Kundiman's Mentorship Lab Showcase, Dec 11 at Books are Magic

Kundiman presents a final reading to showcase the graduating fellows of Kundiman's 2019 Mentorship Lab on Wednesday December 11 at 7pm at Books are Magic on 225 Smith St. Brooklyn, New York 11231.   

This reading will celebrate the six-month mentorship program in its inaugural year, which consisted of three writers in each genre of Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, and Poetry, working closely with established Mentors: J. Mae Barizo (Poetry), T Kira Madden (Creative Nonfiction), and Bushra Rehman (Fiction)! The reading will feature both Mentors and Mentorship Fellows, which includes: June Daowen Lei; Ananya Kanai Shah; Shrima; Divya Nair; Danielle Batalion Ola; Pik-Shuen Fung; Julie Ae Kim; Paul Aster Stone-Tsao with Kimarlee Nguyen.

J. Mae Barizo is the author of The Cumulus Effect (Four Way Books). She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from Bennington College, the Jerome Foundation, and Poets House. A prize-winning poet, critic and performer, recent work appears in AGNI, Bookforum, Boston Review and Los Angeles Review of Books. A classically-trained musician and a champion of cross-genre work, J. Mae has performed sound/text collaborations with Salman Rushdie, film composer Paul Cantelon, and many more. She has performed with Mark Morris Dance Group, Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Kanye West and Pharrell, among others. She teaches writing at Poets House, the New School and Pratt School of Architecture. She lives in New York City.

T Kira Madden is a queer, APIA writer, photographer, and amateur magician. She is the founding Editor-in-chief of No Tokens, and facilitates writing workshops for homeless and formerly incarcerated individuals. A 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in nonfiction literature, she is the author of the memoir LONG LIVE THE TRIBE OF FATHERLESS GIRLS (Bloomsbury). She lives in New York City and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Bushra Rehman has co-edited the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism. She has written an autobiographical novel titled Corona. Her latest work, Marianna’s Beauty Salon, is a collection of poems. Rehman has received awards and residencies from the Jerome Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Cave Canem, Center for Book Arts, Cullman Center for Teachers, Kundiman, Hedgebrook, Soul Mountain Retreat, Norcroft, Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation and Headlands Center for the Arts. She has served as a teaching artist for Poet’s House, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Urban Word NYC, and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

This event is free and open to the public. More info about the mentorship program can be found here: www.kundiman.org/mentorship-lab