So to Speak is thrilled to announce that on Friday, November 6, 2020, at 7:30 PM EST, we’ll be holding a virtual reading with some of our amazing 2020 contributors in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry!
In the U.S., where we are based, this will be the end of election week, and we think it will be well spent surrounded by members of our intersectional feminist community and their incredible words.
Previously–in the “Before Times”–we’ve held a variety of in-person events, including a book raffle to support Ayuda, a DC-based organization that provides accessible legal, social, and language services to immigrants, and a clothing swap to support George Mason University’s LGBTQ+ Trans Closet. For this Zoom event, we encourage attendees to support one of the charitable organizations suggested by our editors or contributors with their RSVP.
To RSVP for the event and receive the Zoom link, you can register here via Eventbrite, or simply send us an email at sotospeakjournal@gmail.com with your name; if you also email us a screenshot/receipt of a recent donation to one of the organizations listed in this post, we’ll enter your name in a raffle to win free print copies of some of our recent issues!
Below is our wonderful lineup of readers, who provided us with a charity they’d recommend supporting, as well as some exciting tidbits of insight about their writing. See more of them on November 6–we love our writing community, and we can’t wait to immerse ourselves in your art.
Wen Wen Yang (she/her) was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with a degree in English, and concentration in Creative Writing. “The Fox Spirit’s Retelling” will be in the forthcoming anthology Remapping Wonderland: Classic Fairytales Retold by People of Color.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
Planned Parenthood
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
As an Asian-American woman in the time of COVID-19, it has meant a fresh surge of xenophobia. The fox spirit is adapting to a world that isn’t aware she’s an outsider.
Where can we read more of your work?
Read “The Fox Spirit’s Retelling” here: https://sotospeakjournal.org/the-fox-spirits-retelling/
Pono (he/they) is a writer from Minnesota whose work explores their identity as a Hawaiian, Latinx, transmasc, and nonbinary person. They currently coordinate the mutual aid program at the organization Women for Political Change, working to build the power of people of marginalized genders. Pono lives in Minneapolis where he forgets to water his plants and remembers to watch all the Netflix shows involving time travel.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
Southern Fried Queer Pride
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
My writing and art reflects on occupying a body that is simultaneously fetishized, affirmed, invisibilized, loved, stigmatized, and privileged. Thus my work is grounded in the intersectional feminist challenge to binaries and universalism, and the belief that oppression and privilege work in varied, interconnected ways.
Where can we read more of your work?
Read “Even Though You’ve Gotten Used to Calling Me Your Brother:” https://sotospeakjournal.org/even-though-youve-gotten-used-to-calling-me-your-brother/
Charlotte Covey (she/her) is from St. Mary’s County, Maryland. She earned her MFA in Poetry from the University of Missouri -St. Louis in Spring 2018. She has poetry published or forthcoming in journals such as The Normal School, Salamander Review, and CALYX Journal among others. She’s a contributing editor for River Styx.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
I am currently supporting Planned Parenthood and Black Lives Matter.
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
Intersectional feminism is beyond important; it is essential. As a woman and writer, feminism is not just featured in my work but integral to my work and what I am trying to convey. My writing focuses so intently on the struggles of women and womanhood, and, especially as a cis white woman, I strive to understand what womanhood means beyond my personal experience, worldview, and privilege. Intersectional feminism is about choice, visibility, accessibility, and, perhaps most importantly, unity. To that end, I hope that my writing can create a common ground and mutual understanding between writer and reader.
Where can we read more of your work?
I was recently in Plume Poetry’s “5 Under 35” feature, which was a huge honor: https://plumepoetry.com/5-under-35-2/
Christiana McClain (she/her) is from Houston, Texas. She graduated from Spelman University and is now pursuing her MFA. Her work can be found in So To Speak Journal and Alternating Currents.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
Black Lesbian Archives: https://gf.me/u/yqqmms
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
Intersectional Feminism means supporting/listening/advocating for the rights of all people but especially people from marginalized communities. This means operating from a global perspective and actively resisting the urge to surrender to carceral and capitalist norms.
Where can we read more of your work?
Christiana’s prizewinning fiction can be found in our 2020 contest issue: https://sotospeak.submittable.com/submit/167382/for-purchase-2020-contest-issue-digital-pdf-version
Jennifer Schomburg Kanke (she/her) lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she edits confidential documents for the government. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner, and Pleiades. Her chapbook, Fine, Considering, is available from Rinky Dink Press. She serves as a reader for Emrys.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
The Your Life After podcast from Whole Self Wellness hosted by Robin Dunn-Bryant. She’s currently working toward becoming a licensed social worker but has also been a Cave Canem fellow and has an MFA, so she brings a poet’s love of language to helping people heal from trauma. The episodes can be powerful and moving even for people who haven’t experienced trauma themselves, especially her episodes that deal with intergenerational trauma.
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
It represents to me the responsibility that writers have to not back away from the complexities of the world.
Where can we read more of your work?
https://rappahannockreview.com/issue-6-2/contents/poetry/jennifer-schomburg-kanke/
Tjoa Shze Hui (she/her) is a Singaporean writer. You can find her essays in berfrois, So To Speak, The Minola Review, and elsewhere. Her writing has been supported by DISQUIET, and won So To Speak’s 2020 prize in nonfiction. Currently, she is working on her first essay collection.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
I’ve been interested in supporting access to mental health services in Singapore, where I live now. Since most people at this reading might be American, I’d be happy if they supported something similar in the US, like the Loveland Foundation.
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
In my own writing practice, intersectional feminism means listening wholeheartedly to other people’s narratives, while knowing which stories are mine to tell. It also means championing stories that resist easy reading, so as to do justice to the breadth and complexity of the world that we live in.
Where can we read more of your work?
http://www.minolareview.com/tjoa-shze-hui
Cindy King’s (she/her) work appears in The Sun, Callaloo, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, River Styx, Cincinnati Review, North American Review, and elsewhere. Her book, Zoonotic, is forthcoming from Tinderbox Editions in 2021. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Dixie State University and editor of The Southern Quill.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
Black Lives Matter Southern Utah
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
As a writer, I hope to interrogate and call attention to the advantages and disadvantages that come with identifying as female, particularly as it intersects with other aspects of one’s identity, such age, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class.
Where can we read more of your work?
“When Your Mother Asks If You’re Seeing Anyone And No Longer Means A Therapist” on The Slowdown 380: https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2020/05/08/379-february-my-love-is-in-another-state
Alysse Kathleen McCanna’s (she/her) poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, TriQuarterly, Nimrod, Pembroke, CutBank, Harpur Palate, and other journals. Her chapbook Pentimento was published by Gold Line Press in 2019. She holds an MFA from Bennington, is Associate Editor of Pilgrimage Magazine, and is a PhD candidate at Oklahoma State.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
My partner and I donate monthly to the Undocublack Network, which supports undocumented Black folx in the U.S. My partner is an immigrant and we are in the midst of his journey through the U.S. immigration system, so supporting this particular community is important to us.
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
Intersectional feminism requires me to ask “the other question” as a writer and human–when I write about gender, where might I be obscuring issues of race, or class, or sexuality? Asking the other question is a life-long process that results in education, evolution, and advocacy.
Where can we read more of your work?
You can read Alysse’s prizewinning poem in our 2020 contest issue: https://sotospeak.submittable.com/submit/167382/for-purchase-2020-contest-issue-digital-pdf-version
Dhaea Kang (she/her) is a writer from Chicago. Her stories have appeared in Lunch Ticket, The Grief Diaries, Passengers Journal, and So to Speak Journal.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
Chicago Books to Women in Prison
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
As a writer, I’m drawn to creating and exploring characters whose worldview and experiences are shaped by their various identities that mirror aspects of my own. As an American-born daughter of Korean immigrants, I like to write stories in which conflicting cultural expectations and language barriers within a family might trigger or exacerbate conflict. As both a reader and a writer, I enjoy stories that demonstrate the complications of trying to navigate between what often seems to be two incompatible worlds.
Where can we read more of your work?
Read “Nuclear:” https://sotospeakjournal.org/nuclear/
Ashleigh Allen (she/her) has been teaching writing, in community and academic spaces, in New York City and Toronto since 2008. She is currently a PhD student in Curriculum and Pedagogy at OISE/ University of Toronto and coordinator of the Toronto Writing Project.What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
When I lived in New York City, I volunteered at 826NYC, Teachers and Writers Collaborative, and Girls Write Now. These three NY-based organizations (that center youth writing, social citizenship, and community) are near and dear to me. They all do excellent work.
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
It means listening to, showing up for, and offering care to others and self. Everyday.
Where can we read more of your work?
Read “Near the Lake:” https://sotospeakjournal.org/near-the-lake/
Liz Asch Greenhill (she/her) is a visual artist, writer, and acupuncturist. She holds a BA from Vassar, a Masters in Chinese Medicine, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Liz hosts Body Land Metaphor Medicine: surrealist visualizations, which you can listen to for free on podcast apps or at Night Sky Acupuncture.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
Black and Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and free world allies who support each other. https://resist.org/grantees/black-and-pink
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
The more we can use our own body as a template for perception to open up our observations with curiosity, the more we can listen to and learn from the shared experiences of others. It is our job as witnesses to validate and value each other.
Where can we read more of your work?
Read “Hystory, an Art Object:” https://sotospeakjournal.org/hystory-an-art-object/
Recipient of the 2019 Edward Stanley Award for poetry, Rewa Zeinati (she/her) is the author of the poetry chapbook, Bullets & Orchids, and the founder of the literary magazine, Sukoon. Her work can also be found in various journals and anthologies based in the US, UK, Australia, and Arab-speaking region. Originally from Lebanon, Rewa currently considers Metro Detroit her new home.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
The Arab American National Museum (AANM) in Dearborn, Michigan.
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
Intersectional feminism informs the way I read and the way I consume art and/or life; in other words, my understanding of the overlap and complex nature of disadvantage. It provides a clear perspective for my writing/creative output, as I aim to consistently challenge and recalibrate the power dynamics of ‘voice’ and ‘visibility’ in relation to exclusiveness and privilege—both of which have long existed in the Anglophone literary landscape.
Where can we read more of your work?
My poem “How Water, Too, Keeps Us Whole” published in Diode poetry journal. http://diodepoetry.com/zeinati_rewa/
Sheila Black (she/her) is the author of four poetry collections, most recently, Iron Ardent (Educe Press, 2017), A fifth collection, Vivisection, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2022. She is a co-editor of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (Cinco Puntos Press, 2011). Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, The Spectacle, The Southhampton Review, the Kenyon Review Online, The New York Times and other places. She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas and works at AWP.
What is a charity, organization, or small business you’re interested in supporting?
I would love support to go to www.zoeglossia.org.
What does intersectional feminism mean to/for you as a writer?
I feel very strongly about the importance of feminism as an intersectional discipline since I see much of the theory of disability identity as directly springing from how feminism conceptualized identity and power. I think we must move toward an identity politics that is profoundly intersectional through and through.
Where can we read more of your work?
https://kenyonreview.org/kr-online-issue/2020-septoct/selections/sheila-black-656342/
Z Bell (they/them & he/him) is Bright and Lovely and does not give all the credit to the sun. Their writing invites a collective witnessing of experiences that hurt so much, they demand growth in spirit and in heart. Their music and hip-hop gives us all permission to believe in alchemy, too. Z is a Black, transMasculine, disabled, queer femmeBoi from New Haven, Connecticut who enjoys eating ginger, strolling through snowy winters, and smoking organic herbal blends through a wooden pipe like a Grandpa.
Where can we read more of your work?
At ZBellPoetry.com or read “dear editor, can you revise a dead body?” here: https://sotospeakjournal.org/dear-editor-can-you-revise-a-dead-body/
