Palabra Pura “Forgiveness and Memory”

Curated by Yolanda Nieves with featured poets Lisa Alvarado & Kristiana Rae Colón

Curator

Dr. Yolanda Nieves, Assistant Professor, English, Wilbur Wright College Chicago, is creative director of The Vida Bella Ensemble, is part of Teatro Luna’s PlayLab series and her La Matadora/Steel Flags will be produced by Chicago’s Landmark Project Fall 2011. She won the American Educational Research Association’s 2010 Arts-Based Dissertation of the Year Award for the performance-text, The Brown Girls’ Chronicles:  Puerto Rican Women & Resilience. Her degrees include a Ed.D., Master’s in Organizational Development, and B.A. in English and Education.

Featured Readers

Lisa Alvarado is an educator, poet, novelist, and journalist, the founder of La Onda Negra Press, author of Reclamo and The Housekeeper’s Diary; originally a book of poetry and now a one-woman performance. Her first novel, Sister Chicas, Penguin/NAL, was released in April 2006. The novel is a coming of age story concerning the lives of three young Latinas living in Chicago. It won 2nd place, Best First Novel in English. (Latino Literacy Now/2007)

Her book of poetry, Raw Silk Suture, released by Floricanto Press in 2008, was reviewed by Rigoberto Gonzalez. She has curated multimedia exhibits, mounted her own multimedia piece, Reclamo in the Pilsen art corridor in Chicago; and is currently a contributor to the nationally touring exhibit, Re-imagining the Distaff Toolkit, curated by Ricki Solinger/SUNY.

Lisa is the recipient of grants from the Department of Cultural Affairs, The NEA, and the Ragdale Foundation. In Fall, 2009, she was awarded Hispanic Author of the Year by the State of Illinois. In 2010, she contributed to HaLapid, The Journal for the Study of Crypto-Judaism. In 2011, she contributed to Me No Habla with Acento, edited by Emanuel Xaver, and released by Rebel Sartori Press, and Still, Life, essays and poetry.

Kristiana Rae Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, and educator living and working in Chicago. She has been featured on Power 92, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, WGN Radio, and WZRD. Kristiana has rocked the mic at some of the Midwest’s top venues including the Park West, the Metro, the Star Plaza Theater, the Aragon, Victory Gardens Theater, Darkroom, Subterranean, the Funky Buddha Lounge, as well as venues across the nation and abroad. Kristiana has shared stages with highly acclaimed writers Marc Smith, the creator of the worldwide ‘poetry slam’ phenomenon, Haki Madhubuti, Patricia Smith, Sonia Sanchez, Malik Yusef, Kevin Coval, Tara Betts, and has opened for De La Soul, Grammy-nominated band Ozomatli and internationally-acclaimed comedian Damon Williams.

Kristiana has served as an adjunct English and Humanities professor at Chicago State University, Malcolm X College, and Tribeca Flashpoint Academy. She is proud to have been nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize for her poem “severance” in Organs of Vision and Speech, as well as see her work anthologized in Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2010 and Haven Books’ Not a Muse collection. Kristiana’s work is also featured in Saul Williams’ anthology, Chorus: A Literary (Re)Mixtape, released by MTV Publishing in Summer 2012. Other recent publications include Pank, African American Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and the Logan Square Literary Review, among several other online and print journals. Kristiana is also an Assistant Editor for Muzzle, an online literary magazine.