Global Poetry Festival 2021

Alexandra Newton Rios, bilingual, bi-hemispherical poet, translator and teacher lives in the small city of San Miguel de Tucumán, one of the poorest regions of northwestern Argentina and Manhattan near the Hudson River Park. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa with an MFA in English from the Writers' Workshop and an MFA in Translation in Comparative Literature. She received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a graduate of The Chapin School in New York City. She taught at The Kew Forest School, Saint Peters University, Pepperdine University, Redlands University, and for the Spanish Department of the University of Iowa. In San Miguel de Tucumán she taught at Colegio Los Cerros and Escuela Normal Juan Bautista Alberdi. For the Fundación Vicente Lucci she taught indigent sugarcane workers how to read and write in a workshop she created called A los cuatro vientos/ To the Four Winds where autobiographies were written and shared with families of the adult students.

Alexandra Newton Rios translated the poetry of Chilean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral into English as her MFA thesis Gabriela Mistral: Voice of Fire and Cradle. She published her Mistral translations in Exchanges and Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art in the New World. She translated into English the poetry of Argentine Olga Orozco and Pablo Neruda. Her translations of seventeen long poems of Argentine Néstor Groppa formed part of Seven Poets of the Northwest: Portrait of a Land for the University of Iowa’s Comparative Literature Department as a doctoral candidate. She translated the lives of sixty women from 1000 Peacewomen Across the Globe for the Swiss Foundation 1000 Peacewomen For the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. She translated twenty three poems by Marvin Bell into Spanish for a translation collaboration called Deluge/Diluvio to be published in Argentina. She participated in 2004, 2009 and 2010 as a bilingual writer in the Buenos Aires international Book Fair invited by the American Embassy. Alexandra Newton Rios translates all of her work. Cielo. Cielo. Cielo., The Grace Poems/Poemas de la gracia and Amaicha: Language Lost and Found are three bilingual editions she translated for publication by Ediciones Magna in Argentina. She turned to nonfiction to write about life in a third world country with The Light of Argentina: a Philosophy Diary Conversations with Hannah Arendt. (Bio: Website)

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Shared Studios Workshop for Grades K-5.

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Join Shared_Studios for a global poetry tour that takes you to the Ivory Coast, Rwanda and the United Arab Emirates. In this webinar, you will hear performances from Marie Foolchand (@laframbuesaa), Kaya Byinshii  (@kayabyinshii) and Rushongoza Begumya (rushongoza.wordpress.com) in French and Arabic where they cover themes such as home, the environment and what it means to be a human. They will share how they stay inspired and discuss their writing process, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Shared Studios French Language Workshop for students grades 6-8.

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Join Rwandan poet Kaya Byinshii as she leads an interactive workshop in French. Kaya will guide students through a writing exercise that uses found objects as a source of inspiration and explores poetry tools such as rhythm and rhyming to personalize and add color to their pieces.

Alexandra Newton Rios, bilingual, bi-hemispherical poet, translator and teacher lives in the small city of San Miguel de Tucumán, one of the poorest regions of northwestern Argentina and Manhattan near the Hudson River Park. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa with an MFA in English from the Writers' Workshop and an MFA in Translation in Comparative Literature. She received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a graduate of The Chapin School in New York City. She taught at The Kew Forest School, Saint Peters University, Pepperdine University, Redlands University, and for the Spanish Department of the University of Iowa. In San Miguel de Tucumán she taught at Colegio Los Cerros and Escuela Normal Juan Bautista Alberdi. For the Fundación Vicente Lucci she taught indigent sugarcane workers how to read and write in a workshop she created called A los cuatro vientos/ To the Four Winds where autobiographies were written and shared with families of the adult students.

Alexandra Newton Rios translated the poetry of Chilean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral into English as her MFA thesis Gabriela Mistral: Voice of Fire and Cradle. She published her Mistral translations in Exchanges and Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art in the New World. She translated into English the poetry of Argentine Olga Orozco and Pablo Neruda. Her translations of seventeen long poems of Argentine Néstor Groppa formed part of Seven Poets of the Northwest: Portrait of a Land for the University of Iowa’s Comparative Literature Department as a doctoral candidate. She translated the lives of sixty women from 1000 Peacewomen Across the Globe for the Swiss Foundation 1000 Peacewomen For the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. She translated twenty three poems by Marvin Bell into Spanish for a translation collaboration called Deluge/Diluvio to be published in Argentina. She participated in 2004, 2009 and 2010 as a bilingual writer in the Buenos Aires international Book Fair invited by the American Embassy. Alexandra Newton Rios translates all of her work. Cielo. Cielo. Cielo., The Grace Poems/Poemas de la gracia and Amaicha: Language Lost and Found are three bilingual editions she translated for publication by Ediciones Magna in Argentina. She turned to nonfiction to write about life in a third world country with The Light of Argentina: a Philosophy Diary Conversations with Hannah Arendt. (Bio: Website)

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Alea Adigweme is an anti-disciplinary Igbo-Vincentian-U.S.-ian cultural worker active in the fields of creative writing, book arts, performance, installation, and visual media. She's the author of the poetry chapbook birdbolt idolatry (dancing girl press, 2015), and has exhibited at Public Space One in Iowa City. Her first experimental short film, [untitled], screened in competition at the 31st-annual New Orleans Film Festival in November 2020. 

After earning a BA in Russian literature at Reed College, adigweme earned an MFA in nonfiction writing, an MA in media studies, and a graduate certificate in gender, women's, and sexuality studies from the University of Iowa. She is currently based in Tovaangar, the unceded Tongva territory commonly known as Los Angeles, where she is a second-year MFA student in interdisciplinary studio art at UCLA. More information about her work can be found on her website: www.alea.me.

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Alea Adigweme will read her work and hold a question and answer session.

Alea Adigweme is an anti-disciplinary Igbo-Vincentian-U.S.-ian cultural worker active in the fields of creative writing, book arts, performance, installation, and visual media. She's the author of the poetry chapbook birdbolt idolatry (dancing girl press, 2015), and has exhibited at Public Space One in Iowa City. Her first experimental short film, [untitled], screened in competition at the 31st-annual New Orleans Film Festival in November 2020. 

After earning a BA in Russian literature at Reed College, adigweme earned an MFA in nonfiction writing, an MA in media studies, and a graduate certificate in gender, women's, and sexuality studies from the University of Iowa. She is currently based in Tovaangar, the unceded Tongva territory commonly known as Los Angeles, where she is a second-year MFA student in interdisciplinary studio art at UCLA. More information about her work can be found on her website: www.alea.me.

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Alea will read from her own creative work and speak to process and craft.

Poupeh Missaghi  is a writer, a translator both into and out of Persian, an editor, and an educator. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Denver, an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, and an MA in translation studies. Her debut novel trans(re)lating house one was published by Coffee House Press in February 2020. Her nonfiction, fiction, and translations have appeared in numerous journals, and she has several books of translation published in Iran. I’ll Be Strong for You, her translation of Iranian author Nasim Marashi’s novel, is forthcoming in spring 2021. As an editor, she worked for many years with Asymptote and is co-editor of Matters of Feminist Practice from Belladonna* Collaborative. She is currently a visiting assistant professor at the Department of Writing at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, a faculty mentor at the low-residency MFA of Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, as well as a writing consultant at Baruch College, CUNY, NY. 

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In this workshop, we will focus mainly on sound: listening to/documenting/experimenting with sound as creative/archival/political work. We will explore and discuss the sounds in our environment, sounds from the past, sound as a political tool, sound as a means toward healing, the sounds of language, etc. Students will do some writing on sound-related prompts. 

Prior to workshop, you are invited to pay more conscious attention to the presence of the sound element in your life and in the works of art you engage with.  

Shirly Someck was born in Israel in 1991. After graduating her B.Sc. in Physics and Philosophy, she started her PhD in neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. She was the subeditor of "Teza", the Tel Aviv University Journal for three years. In 2019 she co-founded "Women who Brain", a forum for PhD female students. Outside of campus, Ms. Someck wrote two children’s books with Ronny Someck ("The Button of Laughter" and "Monkey Tough, Monkey Bluff"), dance ballet, and write food reviews in "Primadonna" Magazine.

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Shirly Someck will read the English translation of Monkey Tough, Monkey Bluff, a book she co-wrote in Hebrew with Ronny Someck. She will talk about it and answer questions.

Shirly Someck was born in Israel in 1991. After graduating her B.Sc. in Physics and Philosophy, she started her PhD in neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. She was the subeditor of "Teza", the Tel Aviv University Journal for three years. In 2019 she co-founded "Women who Brain", a forum for PhD female students. Outside of campus, Ms. Someck wrote two children’s books with Ronny Someck ("The Button of Laughter" and "Monkey Tough, Monkey Bluff"), dance ballet, and write food reviews in "Primadonna" Magazine.

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Shirly Someck will read the English translation of Monkey Tough, Monkey Bluff, a book she co-wrote in Hebrew with Ronny Someck. She will talk about it and answer questions. 
 

"Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His new poem, Be Holding, was released from the University of Pittsburgh Press in September of 2020. His collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released by Algonquin Books in 2019. Ross is also the co-author, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, of the chapbook "Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens," in addition to being co-author, with Rosechard Wehrenberg, of the chapbook, "River."  He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin', in addition to being an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press.  Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He also works on The Tenderness Project with Shayla Lawson and Essence London. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University." (Bio: Website /Photo: Natasha Komoda)

Ronny Someck was born in Baghdad in 1951 and came to Israel as a young child. He has published 13 volumes of poetry (the last called “so much god "), and two books for children with Shirly Someck. He was translated into 43 languages. Selections of his poems have appeared in Arabic translation, French, Catalan, Albanian, Italian, Macedonian, Yiddish, Croatian, Nepali, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Spanish, Germen, Turkish, Russian and English. He is a recipient of "The Wine poem award" in Struga Poetry Evenings, Macedonia, 2005, and the Hans Berghhuis prize for poetry, Holland, 2006. He was awarded the Cross of The Order of The Knights of Poland and with the insignia of knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.

Christopher Merrill has published six collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction, among them, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War, and Self-Portrait with Dogwood. His writings have been translated into nearly forty languages; his journalism appears widely; his honors include a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government, numerous translation awards, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial and Ingram Merrill Foundations. As director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa since 2000, Merrill has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than fifty countries. He served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO from 2011-2018, and in April 2012 President Barack Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities. www.christophermerrillbooks.com

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Ronny Someck  will read his poems in Hebrew. Director of the International Writing Program, Christopher Merrill, will read the English translation. The poems that were chosen will present the Biography of Ronny, his attitude to family, to love and to society in general. Ronny will talk in between reading and will present the idea of the poem. 
 

"Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His new poem, Be Holding, was released from the University of Pittsburgh Press in September of 2020. His collection of essays, The Book of Delights, was released by Algonquin Books in 2019. Ross is also the co-author, with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, of the chapbook "Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens," in addition to being co-author, with Rosechard Wehrenberg, of the chapbook, "River."  He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin', in addition to being an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press.  Ross is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He also works on The Tenderness Project with Shayla Lawson and Essence London. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Ross teaches at Indiana University." (Bio: Website /Photo: Natasha Komoda)

Haifa Abu Al-Nadi  is a fiction writer, translator, and university lecturer in Amman, Jordan. A 2018 IWP Resident (Iowa, USA), representing Jordan, as a writer and translator, courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department. She received her M.A. in English language and literature from the University of Jordan, and is a member of the Jordanian Association of Translators and Applied Linguists (JATAL). Her publications include “On the Eve of a Dream” and “Propositions,” published by Azminah in Jordan; “The World of Theater” in translation with Azminah and Fujairah Culture & Media Authority in the United Arab Emirates; From Casks of My Wine: States of a Woman in Twenty Poems, by Gabriela Mistral with Azminah; “Water: Nature and Culture” with the Kalima Project for Translation in the UAE; “Pupils as Playwrights,” “Seeing Darkness. Hearing Silence,” and “Imagination and Creativity in Childhood” with the A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Educational Research and Development Programme (Palestine). A Participant of “TARJEM: Arabic-English & English-Arabic Translation Workshop,” from 13 – 15 Feb. 2020 with 11 translators from various parts of the world. This specialized developmental workshop was organized by the Sharjah World Book Capital 2019 (WBC) in collaboration with the British Council (UK), the British Council (UAE), the New Writing North (UK), and Kalimat Group (Publishing House/ UAE). She is currently translating a book entitled “An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba,” edited by Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha with Al-A’edoun Publishers.  

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Shared Studios Workshop for Grades K-5.

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In this Shared_Studios event, you will meet a diverse group of poets and performers representing Uganda, Belgium-Burundi and Canada. Hear performances from Aminata Bamba - aka Amee (@amee_slam), Kagayi Ngobi (@kagayi_ngobi) and Joy Slam (www.joyslampoesie.com) in languages such as French and Luganda.  These artists have varied performance styles, from spoken word and slam poetry to lyrical poems. Their work touches on racial equality, being a member of the African Diaspora and indigenous traditions. They will share what has drawn them to this artform  and discuss their creative process, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Shared Studios French Language Workshop for students grades 6-8.

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In this connection, Joy, an award winning poet  who lives between Belgium and Burundi will lead students through this French poetry writing workshop by exploring kasàlà, an African poetic form recited to celebrate and express positive images of yourself.

Tomasia is a poet, media maker and communications specialist who is dedicated to community development. She interrogates issues of race, class and gender with her work and seeks to address social inequity through her art and career. She has been a teaching artist, has founded, directed and managed two community-based arts organizations and has worked to provide media arts and digital literacy programming to under-served NYC communities. Tomasia has also performed in NYC’s legendary venues like Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Blue Note and Joe’s Pub as well as NYC’s notorious jails on Riker’s Island. Tomasia has opened for the legendary poet Gil Scott Heron and has performed with the likes of grammy-nominated Me’Shell NdegeOcello. She has recorded one album, one EP and is a featured artist on many records including Ursula Rucker’s (of Roots fame) album Ruckus Soundsysdom, produced by King Britt. According to Okayplayer, “Tomasia’s rhymes are like a hybrid between MC Lyte and Angela Davis, a poisonous combination.” Tomasia’s documentary about racial ambiguity in America, entitled Middle Passage, has been screened at the International Center of Photography. She holds a Master’s Degree in Media Studies from the New School and currently works as communications manager for Partnerships for Parks where she uses new media to ensure NYC communities have agency and access to safe and beautiful parks. Tomasia lives in Brooklyn with her 15 year old daughter, Twilight Jones, who loves to make her freestyle in the car while they drive through the city streets.

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Tomasia Jones will lead a workshop on Rap, Poetry and Revolutionary Art.

Alexandra Newton Rios, bilingual, bi-hemispherical poet, translator and teacher lives in the small city of San Miguel de Tucumán, one of the poorest regions of northwestern Argentina and Manhattan near the Hudson River Park. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa with an MFA in English from the Writers' Workshop and an MFA in Translation in Comparative Literature. She received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a graduate of The Chapin School in New York City. She taught at The Kew Forest School, Saint Peters University, Pepperdine University, Redlands University, and for the Spanish Department of the University of Iowa. In San Miguel de Tucumán she taught at Colegio Los Cerros and Escuela Normal Juan Bautista Alberdi. For the Fundación Vicente Lucci she taught indigent sugarcane workers how to read and write in a workshop she created called A los cuatro vientos/ To the Four Winds where autobiographies were written and shared with families of the adult students.

Alexandra Newton Rios translated the poetry of Chilean Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral into English as her MFA thesis Gabriela Mistral: Voice of Fire and Cradle. She published her Mistral translations in Exchanges and Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art in the New World. She translated into English the poetry of Argentine Olga Orozco and Pablo Neruda. Her translations of seventeen long poems of Argentine Néstor Groppa formed part of Seven Poets of the Northwest: Portrait of a Land for the University of Iowa’s Comparative Literature Department as a doctoral candidate. She translated the lives of sixty women from 1000 Peacewomen Across the Globe for the Swiss Foundation 1000 Peacewomen For the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. She translated twenty three poems by Marvin Bell into Spanish for a translation collaboration called Deluge/Diluvio to be published in Argentina. She participated in 2004, 2009 and 2010 as a bilingual writer in the Buenos Aires international Book Fair invited by the American Embassy. Alexandra Newton Rios translates all of her work. Cielo. Cielo. Cielo., The Grace Poems/Poemas de la gracia and Amaicha: Language Lost and Found are three bilingual editions she translated for publication by Ediciones Magna in Argentina. She turned to nonfiction to write about life in a third world country with The Light of Argentina: a Philosophy Diary Conversations with Hannah Arendt. (Bio: Website)

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Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series “Def Poetry Jam.” A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, he is the author of four collections of poetry and a chapbook, The Whetting Stone, which won the 2017 Rattle Chapbook Prize. He is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction book, What Teachers Make: In Praise of the Greatest Job in the World. In April of 2012, Mali donated 12 inches of his hair to the American Cancer Society Mali after convincing 1,000 people to become teachers. He lives in Brooklyn where he curates the Page Meets Stage reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club. (Bio: Website)

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Spanish Language translation workshop with Alexandra Newton Rios & Kyabell Glass.

Tehila Hakimi is an award-winning Hebrew poet and fiction writer. She was a participant of the 2018 Fulbright International Writing Program Fellowship in The University of Iowa. For her first collection of poetry [We’ll Work Tomorrow, 2014] she received the Prize for Emerging Poets by the Ministry of Culture (2014) and the 2015 Bernstein Prize for Literature. She published a graphic novel [In the Water] and a collection of novellas [Company] with Resling (2018). She was awarded the National Library’s Pardes Scholarship for writers 2019 and the 2018 Levi Eshkol Prize for Hebrew Writers. Hakimi is a mechanical engineer by profession. 

Tehila Hakimi is a poet and fiction writer of Hebrew, in her works she plays with genres and structures. She will read and share thoughts from her second book, In the Water, a graphic novel in collaboration with artist Liron Cohen.

 

Batsirai Chigama (Zimbabwe) is a performer, poet, literary activist, and social commentator. City of Asylum described her work as “surprising, shocking, and skilfully deliberate work,” and “a breath-taking embodiment of grief.” Chigama’s debut collection, “Gather The Children,” won Outstanding First Creative Published Book at the National Arts Merit Awards in 2019.  In the same year she was an honorary fellow at the International Writing Programme (IWP) at Iowa University. Her work with young people, has taken her as far as Denmark, performing and facilitating creative writing and spoken word workshops in schools.

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Poupeh Missaghi  is a writer, a translator both into and out of Persian, an editor, and an educator. She holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Denver, an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, and an MA in translation studies. Her debut novel trans(re)lating house one was published by Coffee House Press in February 2020. Her nonfiction, fiction, and translations have appeared in numerous journals, and she has several books of translation published in Iran. I’ll Be Strong for You, her translation of Iranian author Nasim Marashi’s novel, is forthcoming in spring 2021. As an editor, she worked for many years with Asymptote and is co-editor of Matters of Feminist Practice from Belladonna* Collaborative. She is currently a visiting assistant professor at the Department of Writing at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, a faculty mentor at the low-residency MFA of Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, as well as a writing consultant at Baruch College, CUNY, NY. 

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During this workshop my reading will come from my own creative work and speak to process and craft choices. This event will also include a Q&A.
 

Juan Felipe Herrera is the 21st Poet Laureate of the United States (2015-2016) and is the first Latino to hold the position. From 2012-2014, Herrera served as California State Poet Laureate. Herrera’s many collections of poetry include Every Day We Get More Illegal; Notes on the Assemblage; Senegal Taxi; Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems, a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross The Border: Undocuments 1971-2007. He is also the author of Crashboomlove: A Novel in Verse, which received the Americas Award. His books of prose for children include: SkateFate, Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award; Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical for young audiences in New York City; and Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box. His book Jabberwalking, a children’s book focused on turning your wonder at the world around you into weird, wild, incandescent poetry, came out in 2018. Herrera is also a performance artist and activist on behalf of migrant and indigenous communities and at-risk youth. (Bio: Website)

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Batsirai Chigama (Zimbabwe) is a performer, poet, literary activist, and social commentator. City of Asylum described her work as “surprising, shocking, and skilfully deliberate work,” and “a breath-taking embodiment of grief.” Chigama’s debut collection, “Gather The Children,” won Outstanding First Creative Published Book at the National Arts Merit Awards in 2019.  In the same year she was an honorary fellow at the International Writing Programme (IWP) at Iowa University. Her work with young people, has taken her as far as Denmark, performing and facilitating creative writing and spoken word workshops in schools.

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Haifa Abu Al-Nadi Add Photo: is a fiction writer, translator, and university lecturer in Amman, Jordan. A 2018 IWP Resident (Iowa, USA), representing Jordan, as a writer and translator, courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the U.S. State Department. She received her M.A. in English language and literature from the University of Jordan, and is a member of the Jordanian Association of Translators and Applied Linguists (JATAL). Her publications include “On the Eve of a Dream” and “Propositions,” published by Azminah in Jordan; “The World of Theater” in translation with Azminah and Fujairah Culture & Media Authority in the United Arab Emirates; From Casks of My Wine: States of a Woman in Twenty Poems, by Gabriela Mistral with Azminah; “Water: Nature and Culture” with the Kalima Project for Translation in the UAE; “Pupils as Playwrights,” “Seeing Darkness. Hearing Silence,” and “Imagination and Creativity in Childhood” with the A. M. Qattan Foundation’s Educational Research and Development Programme (Palestine). A Participant of “TARJEM: Arabic-English & English-Arabic Translation Workshop,” from 13 – 15 Feb. 2020 with 11 translators from various parts of the world. This specialized developmental workshop was organized by the Sharjah World Book Capital 2019 (WBC) in collaboration with the British Council (UK), the British Council (UAE), the New Writing North (UK), and Kalimat Group (Publishing House/ UAE). She is currently translating a book entitled “An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba,” edited by Nahla Abdo and Nur Masalha with Al-A’edoun Publishers.  

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Come meet BTL alumni from around the world who will perform their original work and discuss how they’ve turned their love of writing into action during the pandemic! Following their readings, BTL alumni will share details about their literary start-ups––all founded by young writers who met during the BTL: Peace and the Writing Experience 2020 virtual program hosted by the International Writing Program––and include Aster Lit & Ad Aster @aster.lit, an international youth literary community, magazine, and podcast; The World in Us @the_world_in_us, seeking to eliminate cultural ignorance from its roots and cultivate the next generation of global citizens; The Fine Print @thefineprint_society, Sri Lanka's first youth literary society; Perceptions @perceptions.international, illuminating the multitude of voices and stories from the disability community; and Bridge to Literacy @bridgetoliteracy, striving to foster a love of language through literacy, just to name a few! Funding for these projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs via the International Writing Program and the University of Iowa as the implementing partners. 
 

Elisha Aflalo is currently a junior at Bennington College where she studies poetry, printmaking, and video art.  Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, she has previously worked with A Public Space and Charming Stranger Films,, where she wrote and directed a short film, Running Deep, that was accepted and shown in the Bennington Alumni Film Festival.  As an Asian-American artist, Elisha aims to explore her identity as a first generation American college student through combining her visual art and poetry in form-bending ways.

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Gerardo Azpiri Iglesias is a student at Bennington College, where he studies Literature and Writing, and a graduate from the creative writing program at Interlochen Arts Academy. His work was awarded first place in the category of nonfiction for the Bennington Young Writers Awards 2019, and was named Finalist for the Adroit Prize for Poetry 2020, among other awards.

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Dabin Jeong (she|her) is a student at Bennington College studying Art History and Literature/Creative Writing (Poetry). Her work explores East Asian representation, Asian/American identity, and the immigrant experience through creative and academic praxis. Her translation of a Korean poet Lee Hyemi’s “Solitary of Dance” appeared on Chogwa zine.

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Delilah Silberman is a senior at Bennington College, studying photography and poetry. She has a poem forthcoming in the magazine Hobart, and this fall will enroll as a graduate student in poetry in the MFA program at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

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Ahwar Sultan is a junior at Bennington College. He studies philosophy and history, and is currently a Bennington Museum Fellow, spending the term interning for major cultural institutions in New York City.