Rally Reading Series + Words Without Borders: International Queer Writing

The Rally Reading Series and Words Without Borders invite you to a multilingual reading of queer writing from around the world, which will launch WWB’s eleventh annual Queer issue. Our exciting lineup includes Turkish writer Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu; Filipino writer R. Joseph Dazo and translator John Bengan; Italian poet Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto and translator Danielle Pieratti; and Jeffrey Angles, reading his translations of Japanese poet Mutsuo Takahashi’s work.

The readings will be followed by a Q&A. This virtual event is free, but we will also be raising funds for Shade Literary Arts’ Queer Writers of Color Relief Fund—donations are welcome upon registering and during the event. Tune in to see our terrific slate of readers and join the conversation with your own questions!

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT REQUIRES ADVANCE REGISTRATION, which you can do right here on Eventbrite. Upon registering, you will be signed up to receive the Zoom link thirty minutes prior to the event’s start time.

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Event Details:

Thursday, June 18 at 7PM EST

This virtual event is free. Donations for Queer Writers of Color Relief Fund are welcome.

Note: There will be closed-captioning for the English-language portion of the event and an accessibility packet will be available.

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More about the organizations and readers:

The Rally Reading Series showcases overtly political writing—it’s the heart of a march in the body of a reading series.

Words Without Borders expands cultural understanding through the translation, publication, and promotion of vital international voices in literature.

Shade Literary Arts’ Queer Writers of Color Relief Fund offers direct support to 100 queer writers of color who have been financially impacted by the current COVID-19 crisis. As vital sources of income for writers have ground to a halt with the cancellation of book tours, classes, and events, Shade Literary Arts is gathering funds to support the livelihood and work of queer writers of color.

Nazlı Karabıyıkoğlu is a Turkish author, now full-time resident in Georgia, who recently escaped political, cultural, and gender oppression in Turkey. She helped create the #MeToo movement within the Turkish publishing industry, from which she was then excommunicated. With an MA in Turkish language and literature from Bogazici University, Karabıyıkoğlu has published five books in Turkish and has recently completed translations of three new books for international publication. Having won six literary awards in her country, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Fiction in 2019 and won the UnCollected Press/Raw Art Review Full Length Book of Short Stories Prize for her book Subdermal Sky. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

R. Joseph Dazo teaches literature and creative writing to high school seniors at a public school in the City of Naga. He holds an MA in literature. He is also the author of a collection of gay short fiction in the Binisaya language, Ubang Gabii sa Mango Avenue (Kasingkasing Press, 2019), and co-editor of an anthology of queer literature in Binisaya, Libulan Binisayang Antolohiya sa Katitikang Queer (Cratos, 2018). He won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for his short fiction. He is the founding editor of Katitikan: Literary Journal of the Philippine South. He lives in the City of Talisay, Cebu.

John Bengan teaches in the Department of Humanities at the University of the Philippines Mindanao. His work has appeared in Likhaan 6, Kritika Kultura, BooksActually’s Gold Standard, and Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, among others. He holds an MFA in creative writing from The New School. A recipient of a Ford Foundation International Fellowship, he has won a Philippines Free Press Literary Award and the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for his short fiction. He lives in Davao City.

Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto was born in Sicily in 1994. She currently lives in Rome, where she graduated from Sapienza University with a degree in modern philology. Dolore Minimo (Minimal Pain), published in 2018, is her first book, and the first collection of Italian poetry to address the subject of transsexuality. With an introduction by Dacia Maraini and an afterword by Alessandro Fo, the book was featured in Italy’s major newspapers and won several prizes, including the Viareggio Opera Prima in 2019 for best debut. In February 2020, BUR Rizzoli published Giovanna’s second book of poems, Dove non siamo stati (Where We Have Not Been).

Danielle Pieratti’s poems and translations have appeared in the Paris Review, Boston Review, Sixth Finch, New Poetry in Translation, and other journals. Her first book, Fugitives (2016, Lost Horse Press), was selected by Kim Addonizio for the 2016 Idaho Prize and won the 2017 Connecticut Book Award for poetry. She is the author of two chapbooks: By the Dog Star, 2005 winner of the Edda Chapbook Competition for Women (Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press), and The Post, the Cage, the Palisade, published by Dancing Girl Press in 2015. She lives in Connecticut.

Jeffrey Angles is a poet, translator, and professor of Japanese literature at Western Michigan University. His collection of poetry Watashi no hizuke henkōsen (My International Date Line), which he wrote in Japanese, won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature, making him the first non-native speaker ever to win this award, comparable to the Pulitzer in the United States. In addition, he has published dozens of translations of Japan's most important modern authors and poets, earning numerous prizes for his translation work. He believes strongly in the role of translators as activists, and much of his career has focused on the translation into English of socially engaged, feminist, or queer writers.

Jeffrey Angles will be reading his translations of work by Mutsuo Takahashi, one of Japan's most prominent living poets, who has won almost every major poetry prize in the nation. Since first attracting the attention of the literary world in the 1960s with his bold poetic evocations of homoerotic desire, Takahashi has published dozens of books of poetry and many volumes of essays and literary criticism. His works available in English include the memoir Twelve Views from the Distance (University of Minnesota Press), translated by Jeffrey Angles.

Artwork by Tag Hartman-Simkins