Black Lawrence Press

Black Lawrence Press, located in New York, specializes in contemporary poetry and prose. Black Lawrence Press is welcoming nearly 100 Nomadic Press titles to their repertoire, and they look forward to participating in Beast Crawl for an official meeting and promoting of the  many authors who are joining Black Lawrence. This will be the first BLP + Nomadic reading! Don't miss it!

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Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of Borrowed Time (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press) and Look Alive (winner of the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize from Southeast Missouri State University Press), along with seven chapbooks, most recently The Undead, winner of Sixth Finch Books' 2020 Chapbook Contest, and Shadow Box, winner of the 2019 Madhouse Press Editor's Prize. Her poetry can be found in Fugue, Five Points, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. She serves as Managing Editor of the Whiting Award–winning LGBTQ+ literary journal and press Foglifter. Her critical work has appeared in Cleaver, Pleiades, The Adroit Journal, and other venues.

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Kelliane Parker' s debut chapbook is, "Down the Foggy Streets of my Mind." A queer, Latinx, performance artist and poet living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, (DID), her work explores a lived experience of navigating the world through multiple lenses. She is a frequent feature at poetry readings and has been published in numerous anthologies such as, "Light on the Walls of Life", a tribute anthology to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Colossus series. When not reading poetry, she can be found speaking about de-pathologizing mental health.

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MK Chavez is an Afro-Latinx writer, educator, multi-disciplinary artist, and curator. Chavez is co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival and co-founder and curator of Lyrics & Dirges and teaches and supports writers at Ouroboros Writing Lab. Chavez's writing explores identity, social injustice, environmental degradation, horror cinema, magic, and ritual and has been recognized with a Pen Oakland Josephine Miles award, the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award. Chavez is a 2018 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award recipient and a 2023 YBCA 100 fellow. Chavez’s literary offerings include Dear Animal, Mothermorphosis, the lyric essay chapbook A Brief History of the Selfie, and Virgin Eyes. Chavez’s work can be found among the trees in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park through the Voices of the Trees Project.

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Cyrus Armajani teaches reading and creative writing to youth who are incarcerated. He is a Jefferson Award recipient for his literacy work in the juvenile justice system and a Pushcart nominee. His poems have appeared in Matter: A Journal of Political Poetry and Commentary, Poetry Magazine, RHINO 2018 and Sparkle and Blink, among other publications. Benefits of Doubt (Nomadic Press/Black Lawrence Press) is his first book. Cyrus is Iranian-American and lives in Oakland, California with his wife and two sons.

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Lauren L. Wheeler writes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and what happens when they rub up against each other. A recovering slam poet, she twice competed at the National Poetry Slam and has featured at Cornell University, where she studied English Literature, as well as in Los Angeles, Miami, Austin, and throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Lauren is the author of the poetry collection In Between Places (Nomadic Press, 2022). Her work has appeared online and in print in such publications as PANK, The Nervous Breakdown, The Rumpus, and the pop-culture website Black Nerd Problems. Lauren also has spent most of the last two decades working in the tech industry as a producer, program manager, product manager — all the jobs that start with a P. She’s worked on video games (notably The Sims and Star Wars: The Old Republic), consumer robots (Cozmo and Anki Overdrive), and recently, self-driving cars at Cruise. Lauren also has experience in marketing, political organizing and communications, and is a proud Arena Summit alum. Lauren lives with her kid, spouse, and two brown dogs in West Oakland, California, also known as xučyun (Huichin), the unceded ancestral territory of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people. She believes in paying her taxes. You can find her doomscrolling on Twitter as @fightingwords and posting ocular proof on Instagram at @fightingw0rds.

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Leg: 3 (7pm - 8pm) Venue: Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make / Believe

MISSION
Chapter 510 is a made-in-Oakland youth writing, bookmaking & publishing center. Our teaching artists and volunteers work side by side with educators to provide a safe space and supportive community so Black, brown, and queer youth ages 8-19 can bravely write.

VISION
We want every young person in Oakland to write with confidence and joy.

WHAT WE STAND FOR
We believe that writing is an act of liberation. Young people transform themselves and their communities when they write and get published, succeeding in work, school, and life.

INSPIRED BY
Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make / Believe is and 826 National-inspired organization.

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