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Hello friends, next week in Carleton Taiwana will be testing out some new work from her first fiction chapbook! It’s about hood adjacent shit, black girl anger, disabled youth doing more-than-able things, and more. This is a great time to save the date, or sign up for her mailing list at the bottom of this page to know when the chapbook drops!

Sign up here: https://loft.org/classes/fiction-bipoc-writers

The goal of this class is to create space for Black, Indigenous, and POC writers to analyze and practice applying BIPOC cultural interpretations of fiction craft elements. While it is true that more contemporary writers are featuring racially diverse characters in their stories, it’s still the case that our culturally specific understandings of story are often left unexplored. What is a First Nations perspective on worldbuilding? What does the first person voice have to offer for Black city girl experiences? And how might we apply these understandings of craft to our own stories? First, we’ll close-read and discuss excerpts of stories that address these questions such as Future Home of The Living God by Louise Erdrich and “Virgins” by Danielle Evans (session one); then, between sessions one and two, we’ll draft our own excerpts; finally, we’ll close out our time together with workshop (session two). (By “workshop” I mean reading your classmates’ writing and analyzing their decisions as a way of offering ideas helpful for improving and supporting the writing of everyone involved.) If reading this description excites you, this class is for you, my friend.

Sign up here: https://loft.org/classes/fiction-bipoc-writers

The goal of this class is to create space for Black, Indigenous, and POC writers to analyze and practice applying BIPOC cultural interpretations of fiction craft elements. While it is true that more contemporary writers are featuring racially diverse characters in their stories, it’s still the case that our culturally specific understandings of story are often left unexplored. What is a First Nations perspective on worldbuilding? What does the first person voice have to offer for Black city girl experiences? And how might we apply these understandings of craft to our own stories? First, we’ll close-read and discuss excerpts of stories that address these questions such as Future Home of The Living God by Louise Erdrich and “Virgins” by Danielle Evans (session one); then, between sessions one and two, we’ll draft our own excerpts; finally, we’ll close out our time together with workshop (session two). (By “workshop” I mean reading your classmates’ writing and analyzing their decisions as a way of offering ideas helpful for improving and supporting the writing of everyone involved.) If reading this description excites you, this class is for you, my friend.

Taiwana features at Queer Storytelling, an art and community event based performance series, alongside comedian Shyloh Blake and musician Kym. This event is pay what you can sliding scale.

Register here!

I’m happy to be in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado on April 27, as part of our work with Minnesota State Write Like Us, a mentorship program for BIPOC college students.

A reading to close out the 2022 season of Queer Voices, featuring aegor ray, Molly Beth Griffin, Trisha Collopy, Josina Manu Maltzman, and Taiwana.

To close out events for November, Taiwana will be sharing a panel alongside local abolitionists Jason Sole, Dr. Rose Brewer, and O Smith on the past, present, and future of abolition, in honor of MPD150.

Taiwana will be holding space for abolition at two events this month: first up is Saint Paul College’s Scholarship Showcase. This event is free and open to all.

(Disability statement from the flier: Disability related accommodations available, please contact the Director of Access & Disability Resources at 651-350-3008 or AccessResources@saintpaul.edu.)

This is a pay what you can, second and final performance of A Hopeful Tomorrow, where Taiwana will be showcasing new prose alongside co-guest artist Isha Camara and The Singers, a group of choir artists.

In collaboration with The Singers & TruArtSpeaks, Taiwana will be one of two guest artists performing new prose & poetry within a composed musical.

Come through! Taiwana will be leading a workshop on Fiction for Social Change on Oct 10. When done well fiction can be a powerful tool for our communities, not only helping us explore nuance but also serving as a playground for making our own decisions about the worlds we write.

This is FREE at East Lake Library and part of a series organized by Queer Voices MN. Taiwana’s colleagues are hosting more workshops on writing: monsters in poetry, unrest in creative non fiction, and for queer youth.

Taiwana and other TruArtSpeaks alumni co-facilitated conversations at Black Sunday Dinner, a cultural gathering for Black Minnesotans, organized by TruArtSpeaks and Juxtaposition Arts.

Check out their websites: https://www.truartspeaks.org/ and https://juxtapositionarts.org/

The launch event for End Youth Prisons MN, an abolitionist campaign to end Minnesota’s practice of youth prisons through storytelling & the arts. Taiwana had the pleasure of leading the creation and organizing of this campaign and co-hosting the launch event with two amazing youth.

Check out their website: https://www.endyouthprisonsmn.org/

Taiwana represented TruArtSpeaks alongside Fatima Camara and Donte Collins at this art show hosted by an alternative school district in Little Canada. She graduated from an alternative high school and many of the youth she works with attend alternative schools, so this was an event close to her heart.

Check out their website: https://www.truartspeaks.org/