About this Event
Join us for Downpour, a quarterly Austin reading series celebrating good writing and good community. After a short hiatus, we're excited to kick off our summer reading with local authors and writers KB Brookins, Lilas Taha, and Wajiha Rizvi.
Admission is free and open to the public. Join us at Tweedy's across the street for post-reading drinks and hangs!
For updates, follow us on Instagram @downpouratx
About the readers:
KB Brookins
KB Brookins is a Black queer and trans writer, cultural worker, and artist from Texas. KB’s chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut poetry collection Freedom House won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for the Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s debut memoir Pretty releases on May 28, 2024 with Alfred A. Knopf. Follow them online at @earthtokb.
Lilas Taha
Lilas Taha was born in Kuwait to a Syrian mother and a Palestinian father, and immigrated to the U.S. because of the Gulf War in 1990. She is a writer at heart, an electrical engineer by education and training, and an advocate for domestic abuse victims by choice. Pursuing her true passion for creative writing, Lilas brings her professional interests and background together in her novels. She is the author of Lost in Thyme (winner of the 2019 Best Books Award) and its sequel Found in Thyme (2023). Lilas won the 2017 International Books Award for her second novel, Bitter Almonds. Her debut novel, Shadows of Damascus was published in 2014. In her stories, Lilas celebrates the human spirit in all its complexities and contradictions, discussing some of the historical and political events leading to struggles that face people in exile.
Wajiha Rizvi
Wajiha Rizvi is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants based in Austin, Texas. Her writing sits at the intersection of identity, social justice, home, and horror. She was a participant in Rosa Rebellion's inaugural Compose Cohort, a storytelling incubator for women and non-binary people of color. She recently completed her first manuscript titled Ghosts of All of Them about the displacement of a family during the Partition of India in 1947 told through the eyes of a churail: a demoness from south asian folklore. Her writing has been featured on Brown History and you can find more of her writing on her Substack @wajihasultana.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Alienated Majesty Books, 613 West 29th Street, Austin, United States
USD 0.00
