Gratitude

Written By Holly Mason

Thank you to everyone who came out to the So to Speak reading in support of  The Trans Women of Color Collective. Thank you to those of you who couldn’t make it to the event, but still supported by donating online. Thank you, most importantly, TWOCC/ Lourdes Ashley Hunter, for the incredible & necessary work that you do. And thank you dearly to our too-good-to-be-true line up of readers: Aaron Coleman,  Zeina Hashem Beck,  Oliver Baez Bendorf,  Eleadah Elle Clack, &  Armani Dae!

With everyone’s support we raised a tremendous amount of funding for the TWOCC. If you want to help support the work of this grass-roots organization, please visit their  website for more information.

Aaron Coleman reading from his chapbook, St. Trigger

Zeina Hashem Beck reading from her chapbook, 3arabi Song

Oliver Baez Bendorf reading from his book, The Spectral Wilderness

Eleadah R. Clack reading from “The World Without Racism: A Self Help Guide”

Lourdes Ashley Hunter introducing Armani Dae

Thank you to StS Assistant Editor, Kristen Brida, for collecting donations the entire reading!

Half of the crowd– thank you to ALL who came out to support!

Finally, we are so grateful to The Potter’s House in D.C. for not only allowing us to hold our event in your space, but for helping us run the event smoothly.

 

Photo Credits to So to Speak Poetry Editor Danielle Badra

Holly Mason

Holly Mason Badra is a queer, Kurdish American writer living in Northern Virginia. She is the curatorial editor of Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (The University of Arkansas Press). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Mizna, The Markaz Review, Everything is Political, Poet Lore, Manoa, Rowayat, Meridian, Asymptote, The Arkansas International, The Northern Virginia Review, The Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, SWWIM Everyday, Circumference Magazine, CALYX, and elsewhere. She is the associate director of Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. She reads for Poetry Daily and serves as the board vice-president of Henar Press.

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