A Reading For Change

May 10

Update! The So to Speak benefit reading for Casa Ruby was a powerful event! Thank you to all who attended and donated. We received TWO carloads full of donated goods, as well as funds to help Casa Ruby pay some bills. Epicure Cafe was packed with love and goodness, with warmth and generosity. Thank you to our four incredible readers! Thank you to our wonderful ASL translators.

And thank you to Ruby for mesmerizing and moving us with your words and your story. Thank you for all the work that you and your staff do at Casa Ruby. Thank you for your persistence, your heart. If we could all have giving hearts like Ruby.

Sarah Browning reading her poetry, accompanied by ASL translator Sarah

John Copenhaver reading his crime fiction

Jennifer Atkinson reading her poetry, accompanied by ASL translator Valerie

But let’s not let the goodness end here. If you want to figure out how to support Casa Ruby (either through donation or volunteering) please check out their website or contact us at So to Speak.

Photo Credits

Featured Image: Amanda Bender

Images of Readers & Ruby: 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.

A Reading For Change

Poem & Conversation With Sandra Marchetti

StS Reading for Casa Ruby