strong>Litquake Out Loud [
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11:00am PDT
Out Loud: West Coast Prophecies & War Cries
Saturday October 19, 2024 11:00am - 12:15pm PDT
Authors and Participants 
Lourdes Figueroa is a queer Chicanx oral poet and an award winning poetry filmmaker whose work is a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón—tilling of the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl, Ruidos=Learn Speak, and...
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Mimi Tempestt (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and daughter of California. She has a MA in Literature from Mills College, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Creative/Critical PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, the monumental misrememberings...
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Tori Gesualdo is a graduate of Emerson College with a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing, and an intern at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
soledad con carne is a casually queer, intergalactic Oakland/Ohlone-based chicanx punk poet, working/poor multiple high school drop-out, analog zinester, co-host of the City Lights First Fridays series, poet laureate of the San Fernando Valley, and blatant smoker sharing-trauma-with-their-mother...
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11:00am PDT
12:45pm PDT
Out Loud: When The Smoke Comes: The Ballot Won’t Save Us
Saturday October 19, 2024 12:45pm - 2:00pm PDT
Authors and Participants 
Hernan De La Cruz Ramos (they/them) is a 29 year old emo boi from the unceded Munsee-Lenape lands, currently residing on the unceded Ohlone-Chochenyo lands (Northern New Jersey and Oakland, CA, respectively). They are a writer and educator with an MFA in Poetry from University of...
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María Esquinca is a poet and journalist. A fronteriza, she was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and grew up in El Paso, Texas. She’s currently a producer for The Bay podcast, a production of KQED. Prior to that, she was New York Women’s Foundation IGNITE Fellow with...
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Darius Simpson is a New Afrikan writer, educator, performer, and skilled living room dancer from Akron, Ohio. Much like the means of production, he believes poetry must be used for the positive social, political, and economic development of the majority of society. He aims to inspire...
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Meilani Clay is a writer, mama, and educator from Oakland, CA. Her work has appeared in Nomadic Press’s Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation, and online literary journal The Ana. Her debut poetry collection, and the creek don’t rise, was the winner of the...
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2:30pm PDT
Out Loud: Escape
Saturday October 19, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm PDT
Authors and Participants 
Now in its 20th year, RAWdance is an award-winning contemporary dance company
known for transforming theaters and public spaces through a mix of performance,
curation, collaboration, and film. The company’s charged and nuanced works have
been presented by the Joyce Theater, Jacob’s...
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12:00pm PDT
Out Loud: A Celebration of Queer Poetics
Sunday October 20, 2024 12:00pm - 1:15pm PDT
Authors and Participants 
MK Chavez is an art monster, siguanaba, writer, and educator. Chavez’s writing explores mixed-race identity, social justice, environmental resilience, horror cinema, magic, ritual, and the creative process. Chavez’s work has been recognized with the Pen Josephine Miles Award...
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Jessica Ke’mani (pronounced Keh-Mani) is a queer Oakland-born poet. Ke’mani self identifies as a reunified adoptee, meaning they are back in connection with their birth family. Ke’mani is the author of the new poetry chapbook, Power of Our Wombs, released by Nomadic Press...
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Lourdes Figueroa is a queer Chicanx oral poet and an award winning poetry filmmaker whose work is a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón—tilling of the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl, Ruidos=Learn Speak, and...
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Hilary Cruz Mejía is a poeta and callejera scholar from the coastal waters of Guatemala. Her work is the lineage of her nightmares entangled in the landscapes of fear and resistance. You can find some of their work in the digital mundo as well as the wind mundo. Outside of writing...
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Baruch Porras Hernandez has been called a Flan come to life, and is a writer-stand up comedian originally from Toluca, Mexico who came here to steal all your jobs and make out with all of the hot dads. He is the author of Lovers of the Deep Fried Circle, I Miss You Delicate, Sluts...
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Syd Staiti is director of Small Press Traffic since 2019. Staiti's books include The Undying Present (Krupskaya, 2015) and Seldom Approaches (The Elephants, 2023). Staiti is a member of Light Field, a collective that presents an annual film festival of recent and historical moving...
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Yeva Johnson is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, writer, and musician whose work appears or is forthcoming in Bellingham Review, Obsidian, sin cesar, Sinister Wisdom, Yemassee, and elsewhere. Johnson explores interlocking caste systems and possibilities for human co-existence...
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Evelyn Donají and Camellia Boutros, folk musicians in the diasporic musical traditions of Veracruz and Palestine respectively, come together to offer a modern and Mission-based interpretation of Son Jarocho. In performing with the Arabic oud and the jarana Jarocha, the duo highlight...
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1:45pm PDT
Out Loud: Finding Home
Sunday October 20, 2024 1:45pm - 3:00pm PDT
Authors and Participants 
A facilitator and experience designer by day, Serena channels her cancer moon for her big feels and poetry. You can often find her daydreaming in a cafe, playing in the ocean, or trail running with her pup.
Denise Masiel is a Caribbean-American essayist and poet from Texas. She is a storyteller dedicated to the art of capturing feelings of warmth, passion, and visceral emotions in her work. Her poetry has been published in The Ana and Mujer Manifesto, and she is an active spoken word...
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Pap1Grand3 is a multidisciplinary performance artist from Oakland California. He is known for his spectacular stage presence as well as exploring themes of evolution, love and dedication. Grande has been striding across the community, many stages, more than a few faces. His motto...
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Lorrie Chang is a truth seeker/speller, spoken word poet, urban planner, professional curiosity pimp (researcher), untamed dancer, and spiritual wanderer. She worked nationally to grow communities with social and cultural fabric as the foundation (“Creative Placeknowing/Placemaking...
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Rhea Joseph is a poet, curator, and event producer who comes from a family of artists and entrepreneurs. She lives in San Francisco, but writes from a global perspective, intertwining her experience of growing up in India and blooming in Boston. Joseph finds power through community...
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3:30pm PDT
Out Loud: Nor Do I Wish to Speak: A Storytelling and Poetry Picnic
Sunday October 20, 2024 3:30pm - 4:45pm PDT
Authors and Participants 
Noor Khashe Brody has always lived in the California East Bay. They are a graduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. Alongside two friends, they co-founded Tritone, a monthly reading series in Oakland.
Tehmina Khan is a daughter of Indian immigrant scientists who has spent her adult life writing, teaching, resisting, and mothering. She has taught science to preschoolers, citizenship to octogenarians, and poetry translation to elementary school students; she currently teaches College...
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Dina Omar is a lecturer at UC Berkeley who teaches Palestinian poetry. She is a doctoral candidate at Yale University in Anthropology and Gender and Women’s studies. While studying for her Masters degree at Columbia University, Dina was part of the ad hoc organizing committee that...
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