October Lyrics & Dirges!

Leticia Hernández-Linares
Angela Hume
Bonnie Wailee Kwong
Aqueila M. Lewis
Anne Raeff

Hosted and curated by Sharon Coleman

Leticia Hernández-Linares is an award-winning writer and community worker. She has performed her poemsongs throughout the country and in El Salvador. Her work has appeared in Street Art San Francisco, U.S. Latino Literature Today, Teatro bajo mi piel, Huizache, and Pilgrimage among other publications. A member of the CantoMundo Organizing Committee, she lives, writes, and works in the Mission District of San Francisco.

Angela Hume lives in Oakland. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks Melos (Projective Industries, 2015), The Middle (Omnidawn, 2013) and Second Story of your Body (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2011). Her first full-length book of poetry is Middle Time (Omnidawn, 2016). You can learn more about Angela http://angelamhume.tumblr.com/.

Bonnie Wailee Kwong’s first poetry collection is ravel, a finalist for the Many Voices Project by New Rivers Press, and the White Pine Press Poetry Prize. Her work in poetry and fiction has garnered several Pushcart nominations. She creates in many mediums and languages: English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, ruby, and javascript. She is currently artist-in-residence at Stanford University. Her website is: www.bonniekwong.info.

Aqueila M. Lewis is an award-winning writer, Bay Area native and resident of Oakland, CA. As a multi-talented artist and poet, she is also well versed in journalism (print and radio) composing, singing, poetry/spoken word, modeling as a plus-model. She also currently holds the titles as Ms. Oakland Plus America 2014 and SF Raw Performing Artist of the Year 2015. Aqueila’s articles have been published in numerous publication and on radio such as 94.1 FM KPFA Radio’s First Voice Media Apprenticeship Program and Full Circle Show, Sideshow Radio, After Hours Radio, All the Rest of US Radio on 89.3 FM KPFB, National Radio Project Making Contact Storytelling Fellowship, Sistah’s With Ink Voices Anthology, Reflections: A Collaboration Between Painting And Literature, In Her Soul Magazine, Til Death Do Us Part Lady Warrior Zine and Walking in the Feminine: Stepping in our Shoes Anthology. Aqueila is currently a CounterPulse Communications Fellow, Liminal Writers-in Residence and creates workshops and circles focused on issues in relation to social justice and community.

Anne Raeff’s stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, ZYZZYVA, and Guernica among other places. Her first novel Clara Mondshien’s Melancholia was published in 2002 (MacAdam/Cage). Her short story collection, The Jungle Around Us won the 2016 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. She is proud to be a high school teacher and works primarily with recent immigrants. She too is a child of immigrants and much of her writing draws on her family’s history as refugees from war and the Holocaust. She lives in San Francisco with her wife and two cats.