S224.
Writing as an Act of Social Justice
Saturday, March 11, 2023
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
"Even in a pandemic, even in grief, I found myself commanded to amplify the voices of the dead that sing to me, from their boat to my boat, on the sea of time." –Jesymn Ward. How do we write amidst chaos? In the last few years—forever, really—writers pushed themselves to return to the page. In a world that is not always equitable and so rarely grants people justice–particularly writers from marginalized communities—creatives find the courage to make art.
Participants
David Mura has written the memoirs Turning Japanese, Where the Body Meets Memory; a novel; four poetry books including The Last Incantations; and Essays: A Stranger's Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing and The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths & Our American Narratives. He teaches at VONA.
Connie Pertuz Meza, a Colombian American published in The Rumpus, Kweli Literary Journal, and elsewhere. She is a three-time VONA alum and board member, two time Tin House participant, 2021 Aspen Words Ricardo Salinas Latinx recipient, and a 2022 Pen America Emerging Fellow.
Hannah Eko is a Black-Nigerian writer, editor, coach, and author of Honey Is the Knife. She leads Women, Writing, Weed and Wine and the Honeyknife Academy: the finishing school for emerging writers. Her work has been published in b*tch, Bust, Buzzfeed, asterix literary journal, and Pigeon Pages NYC.
Cynthia Dewi Oka is a poet and author of A Tinderbox in Three Acts, Fire Is Not a Country, Salvage, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water. Her writing appears in The Atlantic, Oprah Daily, Poetry, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, The Rumpus, Hyperallergic, Guernica, and elsewhere.
