2:00 - 4:00
Celebrating authors of color from the Bay Area and beyond. Featuring Avotcja, Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl, Jason Bayani, Jennifer Hasegawa, Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour, Hector son of hector, Tara Dorabji, Shizue Seigel and Antoinette Vella Payne.
Avotcja is an award-winning poet, multi-instrumentalist, and popular Bay Area DJ with weekly radio shows on KPFA and KPOO. An Oakland resident who was born in New Yori City to musicians from Puerto Rico, She performs with her band Modupue and has been widely published in English and Spanish in the USA, Mexico, and Europe. She’s shared stages with Sonia Sanchez, Janice Mirikitani, Michael Franti, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Nikki Giovanni, and many others and been featured at AfroSolo, San Francisco’s Carnival, Asian American Jazz Festival, and elsewhere.
Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl, or Diosa X for short, is a multilingual and multidimensional Xicana, Indigenous, MeXicana poetiza who has lived on both sides of the border. She is a seasoned language arts educator with a Bachelor’s in English and a Master’s in Cross-Cultural Education, as well as a Kundalini Yoga Instructor and a student of Nahualísmo. She’s a slam champion, Pushcart nominee, and author of seven poetry collections.
Hector son of hector is an Oakland-based poet and writer of Mexican immigrant descent. He works in a hospital, writes poetry, and often writes on themes of daily life and labor. He has been featured on KALW’s Bay Poets and his work 2020 in 12 Pieces was included in Speaking in tongues / Hablando en lenguas, a chapbook series and a Mexican tour by eight poets from both sides of the US/Mexico border.
Jason Bayani is the author of Everyone I Love, Alive (Omnidawn Publishing 2025), Locus (Omnidawn Publishing 2019) and Amulet (Write Bloody Publishing 2013). He's an MFA graduate from Saint Mary's College and is the co-director of Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest multi-disciplinary APA arts organization in the country. He performs regularly around the country and debuted his solo theater show "Locus of Control" in 2016.
Jennifer Hasegawa is a poet and community archivist. Her latest poetry collection, NAOMIE ANOMIE: A Biography of Infinite Desire, is an experimental take on anti-memoir. Her debut collection, La Chica's Field Guide to Banzai Living, won the Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award and was longlisted for The Believer Book Award in Poetry. She was born and raised in Hawaiʻi and currently resides in San Francisco.
Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour is a Filipino/French Creole Spoken Word Poet and Hip-Hop Artist from the Midwest now living in Santa Cruz. He offers workshops, coaching and hand art through Sacred Mud at the Tannery Arts Center. As an organizer of Mic Drop! monthly open mic at 418 Project and a member of Writers of Color Santa Cruz County, he works to contribute to a strong community of artists and supporters locally and globally.
Shizue Seigel is a Japanese American writer, visual artist, and director of Write Now! SF Bay, which has served 500+ writers and artists of color since 2015 through free creative writing workshops, readings, and five anthologies. She’s a five-time VONA fellow and Jefferson Award recipient whose poetry, prose and visual art have been widely published in anthologies and literary journals.
Tara Dorabji, author of the award-winning novel, Call Her Freedom, is a public speaker and facilitator, who presents regionally and globally on culture change, radical resource redistribution & the power of storytelling. She produced a documentary film series on human rights defenders in Kashmir, and her work has been published in Al Jazeera, The Chicago Quarterly, Huizache, and others. The daughter of Parsi-Indian and German Italian migrants, she lives in Northern California.
Antoinette Vella Payne’s poetry collection, That’s What Happens When You Live on Haight Street was published in 2023. Her poems have appeared in the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Dime Piece and Poems in Praise of Libraries, among others. She hosts 1428 Poets, a monthly poetry reading and open mic at the North Beach Public Library. Her work leans towards metaphysical, spiritual and relational aspects of human awareness.
Connect:
Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl - Website
Joseph Jason Santiago LaCour - Instagram
Antoinette Vella Payne - Instagram
Author Readings & Lectures
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BIPOC Interest
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