About this Event
Featuring Taayba Kanwal, Tureeda Mikell, and James Cagney reading and signing copies of their latest prose and poetry collections.
More about the books:
Talking with Boys by Tayyba Kanwal:
In a collection of linked tales filled with irony, humor, and magic, Talking with Boys introduces an unforgettable cast of characters in the Pakistani diaspora in Houston navigating crises of their own making and beyond their control.
Via generations and geographies, the stories expand from Houston into tales from the characters’ pasts in Dubai and Lahore. A community of Pakistani immigrants distract ICE with unlikely bait. A housekeeper in a Dubai mansion plots to liberate her fellow indentured workers. In Lahore, an empty nester finds herself bound by more than a jinxed bracelet. Throughout, Tayyba Kanwal’s remarkable characters navigate economic upheavals, political turmoil, and personal betrayals to pursue love, plot for survival, and play subtle power games to triumph against patriarchal forces of all genders.
Tayyba Kanwal is a Pakistani-American writer from Houston, TX. Her work appears in journals such as Witness, Gulf Coast, and Meridian. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston where she was an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow. Her awards include the Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction, Black Lawrence Press 2023 Immigrant Writing Prize, shortlisted for C&R Press’ 2023 Fiction Award and runner-up in Witness Magazine’ s 2022 Literary Award. She serves as Director of Workshops at Inprint, Associate Fiction Editor at Cutleaf Journal, and Assistant Fiction Editor at Conjunctions.
Ghetto Koans by James Cagney:
The Japanese word ‘ koan’ is a seemingly unanswerable riddle used by practitioners of Zen Buddhism to trigger spiritual enlightenment and understanding. Ghetto Koans: A Personal Archive is a vibrant, genre-busting collection of voices, observations and memories that trigger nostalgia of a lost time, lost neighborhood, lost city.
James Cagney masterfully weaves together monologues, documentary-style narratives, and keen observations, offering a profound glimpse into the lives and stories that shape this unique community and beyond. From direct door-to-door salesmen and flirtatious phlebotomists to rotary telephones and an appreciation of clotheslines, each poem serves as a window into the heart of the Bay Area, capturing the raw beauty, struggles, and curious triumphs of its people. Cagney’ s words resonate with authenticity and depth, making this collection a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the rich tapestry of urban life.
Ghetto Koans is a journey through the soul of a community, told with unparalleled honesty and grace.
James Cagney is an African American poet currently living in Oakland, Ca. He authored two poetry collections: Black Steel Magnolias In The Hour Of Chaos Theory and MARTIAN: The Saint of Loneliness. His books won the 2021 James Laughlin Award from Academy of American Poets and the 2019 Josephine Miles Award from PEN Oakland. His poems have appeared in Alta, Zyzzyva, Poetry Daily, Best American Poetry 2022, Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures, Powerful, Black Powerful: Black Voices Reimagine Revolution, Beat Not Beat, Civil Liberties United and Colossus: Home, among others.
The Body Oracle of Memory by Tureeda Mikell:
She is Cosmic Mother, Iyami Aje. Poems of pain, as presented by Mikell, sting as they heal; even the funny ones slap. The subcutaneous wounds of memory can hide no longer— Mikell ruthlessly opens them with pure warrior priestess fire for complete healing. Behold her medicine of word: Nothing less than transcendence.– Youssef Alaoui
Tureeda Mikell, story medicine woman, poet educator, visionary, performer, an activist for holism, Black Panther Alum, nationally and internationally recognized, has read in person or virtually from U.K., France, Egypt, South Africa to China. She connects religious taboos often intertwining society’ s relationships to our winged cousins, stars, and our ancestors speaking from the great beyond. Her first full length collection, Synchronicity: Oracle of Sun Medicine was nominated for the CA Book Award. First published by Nomadic Press February 2020, now at Black Lawrence Press in NY. Has been said, Tureeda is hell bent on asserting life.
Event venue & nearby stays
Books Inc. Alameda, 1344 Park Street, Alameda, United States
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