Babylon Salon
presents a special online performance
Saturday, September 12, 2020
5pm PST / 8pm EST
guest bookshop: Eso Won Books
featuring
(Meeting Faith; The Nigerian-Nordic Girl's Guide to Lady Problems)
Faith Adiele is the author of two memoirs: The Nigerian-Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems, a witty, tricultural e/audiobook about black women and fibroids, and Meeting Faith, a travel memoir about becoming Thailand’s first black Buddhist nun (PEN Open Book Award). She is the editor of Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural Anthology, with 24 international stories ideal for the classroom and Panorama: The Journal of Intelligent Travel.
Faith was the writer, narrator and subject of the PBS documentary My Journey Home, based on her life growing up with a Nordic-American single mother and then traveling to Nigeria as an adult to find her father and siblings. She is also the founder of VONA Travel, the nation's first workshop for travel writers of color, and African Book Club at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco.
Faith lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is a member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto and The Ruby space for women creatives, and does live storytelling on stage. Her latest manuscript is a multi genre, multigenerational, multiracial account of 4 generations of her family across 3 continents.
(Nine Bar Blues; Dark Matter: a Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora)
Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning short story writer, poet, and editor with fellowships and residencies from the Millay Colony of Arts, Bread Loaf Environmental, VCCA, Ledig House, Blue Mountain Center, Cave Canem Foundation, NYFA, Tennessee Arts Commission, and Smith College where she served as the Lucille Geier-Lakes Writer-in-Residence.
Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary publications, including Sycorax’s Daughters, Do Not Go Quietly, Callaloo, Essence, and The New York Times. Her work is also forthcoming in The Big Book of Modern Fantasy. She edited the Dark Matter speculative fiction volumes that won two World Fantasy Awards and first introduced W.E.B. Du Bois’s work as science fiction. She was the inaugural recipient of the LA (Leslie) Banks Award for outstanding achievement in the speculative fiction field.
Her hybrid, multigenre collection, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life (Aqueduct Press) was longlisted for the 2016 Otherwise Award and honored with a Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Shotgun Lullabies (Aqueduct), was described as a “revelatory work like Jean Toomer’s Cane.” Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future (Third Man Books, 2020) is her first fiction collection. She lives in her hometown, Memphis, Tennessee.
(her; The Leaving; Movement No.1: Trains)
Hope Wabuke is a Ugandan American poet, essayist, and writer. She is the author of the chapbooks her, The Leaving, and Movement No.1: Trains and has published widely in various magazines, among them The Guardian, The Root, Los Angeles Review of Books, NPR, The Sun Literary Journal, Creative Nonfiction Magazine, The Daily Beast, Ms. Magazine online, Lit Hub, Ozy, Salon, Gawker, The Hairpin, Dame, The North American Review, Salamander Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She writes literary and cultural criticism for NPR.
Hope has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle, The New York Times Foundation, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women Writers, Cave Canem, the Awesome Foundation, Yale University’s THREAD Writer’s Program, and the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation (VONA).
Hope is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is a former contributing editor for The Root, where she originated a column on African diasporic literature, and a founding board member and former Media & Communications Director for the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction.
Lisa D. Gray
(founder, Our Voices Our Stories SF)
Lisa D. Gray opens doors and helps other writers of color claim space in writing and publishing by curating several reading series in the Bay Area. She established OurVoices OurStories SF (OVOSSF) in 2014 as a way to amplify and elevate the voices of women writers of color. The OVOSSF platform allowed her to showcase more than 20 emerging writers and interview authors Natalie Baszile, Renee Swindle, Elmaz Abinader, Jacqueline Luckett, and Tayari Jones.
Lisa won the 2018 Edgar Award named for Robert L. Fish and the Henry Joseph Jackson Prize for Distinguished Fiction in 2014. She was a Fellow at the San Francisco Writers Grotto where she is now a member and has earned writing scholarships to attend The Fine Arts Works Center, The Voices of Our Nations Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center where she completed a residency. She is currently a fellow at The Ruby San Francisco and holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from Spelman College and Mills College.
Lisa believes it is necessary for black women and women of color to write and share our stories so that others do not erase or control our narratives. She is completing her first novel, "Stolen Summer" and is in search of an agent and publisher for her collection of short stories. Literary podcasts The Nasiona with Julian E. Torres and Badass Bookworm with Cassandra Dallett recently featured Lisa and her work.
with music by
(Chasm Vol. I)
CPIII is an international Performing Artist, Songwriter, and Empowerment Coach. His mission in life is to help you awaken to the love, light, and brilliance that already exists within you. CPIII recently released a Pop/Soul EP, and plans to release a Neo Folk Soul EP later this year. His music continues to evolve as he continues to grow. You can follow his journey on his website: www.cpiiimusic.com
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Free Admission!