AAWW FAM: Mouth to Mouth Open Mic
Kit Yan, Sonia Guiñansaca, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, and Kay Ulanday Barrett
AAWW FAM: Mouth to Mouth Open Mic

Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our next edition of our open mic, Mouth to Mouth. Hosted by AAWW Fam poets Sonia Guiñansaca and Kay Ulanday Barrett, this edition of Mouth to Mouth features Kit Yan and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo. Mouth to Mouth seeks to provide a safe community space for QTPOC and rising migrant artists.

Kit Yan, Playwright/Poet/Performer/Lyricist, is a trans Asian-American Brooklyn based artist by the way of Hawaii. Kit’s QUEER HEARTACHE (The I.D. Festival at the American Repertory Theater, IRT Theater, Chicago Fringe, Transgender Theater Festival at the Brick Theater, San Francisco Fringe) is a must-see Theater experience described by Fringe Review as “a testament to the resilience of queer love in all its forms—between cis and trans siblings, lovers, pride parade attendees, and many more—in the face of heartbreaking barriers everywhere.” Kit is currently working on a theatrical poetry investigation that has been supported by a fellowship from the Civilians R&D Group. It focuses on the effect of testosterone on transgender bodies aiming to disrupt common transgender narratives that reinforce binary happiness and the “born into the wrong body” story.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a 2016-2017 Steinbeck Fellow, former Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grantee, and the author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016) — an excerpt of this feminist collection can be found on Angels Flight Literary West Mag. She’s received residencies from Hedgebrook and Ragdale Foundation and is a member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop. Her work is published in Acentos Review, CALYX, crazyhorse, and The James Franco Review among others. You can check out a short dramatization of her poem “Our Lady of the Water Gallons,” directed by Jesús Salvador Treviño, on latintopia . She is the curator of HITCHEd and a cofounder of Women Who Submit with a piece on Submission as Social Action on Lunch Ticket.

Sonia Guiñansaca is a Queer Migrant Feminist Poet , Cultural Organizer, and Activist from Harlem by way of Ecuador. In 2007, Guiñansaca came out publicly as an undocumented immigrant. Since then she has co-founded and help build some of the largest undocumented organizations in the country, coordinating and participating in groundbreaking civil disobedience actions in the immigrant rights movement. She is a VONA/Voices alumni who has performed at El Museo Del Barrio, The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NY Poetry Festival, Galleria de La Raza, and featured on NBC, PBS, Latina Magazine, Pen American, and the Poetry Foundation to name a few. Praised as badass in 1 of 10 Up and Coming Latinx Poets You Need to Know by Remezcla, as well as one of 13 Coolest Queers on the Internet by Teen Vogue. Guiñansaca was recently announced as the 2017’s Artist in Residency at NYU’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, performer, and educator, navigating life as a disabled pilipinx amerikan transgender queer in the U.S. with struggle, resistance, and laughter. When The Chant Comes (Topside Heliotrope 2016) is their first collection. K. has been invited to The White House, Princeton University, UC Berkeley, The Lincoln Center, Queens Museum, and The Chicago Historical Society to name a few. They are a fellow of both The Home School and Drunken Boat. Their contributions are found in PBS News Hour, Lambda Literary, RaceForward, Foglifter, The Deaf Poets Society, Poor Magazine, Fusion.net, Trans Bodies/Trans Selves, Winter Tangerine, Make/Shift, Third Woman Press, The Advocate, and Bitch Magazine. You can read their interview with PBS on poetry as a testimony to survival here.

RESERVE A SEAT!
$5 SUGGESTED DONATION | OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | DOORS OPEN AT 6:00

NOTE ON ACCESSIBILITY
*The space is wheelchair accessible. No stairs. Direct elevator from ground floor to 6th floor.
*We strongly encourage all participants of the space/event to be scent-free.
If you all have any other specific questions about accessibility, please email Tracy Wong at twong [at] aaww.org with any questions on reserving priority seating.

Photo Credit: AV Dezign

AAWW FAM: Mouth to Mouth Open Mic

Kit Yan, Sonia Guiñansaca, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, and Kay Ulanday Barrett
Monday, March 27, 2017
7:00 PM
$0.00
Asian American Writers’ Workshop
112 W 27th Street, 6th Floor
New York NY 10001
Upcoming Events
March 22 7:00 PM
[In-Person] In Celebration of: Put It On Record
Later this month, join AAWW for an evening woven of word, song, and dance with Sokunthary Svay, Anthony Lanni, and allia abdullah-matta!
March 25 7:00 PM
[IN-PERSON] LISA KO: MEMORY PIECE W/ AVA CHIN
Join Yu & Me Books and AAWW to celebrate Lisa Ko's new novel with Lisa and Ava Chin. MEMORY PIECE is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.
March 26 6:00 PM
[IN-PERSON] PARUL KAPUR W/ SANGAMITHRA IYER
Join Yu & Me Books and AAWW to celebrate Parul Kapur's new novel, winner of the AWP Prize for the Novel, INSIDE THE MIRROR. Set in the aftermath of colonialism, as an impoverished India struggles to remake itself into a modern state, Jaya's story encompasses art, history, political revolt, love, and women's ambition to seize their own power. Parul will be in conversation with Sangamithra Iyer!