artistic conventions. 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 showcase writing that dares to defy artistic and social norms. Celebrated writers and thinkers Ian Khara Ellasante, Jenn Shapland, and Elissa Washuta will speak about their own work, the process of creating it, and the need for writers and artists to push back against constraints of genre, gender, history, and social/cultural expectations.
To RSVP for this free event and receive a link to the event on Zoom, please click on the button below.
To buys books by one of these authors, please visit PRINT: A Bookstore.
This event is supported by a grant from Maine Humanities Council.
ASL interpretation will be provided.
Ian Khara Ellasante is a Black, queer, trans-nonbinary poet and cultural studies scholar. Winner of the 49th New Millennium Award for Poetry, Ian Khara’s poems have appeared in We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, The Feminist Wire, The Volta, Hinchas de Poesía, and elsewhere. With abiding affection for their hometown of Memphis, Ian Khara has also loved living and writing in Tucson, Brooklyn, and most recently, in southern Maine, where they are an assistant professor of gender and sexuality studies at Bates College.
Jenn Shapland is a writer and archivist living in New Mexico. Her first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and the Lambda Literary award and was longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Her essay “Finders, Keepers” won a 2017 Pushcart Prize, and she was awarded the 2019 Rabkin Foundation Award for art journalism. She has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently working on a collection of essays.
Her work has received support from the Georgia O'Keeffe fellowship, residencies at Ucross, Yaddo, the Carson McCullers Center for Artists and Musicians, and Vermont Studio Center, the Tin House Writers Workshop, and the Harry Ransom Center graduate internship.
Elissa Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a nonfiction writer. She is the author of White Magic, My Body Is a Book of Rules, and Starvation Mode. With Theresa Warburton, she is co-editor of the anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. She’s a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient, a Creative Capital awardee, and an assistant professor of creative writing at the Ohio State University.
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.