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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20240411T183000
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DTSTAMP:20260423T124817
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SUMMARY:Nikki Patin Book Release
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the book release event for Nikki Patin’s new memoir\, Working on Me. The event will include a reading and discussion with Denise Ruiz\, owner and founder of The Honeycomb Network; a book signing; DJ set with Duane Powell; and light refreshments.  \n\n\n\n$10 general admission\, $20 for admission + copy of the book \n\n\n\nAbout the Book:  \n\n\n\nWorking on Me chronicles the dysfunction and lore of a Black Russian Jewish interracial family on the far south side of Chicago\, and the resulting trajectory of its prodigal child: multifaceted\, multidisciplinary artist\, performer\, and sexual and domestic violence survivor Nikki Patin.   \n\n\n\nA meditation on the biomythography genre defined by Audre Lorde\, Maxine Hong Kingston\, and Joy Harjo\, Working on Me lyrically dances in and out of different voices and perspectives in order to get to something like the truth. Patin’s prowess as a poet and a songwriter is reflected in prose that is brutal\, beautiful\, and brave.  \n\n\n\nWorking on Me is about what it means to work on oneself to heal and break patterns of harm and violence and what makes the healing necessary in the first place: all the forces beyond our control that work on us. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout the Author: Featured in The Guardian\, Chicago Tribune\, the Chicago Reader\, on WBEZ\, WTTW\, FoxSoul\, and on international television and radio\, Nikki Patin has been writing\, performing\, educating\, and advocating for over two decades. She has taught workshops on performance poetry\, body image\, sexual assault prevention and LGBT issues for over 20 years.  \n\n\n\nPatin has performed\, taught and spoken at the University of Chicago\, Northwestern University\, Cook County Jail\, Rikers Island prison\, University of Michigan\, University of Wisconsin- Madison\, EXPO Chicago\, Black Artists Retreat\, Brooklyn Museum\, and the National Black Theater in Harlem and many other spaces throughout the U.S.\, New Zealand\, and Australia.    \n\n\n\nIn 2014\, Patin addressed the United Nations in Geneva\, Switzerland on behalf of Black women survivors of sexual violence in the U.S. Nikki Patin holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine and is founder and Executive Producer of Surviving the Mic\, a survivor-led organization that uplifts the narratives and artistic excellence of writers and performers impacted by sexual harm and trauma.
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/nikki-patin-book-release/
LOCATION:The Honeycomb Network\, 2659 W Division St.\, Chicago\, Illinois\, 60622
CATEGORIES:Applied Words
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20240420T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20240420T160000
DTSTAMP:20260423T124817
CREATED:20240405T222637Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240405T223443Z
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SUMMARY:National Poetry Month Event @ Blanc Gallery
DESCRIPTION:For National Poetry Month\, the Guild Complex offers a special program featuring the newly minted Indiana State poet Laureate Curtis Crisler\, alongside the current Illinois Poet Laureate and the most prolific Miss Angela Jackson.   \n\n\n\nThe program will also feature special performances from the Write It Down! Collective. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBIOS:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCurtis L. Crisler was born and raised in Gary\, Indiana. Crisler\, an award-winning poet/author\, has a new book called Doing Drive-bys on How to Love in the Midwest. He has six poetry books\, two YA books\, and five poetry chapbooks. He’s been published in a variety of magazines\, journals\, and anthologies. He’s co-editor of poetry for the museum of americana. He created the Indiana Chitlin Circuit and the poetry form called the sonastic. He’s the Indiana Poet Laureate and Professor of English at Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW). He can be contacted at www.poetcrisler.com. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAngela Jackson is a Chicago poet\, playwright\, and novelist. She has received numerous honors for both fiction and poetry\, including the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize\, the Pushcart Prize\, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award\, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council. Her poetry collection All These Roads Be Luminous (1998) was nominated for the National Book Award\, and her debut novel\, Where I Must Go (2009)\, won the American Book Award. In addition to Comfort Stew\, Jackson has written several other plays: Witness! (1978)\, Shango Diaspora: An African-American Myth of Womanhood and Love (1980)\, and Lightfoot: The Crystal Stair.
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/national-poetry-month-event-blanc-gallery/
LOCATION:Blanc Gallery\, 4445 South King Drive\, Chicago\, Illinois
CATEGORIES:Applied Words
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20240427T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20240427T125000
DTSTAMP:20260423T124817
CREATED:20240331T235851Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240331T235852Z
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SUMMARY:WORKSHOP | Walking the Middle Path: Using Hoodoo to Tell Your Story
DESCRIPTION:If your goal is to get over that writer’s block and finally tell your story–hoodoo can help! Participants will walk away with a basic understanding of how to read tarot\, how to pull information from oracles\, astrology\, and herbs in relation to their creative writing project\, and how to respectfully engage hoodoo practices when running into narrative blocks in their work. \n\n\n\nParticipants will need to bring their own notebook and writing utensil to this workshop. \n\n\n\n— \n\n\n\nBIO \n\n\n\nFAYLITA HICKS (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latinx writer\, spoken word artist\, and cultural strategist. A prolific creative and previously incarcerated artist\, Hicks’ is known for their dynamic storytelling methods and compelling narrative arcs. Using poetry\, prose\, music\, video\, and live performances—they explore the evolution of personal and national identity\, the cyclical nature of grief\, the spiritual applications of quantum physics\, decolonized eroticism/sensuality\, and manifesting personal liberation. Hicks is an Artivist: someone who integrates transformative justice theory into their creative practice\, using much of their work to advocate for the lives of marginalized people who make up our global majority. Their personal account of their time in pretrial incarceration in Hays County is featured in the ITVS Independent Lens 2019 documentary 45 Days in a Texas Jail\, and the Brave New Films 2021 documentary narrated by Mahershala Ali Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem. \n\n\n\nBased in Chicago\, IL\, Hicks is the author of the critically-acclaimed debut poetry collection HoodWitch(Acre Books\, 2019)\, a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry\, the 2019 Julie Suk Award\, and the 2019 Balcones Poetry Prize. They are currently working on their second collection\, A Map of My Want (Haymarket Books\, 2024) and a debut memoir about their carceral experience A Body of Wild Light(Haymarket Books\, 2025). Both books are supported in part by grants\, fellowships\, residencies\, and awards from the Art for Justice\, Black Mountain Institute\, Tin House\, and The Right of Return USA. The former Editor-in-Chief of Black Femme Collective and Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review\, Hicks is a voting member of the Recording Academy/GRAMMYs and its Songwriters and Composers Committee for the Texas Chapter. Hicks is also the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Tony-Award winning Broadway Advocacy Coalition\, Civil Rights Corps\, Lambda Literary\, and Texas After Violence Project. Their poetry\, essays\, and digital art have been featured in American Poetry Review\, Ecotone\, Kenyon Review\, Longreads\, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day\, Poetry Magazine\, Slate\, Split This Rock\, Texas Observer\, The Slowdown Podcast\, and Yale Review\, amongst others.  \n\n\n\nBorn in Gardena\, California\, they were raised in Central Texas where they received their MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada College’s Low Residency Program and founded their creative services LLC\, Infinite. Creative. Lit.
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/workshop-walking-the-middle-path-using-hoodoo-to-tell-your-story/
LOCATION:Green Line Performing Arts Center\, 329 E. Garfield Boulevard\, Chicago\, IL\, United States
CATEGORIES:Applied Words
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20240427T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20240427T141500
DTSTAMP:20260423T124817
CREATED:20240331T235432Z
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SUMMARY:Spirits\, Spirituality\, & Craft | Reading & Panel
DESCRIPTION:As writers\, celebrating culture through our work is as easy as sitting across the table from grandma. That ancestral influence is undeniable\, but for some it is more intentional. It can be the circulatory process that streams through the work that is produced. Whether baptized in holy water or animal sacrifice – Christianity\, Voodun\, Santeria or Sanctified\, these rituals imprint themselves in the work of the writer. The Spirits\, Spirituality & Craft reading and panel discussion will bring together three writers whose work demonstrates how ancestral influence and spiritual practice manifests itself in their writing craft. We will discuss the intention behind this effort. Is it a memory purge? Or a necessary part of their work? How do they bring in or welcome these influences into their writing space? \n\n\n\n— \n\n\n\nBios\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFAYLITA HICKS (she/they) is a queer Afro-Latinx writer\, spoken word artist\, and cultural strategist. A prolific creative and previously incarcerated artist\, Hicks’ is known for their dynamic storytelling methods and compelling narrative arcs. Using poetry\, prose\, music\, video\, and live performances—they explore the evolution of personal and national identity\, the cyclical nature of grief\, the spiritual applications of quantum physics\, decolonized eroticism/sensuality\, and manifesting personal liberation. Hicks is an Artivist: someone who integrates transformative justice theory into their creative practice\, using much of their work to advocate for the lives of marginalized people who make up our global majority. Their personal account of their time in pretrial incarceration in Hays County is featured in the ITVS Independent Lens 2019 documentary 45 Days in a Texas Jail\, and the Brave New Films 2021 documentary narrated by Mahershala Ali Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem. Based in Chicago\, IL\, Hicks is the author of the critically-acclaimed debut poetry collection HoodWitch (Acre Books\, 2019). \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTINA JENKINS BELL is a fiction writer\, playwright\, freelance journalist\, literary activist\, and academic. Bell is a three-time recipient of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events grant\, an Illinois Arts Council grant and two fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation. She is a co-founder of FLOW (For the Love of Writing) and has collaborated with numerous writing organizations\, authors\, and bookstores to offer literary programming on Chicago’s south side. She has collaborated with Janice Tuck Lively and Sandra Jackson-Opoku to produce “A Conversation with Lorraine Hansberry and Gwendolyn Brooks\,” a fictitious account of the literary icons discussing race and women’s issues during a chance meeting in heaven. Her prose has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies\, including Hypertext Journal\, ZYZZYVA Literary Magazine\, and Us Against Alzheimer’s. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKELI STEWART is a writer and educator whose writing has appeared in Quiddity\, Meridians\, Warpland\, amongst other notable journals and publications. Keli was recently selected as a 2021-2022 School of the Art Institute Nichols Tower Artist-in-Residence\, where she will facilitate community storytelling and creative writing workshops. She has received artist fellowships from Hedgebrook\, where she was awarded the 2010 Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Award\, and the Augusta Savage Gallery Arts International Residency Program. An alum of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and Callaloo Summer Writing Workshops\, Keli’s writing was selected first place in the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award from the Illinois Center of the Book\, chosen by Illinois poet laureate Kevin Stein.  A graduate of Providence St. Mel Highschool\, she received her BA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College in 2002\, her MFA in Poetry from Chicago State University\, and pursued doctoral work in Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where she studied with notable artists\, activists\, and scholars.  Keli served as a Leadership Lab Fellow with the Oak Park-River Forest Community Foundation. She is also the founder of Front Porch Arts Center\, selected as part of the Alliance of Artists Communities Emerging Program Institute. Her poetry collection\, Small Altars was published with Bronzeville Books in 2021.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nANDREA CHANGE (she/her) is a hometown girl\, born and raised in Chicago. A graduate of Northwestern University with a Master’s degree from Roosevelt\, she has been an active member of Chicago’s literary community for than 20 years. Her work has been published in the past in various journals and poetry anthologies from Tia Chucha Press\, Powerlines and Stray Bullets. Her poetry was also included in the Steppenwolf Theatre production\, Words on Fire.  She is currently working on a book of memoir poetry and prose inspired by her experiences growing up on the city’s west side. Andrea is the executive director for the Guild Literary Complex and currently lives in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood with her two dogs Sasha and Missy.
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/spirits-spirituality-craft-reading-panel/
LOCATION:Green Line Performing Arts Center\, 329 E. Garfield Boulevard\, Chicago\, IL\, United States
CATEGORIES:Applied Words
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://guildcomplex.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1.png
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20240427T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20240427T190000
DTSTAMP:20260423T124817
CREATED:20240404T215715Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240405T224100Z
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SUMMARY:Elsewhere: An Elegy Book Release Event with Faisal Mohyuddin
DESCRIPTION:Join us for poetry and stories of the collective breath held by a grieving world and to celebrate Elsewhere: An Elegy with author Faisal Mohyuddin.  \n\n\n\n“Faisal Mohyuddin’s Elsewhere: An Elegy is a memory palace of rooms filled with riversongs and baited fishhooks\, where longing transforms into birds. This is a moving collection which touches on faith\, grief\, and fatherhood. It is challenging to know how to talk to our children about ‘their impossible wish for deathless tomorrows\,’ but reading Mohyuddin’s poetry encourages us to embrace this world of secrets for a moment and just listen.” — Greg Santos\, author of Ghost Face \n\n\n\nIn addition\, this event will also feature Osama Alomar\, CM Burroughs\, Matthew Kelsey\, and works by artist\,Linda Abdullah. \n\n\n\n**We ask that all in-person attendees wear masks in the event space during the program for the health and well-being of the speakers and other guests. We will have a reception afterwards with light refreshments and books available for purchase.** \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBIOS:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFaisal Mohyuddin is the author of Elsewhere: An Elegy (Next Page\, 2024)\, The Displaced Children of Displaced Children (Eyewear\, 2018)\, and The Riddle of Longing (Backbone\, 2017). The recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award and a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award from the Illinois State Library\, he teaches English at Highland Park High School in suburban Chicago and creative writing at Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies. He is also a visual artist and serves as a Master Practitioner with the global not-for-profit Narrative 4. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLinda Abdullah is an interdisciplinary artist\, designer\, poet\, and daughter of Historic Palestine. Linda majored in Visual Communications at the American University of Sharjah (UAE) and received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art Media and Design from OCAD University in Canada. Her critical graphic design practice examines social\, cultural\, and political identity through the lens of diaspora\, displacement\, and intellectual exile. Linda exhibits her work regularly and recently had a visual poem about Gaza featured in the Chicago Reader; she currently resides in Chicago. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBorn in Damascus\, Syria\, Osama Alomar is one of the most well-respected Arabic poets writing today\, and a prominent practitioner of the Arabical-qisa al-qasira jiddan\, the “very short story.” He is the author of Fullblood Arabian in English\, and three collections of short stories and a volume of poetry in Arabic. Alomar’s first full-length collection of stories\, The Teeth of the Comb\, was published by New Directions in April 2017. His short stories have been published in The New Yorker (online)\, Noon\, Conjunctions\, The Coffin Factory\, Electric Literature\, and The Literary Review. Currently\, Alomar is working on a new novel about the Syrian War tentatively called The Womb\, as well as another project called The Book of Meditations . He was recently writer-in-residence at City of Asylum Pittsburgh\, and now lives in Chicago. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCM Burroughs is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago and author of The Vital System and Master Suffering\, which was longlisted for the National Book Award\, Lambda Book Award\, and the LA Times Book Award. Burroughs’ poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry\, Ploughshares\, Cave Canem’s Gathering Ground\, and Best American Experimental Writing. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOriginally from Glens Falls\, New York\, Matthew Kelsey is a poet and actor based in Chicago. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review\, Copper Nickel\, Colorado Review\, and elsewhere. He has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference\, a teaching fellowship from the Kenyon Review Young Writers Program\, and an Idyllwild Arts Writers Week Fellowship. \n\n\n\n\n\nThis event is sponsored by The Guild Complex and Haymarket Books. While all of our events are freely available\, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/elsewhere-an-elegy-book-release-event-with-faisal-mohyuddin/
LOCATION:Haymarket House\, 800 W. Buena Ave.\, Chicago\, Illinois
CATEGORIES:Applied Words
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