More Than A Single Story

Writing Workshop: Comparing Arabic and English Poetry
2023-02-11 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Rondo Community Library, 461 Dale St N, St. Paul, MN, 55103, United States
In this workshop, participants will learn more about Arabic poetry compared to western poetry, and how writing poems is viewed in both cultures. We will use comparative works to illustrate and illuminate the fundamental basic differences between Arabic and English poetry. Recommendations for Arabic poets, and the possibilities of ‘translation’ and translating poetry between the two languages will be offered.
Our Stories, Ourselves Writing Workshop in Partnership with The Friends of the St. Paul Library

FACILITATOR:
Soliman Soliman was born in Sudan to a Nubian tribe called Sultan’s Stone. He grew up in Cairo, Egypt, a city of ten to twelve million people that is rich in diversity with folks with different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures and traditions. By the age of 16, he had been to four countries. He was influenced by African/Arabic traditions, Japanese anime and eastern cultures. These personal experiences and moments helped develop a curiosity in him to navigate between cultures, norms, social landscapes, societies and to exhibit these intersections through different mediums of art. Mainly, Poetry, painting, photography, and haircutting. These mediums aid him to grasp the movements, diverse cultures, traditions, and translate them to a common denominator.

Conversations with Community | The Responsible Children of Immigrants
2023-01-29 14:00 - 16:00 | Rondo Community Library, 461 Dale St N, St. Paul, MN, 55103, United States
Register here to attend virtually.
Please join writers and storytellers of East African descent in this engaging conversation about the struggles of young professionals who are children of immigrants: how they grapple with managing ongoing financial problems, relating to parents who have not experienced class movement, and having to provide for relatives back in their home country, while also struggling with their own financial obligations here in America.
This event takes place both in-person and virtually. You can register for either option above.
A More Than a Single Story Panel Conversation in partnership with The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library. This panel is a part of the Our Stories, Ourselves: Conversations with Community series.

PANELISTS
Ayaan Adan is a UX designer, author, and organizer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where she earned a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology. Her design philosophy centers a human-centered approach that values collaboration and quality. Ayaan is an avid writer and storyteller. Her newest book, Daughters of Arraweelo: Stories of Somali Women was published by MN Historical Society Press in February 2022. She curates a blog and is working on her second book. As an advocate for privacy, civil liberties, and accessibility, she is committed to making a positive impact in the lives of others through storytelling.
Salma Ahmed is a community organizer and storyteller. Originally from Minneapolis, Salma has 8+ years of experience with community organizing in regards to racial justice, Islamophobia, and restorative justice. Salma is the co-founder ans executive director of REDACT: a Muslim-led organization that supports our incarcerated community through letter writing, mutual aid, advocacy, and re-entry. REDACT also works to support Muslims unfairly targeted and prosecuted by the racist and Islamophobic policies of the war on terror. Salma holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology of law, criminology, and deviance from the University of Minnesota and is working toward pursuing a JD to further strengthen her advocacy efforts.
Marian Gass is a 1st-grade teacher at Alice Smith Elementary. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health and Psychology with a minor in Sociology from Hamline University and Master’s in Education, also from Hamline. She is in her third year teaching in the Hopkins School District after two years teaching early childhood education. She has a true passion for working with our youngest learners! Helping each child progress in all areas of their development—academic, social, language, and motor—is a challenge that she is honored to accept daily. She strives to create a community of learners and help shape the next generation.
Soliman Soliman was born in Sudan to a Nubian tribe called Sultan’s Stone. He grew up in Cairo, Egypt, a city of ten to twelve million people that is rich in diversity with folks with different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures and traditions. By the age of 16, he had been to four countries. He was influenced by African/Arabic traditions, Japanese anime and eastern cultures. These personal experiences and moments helped develop a curiosity in him to navigate between cultures, norms, social landscapes, societies and to exhibit these intersections through different mediums of art. Mainly, Poetry, painting, photography, and haircutting. These mediums aid him to grasp the movements, diverse cultures, traditions, and translate them to a common denominator.
MODERATOR:
Suleiman Adan is an organizer, educator, writer and DEI trainer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is HR manager at Research in Action, a Black-owned community education research firm. Suleiman is also a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, studying Education Psychology. He coordinates a food pantry in Saint Anthony, MN on the weekends, and teaches at Northwest Islamic Community Center where he works with students of all ages on learning the Arabic Language, learning the Quran both in Arabic and English, and interfaith dialogue. Suleiman has also been managing a tutoring company for the last decade on increasing literacy and proficiency in math and science, and instilling the love of reading and writing in BIPOC youth in south Minneapolis.

Writer to Writer: Michael Kleber Diggs & Heid Erdrich
2023-01-17 18:30 - 20:00
Join poets, writers and creative writing teachers, Michael Kleber Diggs and Heid E. Erdrich in a
wide ranging conversation on assumptions that are often made about their childhoods and
cultural experiences. They will talk about how they write around audience expectations of what
their upbringings must have been like, how they live as adults and their relationship to
community and economic class. Or they might get caught up in talking about how they make
poems.
This discussion is hosted in partnership with Hennepin County Libraries.
REGISTER HERE!

ABOUT
Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) (he / him / his) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and
arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the
Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, the 2022
Balcones Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. His poems and
essays appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Michael is married to Karen Kleber-Diggs,
a tropical horticulturist and orchid specialist. Karen and Michael have a daughter who is
pursuing a BFA in Dance Performance at SUNY Purchase.
Heid E. Erdrich authored six collections of poetry and a nonfiction Indigenous foods book. Her
honors include a National Poetry Series award, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowship,
Loft-McKnight Fellowship, Minnesota State Arts Board grants, and two Minnesota Book
Awards. Heid edited the anthology New Poets of Native Nations. Her recent poetry collection,
Little Big Bully, won the Balcones Prize for 2020. Heid grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota
with a German American father, an Ojibwe-Metis mother, and six siblings. She is enrolled at
Turtle Mountain. Heid works as an independent scholar and curator.
Writer to Writer is a collaboration with More Than a Single Story and Hennepin County Library.
Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Finding the Story Within the Story
2022-12-13 18:00 - 20:00
| Virtual Writing Workshop |

In storytelling, the heart of the story may emerge unexpectedly during the writing process. Learn how to find the heart of your story through the examination of three different pieces of work by food writer Mecca Bos: a podcast, blog post and a longer form article.
Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Register here!

About the Instructor
MECCA BOS has been a Twin Cities based journalist and chef for more than 20 years. In these dual roles, she has become known as one of the leading local voices for marginalized voices in the food community and has championed and uplifted the stories of people of color, women, elders, and immigrant communities, putting focus and spotlight on stories that the mainstream media may have traditionally overlooked or ignored. Mecca has been the dining critic of Twin Cities Metro and City Pages. Her work has also been published in The New York Times, Taste, VICE, Paste, Travel + Leisure, Midwest Living, and many other publications. She is a regular contributor to Minnesota Public Radio, and is producing her own audio documentary work, Hidden Black Foodways. Through the BIPOC Foodways Alliance, Mecca, Sean Sherman, and their community of allies plan to dismantle white supremacy using food as a tool. Based in the Twin Cities and around the world, BIPOC Foodways Alliance is dedicated to the documentation, examination, and promotion of the foodways of all BIPOC communities in the United States. Visit her website at www.meccaboswrites.com

Writing Personal Food Narratives
2022-12-10 13:00 - 15:00 | Microsoft Teams
| Virtual Writing Workshop |
Learn how to use all your senses to write compelling stories about experiences with food. Draw from personal experiences to write expressively and paint a picture for your readers that place them at the table with you.
Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Register here!

About the Instructor
NATALIA MENDEZ (they/them) is a queer, Chicanx writer and photographer living in Minneapolis. Finding connections to their roots and with others through food has been a habit throughout their life. They can also be found around the Twin Cities on two wheels (bicycle or motorcycle) when they're not writing about food, entertainment, the outdoors, or experiences on the margins. Their work is published regularly on their blog with The Current. You can also find their work on Racketmn.com, Eater Twin Cities, Seward Coop’s website and more. You can find their work at www.bynataliamendez.com.

One Book | One Minnesota: We Are Meant to Rise
2022-12-07 19:00 - 20:30
| Virtual Event |

One Book | One Minnesota is a statewide book club that invites Minnesotans of all ages to read a common title and come together virtually to enjoy, reflect and discuss. For Fall 2022, the book featured is our anthology We Are Meant to Rise!
Through their local libraries, Minnesotans will be invited to read the featured book selection and will have access to author videos, reading guides, and virtual book club discussions. All Minnesotans will be invited to participate in a statewide virtual discussion with the author.
Books will be available on multiple platforms. Readers can access the ebook for free on Ebooks Minnesota during the season. Hard copies of the books are available through independent stores across the state, as well as public libraries as physical distancing allows. Information on alternate formats can be found below.
Register here!

One Book | One Minnesota is presented by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, as the Minnesota Center for the Book, in partnership with State Library Services and sponsored by Spire Credit Union.

Our Stories, Ourselves: Food in Cultural Celebrations
2022-12-06 18:30 - 20:00
| VIRTUAL EVENT |

Despite the challenges of the last few years, our communities have always found reasons to celebrate. Join notable chefs and food writers Sean Sherman, Yia Vang, Mecca Bos and Natalia Mendez in a conversation about their communities and the historical and contemporary ways food serves as a backdrop for cultural celebrations.
Moderator: Tess Montgomery.
Opening poem: Zenobia L. Silas Carson.
Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Register here!

PANELIST BIOS
SEAN SHERMAN, Oglala Lakota, born in Pine Ridge, SD, has been cooking across the US and
the world for the last 30 years. His main culinary focus has been on the revitalization and
awareness of indigenous foods systems in a modern culinary context. In 2014, he opened The
Sioux Chef as a caterer and food educator to the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. In 2015, in
partnership with the Little Earth Community of United Tribes in Minneapolis, he helped design
and open the Tatanka Truck food truck. In 2021, Chef Sean and Dana Thompson opened
Owamni by The Sioux Chef, a modern Indigenous full service kitchen located in North Loop
Minneapolis, featuring the true foods of North America through an Indigenous perspective.
Sean’s vision of modern indigenous foods has garnered many awards including a number of
awards for his cookbook, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen (Minn2017), and the prestigious
James Beard award which named Owamni the best new restaurant in the United States in 2022. Learn more at sioux-chef.com
YIA VANG is a trained chef and Beard Foundation award finalist who worked at many top
restaurants in the Twin Cities before opening Union Hmong Kitchen. He has been featured in
The New York Times, National Geographic and Bon Appetit, as well as showcased on PBS,
CNN, The Food Network, Netflix’s Iron Chef: The Quest for an Iron Legend, and more. In
2022, he was a semi-finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef Midwest award. His
new Minneapolis restaurant concept, Vinai, is named after the refugee camp in Thailand where
he was born. His restaurants create a home for his Hmong cuisine, celebrate his parents’ legacy,
and share the story of his family through food. Union Hmong Kitchen, located in Graze Food
Hall in North Loop Minneapolis, features Hmong culture, stories, rituals, foods and flavors. Vang marries local traditions with those from back home in South and Eastern Asia to bring
Hmong flavors to American palates. Learn more at unionkitchenmn.com
MECCA BOS has been a Twin Cities based journalist and chef for more than 20 years. In these
dual roles, she has become known as one of the leading local voices for marginalized voices in
the food community and has championed and uplifted the stories of people of color, women,
elders, and immigrant communities, putting focus and spotlight on stories that the mainstream
media may have traditionally overlooked or ignored. Mecca has been the dining critic of Twin
Cities Metro and City Pages. Her work has also been published in The New York Times, Taste,
VICE, Paste, Travel + Leisure, Midwest Living, and many other publications. She is a regular
contributor to Minnesota Public Radio, and is producing her own audio documentary work,
“Hidden Black Foodways.” Through the BIPOC Foodways Alliance, Mecca, Sean Sherman, and
their community of allies plan to dismantle white supremacy using food as a tool. Based in the
Twin Cities and around the world, BIPOC Foodways Alliance is dedicated to the documentation,
examination, and promotion of the foodways of all BIPOC communities in the United States.
Learn more at meccaboswrites.com
NATALIA MENDEZ (they/them) is a queer, Chicanx writer and photographer living in
Minneapolis. Finding connections to their roots and with others through food has been a habit
throughout their life. They can also be found around the Twin Cities on two wheels (bicycle or
motorcycle) when they're not writing about food, entertainment, the outdoors, or experiences on
the margins. Their work is published regularly on their blog with The Current. You can also find
their work on Racketmn.com, Eater Twin Cities, Seward Coop’s website and more. You can find
their work at bynataliamendez.com.
Moderator
TESS MONTGOMERY is a young communicator, a visionary and an avid foodie who lives in
Minneapolis. She has been a Digital Marketing Specialist at TPT-Twin Cities PBS and
Marketing and Communications Manager for More Than a Single Story. She was a 2018 Fellow
with the Josie R. Johnson Leadership Academy, a 2017 Fellow with New Sector Academy, and
served as Programming Chair of Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of the Twin Cities.
Tess is passionate about the power of grassroots, community-led organizing. She holds a degree
in Journalism & Mass Communications from Drake University. In 2019, she was named one of
15 up and coming PR and Social Media Marketers to Watch. Her essay, “Financial Trauma in
Communities of Color” was published in MN Women’s Press in 2020 and in We Are Meant to
Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis To the World (Minn2021).
Opening Poet
ZENOBIA L. SILAS-CARSON a writer/teacher/speaker/Minister and senior life coach.
She is a retired teacher who has worked with Special Needs children at Odyssey Charter School
in Brooklyn Park MN. She has also worked as an advocate at Harriet Tubman Women's Center
and Incarnation House in Minneapolis Minnesota. Most recently she held positions at Lang Nelson Associates as an office assistant, activities director and exercise coach for senior women.
and leader of several food programs at Creekside Gables which is a 55+ Senior community in
Brooklyn Park Minnesota. She encourages people as a minister and is involved in sharing
resources for food services through Good in the Hood and CEAP within the NW suburbs of
Hennepin County. A native Chicagoan, Ms. Carson remains involved in writing workshops and
enjoys activities with her children, grands and great grandchildren.

Embracing Our Roots: Robin Hickman & Shvonne Johnson
2022-11-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
| VIRTUAL EVENT |

Elder Robin Hickman Winfield and Shvonne Johnson will discuss Robin’s many years creating and directing programs in the Twin Cities and nationally that uplift, inspire and empower our young people, including Soulful Dolls, an exclusive collection of dolls she styles and designs that represent significant elders in our community. They will also discuss Shvonne’s inspiring work as an educator, author, public speaker and a healer in need of healing through relationships, Community and her walk with Christ.
Embracing Our Roots is a conversation series that reaches back into the history of Minnesota’s African American arts community. The purpose is to pass this knowledge along to the new generation that is now ascending as leaders in our African American arts community. The series features Elders and Culture Bearers engaging with young leaders to discuss significant milestones in Minnesota’s Black arts history, and the impact that the artists and movements have had on our present day capacity to survive the storms and keep creating. Embracing our Roots is a collaboration with More Than a Single Story and In Black Ink.
Register now.

ABOUT
ROBIN HICKMAN WINFIELD is the Founder and Creative Director/Artist at A Celebration
of Soulful Dolls, the director of Taking our Place Centerstage and Organizational Strategist at
the Ordway Center for Performing Arts, and founder and CEO/Executive Producer at SoulTouch
Productions. Robin is known in the Twin Cities and nationally for her many years of “Don’t
Believe the Hype,” an education and outreach program for BIPOC youth whose aim was to
empower them by creating media and using media as a vehicle to invoke discussion in the
community. Robin created Elder’s Doll Collection, an exclusive line of dolls that represent
significant elders in the community. She has curated several exhibits of the dolls with hopes of
bridging the generations where youth can learn about and see their elders represented in very
detailed, beautiful doll form.
SHVONNE L. JOHNSON is Executive Director of Pimento Relief services and was a K-12
educator for 17 years. She is the author of a book of poems, Release: A Journey of My Soul. She
is an author, poet, University instructor, former dean, a speaker, and an activist who teaches on
race, education and society. She has taught at Metropolitan State University in the Urban
Teacher program, and at St. Catherine University, and has spoken to numerous groups across the
country. Using all the gifts that God has given her, she reaches deep into the roots of our ancestry
and our consciousness, to touch the most tender part of us. She extends a steady and capable
hand to help us explore who we truly are and what we can become, for ourselves and for each
other. She acknowledges that she is a Healer in need of Healing through relationships,
Community and her walk with Christ.

Parable of the Sower's Lessons & Inspiration: Writing Dystopian Stories of BIPOC Characters in the Era of Climate Change
2022-11-04 14:00 - 16:00
| In-person writing workshop |
Octavia E. Butler’s classic novel “Parable of the Sower” is revolutionary for centering BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) characters during an apocalypse. We journey with Lauren and her evolving Earthseed community through the challenges of surviving the destruction of their homes and livelihoods. Explore how Butler’s writing of these characters might inform our own work centering fictional BIPOC characters navigating the apocalypse of our time – climate change. Led by Shannon Gibney. This program is funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
This workshop is part of the Mary Ann Key Book Club. Registration is required.
REGISTER HERE!

About the Instructor:
SHANNON GIBNEY is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), and Dream Country (Dutton, 2018) young adult novels that won Minnesota Book Awards in 2016 and 2019. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, her new novel, Botched, explores themes of transracial adoption through speculative memoir (Dutton, 2023). Gibney’s other upcoming publications include the picture books Sam and the Incredible African and American Food Fight (University of Minnesota Press, 2023), and Where We Come From (Lerner, 2022; coauthored), and a YA anthology of stories by adoptees about adoptees, co-edited with Nicole Chung (HarperTeen, 2023).

Afrofuturism: The Search for Black Genius
2022-10-22 13:00 - 15:00 | Webber Park Library, 4440 N Humboldt Ave, Minneapolis, MN, 55412, United States
| In-person writing workshop |
As mainstream media’s interest in sci-fi, fantasy, and post-apocalyptic narratives and stories grows, so does the scrutiny of the lack of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals. The question I always ask when I encounter these pieces of media is: What happened to us? In this interactive workshop, we will examine the role of Afrofuturism in contemporary media in dismantling problematic tropes about Black people. We will discuss Afrofuturist thought and theory and the role of Afrofuturist ideology as integral in our search for Black, Brown, and Indigenous Genius. We will use writing prompts that will help us create worlds in which Black people exist. This program is funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
This workshop is part of the Mary Ann Key Book Club. Registration is required.
REGISTER HERE!

About the Instructor:
STEPHANIE CHRISMON is a Black/biracial, Fat, Queer, Afrofuturist, writer and educator. She presents and writes on topics related to race, sexuality, family karma, social justice, as well as generational theory using pop culture, literature, and art as critical tools in exploring social justice and dismantling oppression. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and a BA in political science from U of M, Morris. Stephanie was a participant in the 2016-2017 Loft Mentor Series and in the 2015 Givens Foundation for African American Literature’s Emerging Writers’ Mentor Program. Her writing has appeared in Water~Stone Review, MN Artists, The Root, Black Girl Nerds, Medium and Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose, and Pride. Her debut novel (under her pen name dc edwards), Bright City, was published in 2017. She is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Consultant for the UW MESA state office via AmeriCorps, and is an independent DEI consultant with Avant Consulting Group and Strategic Diversity Initiatives working with health systems and higher education. She is a proud member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority. She lives in Saint Paul, MN.

We Are Meant to Rise Event (Private)
2022-10-20 12:00 - 13:00
| Private Event |
In this private class, writers will talk about We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice From Minneapolis to the World at the Minnesota Transform Project.

ABOUT
Carolyn Holbrook is a writer, educator, and an advocate for the healing power of the arts. Her memoir, Tell Me Your Names and I Will won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. She is founder and director of the Twin Cities-based conversation series, More Than a Single Story, and is co-editor with David Mura of the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies, including A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota. She won the Minnesota Book Awards Kay Sexton Award in 2010 and was a 50 over 50 honoree in 2016.

We Are Meant to Rise Event (Private)
2022-10-19 10:30 - 11:30
| Private Event |
In this private class, writers will talk about We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice From Minneapolis to the World at Concordia College Fargo-Moorhead.

Panelists:
Carolyn Holbrook is a writer, educator, and an advocate for the healing power of the arts. Her memoir, Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify (Minnesota 2020), won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. She is founder and director of the Twin Cities-based conversation series, More Than a Single Story, and is co-editor with David Mura of the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World published by University of MN Press with More Than a Single Story (Minnesota 2021). She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships. She teaches at the Loft Literary Center and other community venues, and at Hamline University, where she won the exemplary teacher award in 2014.
Alexs Pate is president and CEO of Innocent Technologies and the creator of the Innocent Classroom. He has written five novels, a children’s book, and a work of nonfiction, and he has curated several literary anthologies. His latest book is The Innocent Classroom: Dismantling Racial Bias for Children of Color. He won the Kay Sexton Award from the Minnesota Book Awards and the Friends of the St. Paul Public Libraries in 2021.
Mona Susan Power is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux nation. She is the author of four books of fiction: The Grass Dancer (winner of the 1995 PEN/Hemingway award), Roofwalker, Sacred Wilderness, and the forthcoming novel, A Council of Dolls. Her fellowships include an Iowa Arts Fellowship, James Michener Fellowship, Radcliffe Bunting Institute Fellowship, Princeton Hodder Fellowship, USA Artists Fellowship, McKnight Fellowship, and Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowship. Her short stories and essays have been widely published in journals, magazines, and anthologies. She lives in Saint Paul where she is currently working on a new novel titled, The Year of Fury. Her short stories and essays have been widely published in journals, magazines and anthologies. Her fellowships include an Iowa Arts Fellowship, James Michener Fellowship, Radcliffe Bunting Institute Fellowship, Princeton Hodder Fellowship, USA Artists Fellowship, Loft McKnight Fellowship for 2015-16, and Native Arts and Cultures Fellowship for 2016-17. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has made her home in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Kevin Yang is a Hmong American multidisciplinary artist from the Twin Cities, Minnesota with a focus on spoken word poetry and documentary filmmaking. He currently works at Twin Cities PBS and is a board member with Street Stops and Mountain Tops. He finds most of his artistic inspiration unraveling his Hmong American experience with others.

African Americans Rooted and Rising: Nothando & Vusumusi Zulu and Joshua Gillespie
2022-10-15 13:00 - 15:00
Embracing Our Roots: African American Rooted and Rising
A Conversation with Nothando and Vusumusi Zulu and their grandson, Joshua Gillespie (Brotha
Ase’).
| Virtual: Zoom |
On Saturday, October 15, 2022, up and coming drummer and storyteller, Joshua Gillespie (Brotha Ase’) will join his grandparents, the master storytellers, Nothando and Vusumusi Zulu, in a conversation about the power of storytelling to lift our people up, and about the Black Storytellers Alliance in Minnesota, of which Nothando and Vusi are co-founding members.
Embracing Our Roots is a conversation series that reaches back into the history of Minnesota’s African American arts community. The purpose is to pass this knowledge along to the new generation that is now ascending as leaders in our African American arts community. The series features Elders and Culture Bearers who engage with young leaders to discuss significant milestones in Minnesota’s Black arts history, and the impact that the artists and movements have had on our present day capacity to survive the storms and keep creating. Embracing our Roots: African Americans Rooted and Rising is a collaboration with More Than a Single Story and In Black Ink.

REGISTER HERE

ABOUT THE PANELISTS:
Nothando and Vusumuzi Zulu have been stalwart proponents of Kujichagulia, the Swahili
word for self-determination for over four decades. They revel in opportunities to transmit the
values of our African ancestors through story. Both are transplants from the south: Nothando
from the sharecropping farms of Nat Turner’s county in Virginia and Vusi from the often
tumultuous city of St Louis, Missouri. As co-founding members of the Black Storytellers
Alliance in Minnesota they began producing the popular ““Signifyin’ & Testifyin’” three-day
storytelling festival in 1991 after returning from the National Association of Black Storytellers,
Inc. (NABS) festival and Conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was such a moving
experience that they knew they had to bring something like that back to inspire the people in
Minnesota. “Signifyin' and Testifyin’” has entertained, enthralled and educated thousands since
its inception. Nothando and Vusi have brought Tellers from across the country to weave
storytelling magic, and audiences continue coming back year after year to glean more nuggets of
truth about our people through the art of oral storytelling. Through storytelling, the Zulu family
demonstrates the Joy of being Black.
Joshua Gillespie (Brotha Ase’) was brought up within the storytelling culture. Witnessing his grandparents, the master Storytellers Vusumuzi and Nothando Zulu on and off the stage, sparked a flame in him to carry on the torch. He uses his artistic abilities: digital art, music, dance, djembe drumming & oral expertise – to captivate audiences. Brotha Ase believes our stories are like seeds from the divine tree of life, helping to guide us and grow us into divine trees of our own. The goal of Joshua’s storytelling is to highlight current history (history currently in the making), life lessons , and to inspire his people and all people to aspire to be who they truly are in spite of the trials and tribulations that life throws at them.
Embracing our Roots: African Americans Rooted and Rising is a collaboration with More
Than a Single Story and In Black Ink.

We Are Meant to Rise Event
2022-10-12 18:00 - 19:30
Carolyn is visiting Dayton’s Bluff Book Club to speak about We Are Meant to Rise. This event is open to those living in the Dayton’s Bluff area.

ABOUT
Carolyn Holbrook is a writer, educator, and an advocate for the healing power of the arts. Her memoir, Tell Me Your Names and I Will won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. She is founder and director of the Twin Cities-based conversation series, More Than a Single Story, and is co-editor with David Mura of the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies, including A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota. She won the Minnesota Book Awards Kay Sexton Award in 2010 and was a 50 over 50 honoree in 2016.

We Are Meant to Rise Event (Private)
2022-10-07 10:00 - 11:00
| Private Event |
A panel discussion about anthology We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World for the British American Partnership.

PANELISTS
Carolyn Holbrook is a writer, educator, and an advocate for the healing power of the arts. Her memoir, Tell Me Your Names and I Will won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. She is founder and director of the Twin Cities-based conversation series, More Than a Single Story, and is co-editor with David Mura of the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies, including A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota. She won the Minnesota Book Awards Kay Sexton Award in 2010 and was a 50 over 50 honoree in 2016.
David Mura is a poet, writer of creative nonfiction and fiction, critic, and playwright. He is author of The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself (forthcoming November 2022), A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity, and Narrative Craft in Writing and the memoirs Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei and Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality, and Identity. He is coeditor, with Carolyn Holbrook, of We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World (Minnesota, 2021). He lives in Minneapolis.
Diane Wilson (Dakota) is a writer, speaker, and educator, who has published two award-winning books, a middle-grade biography, as well as essays in numerous publications. Her new novel, The Seed Keeper won the MN Book Award in novel and short story. Her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award and was selected for the 2012 One Minneapolis One Read program. Her 2011 nonfiction book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life was awarded the 2012 Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies. Wilson received numerous fellowships and awards. In 2018, she was awarded a 50 Over 50 Award. She is the former Executive Director for the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance. Wilson is a Mdewakanton descendent, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation.

Writer to Writer: Writing Strong Characters
2022-09-29 18:00 - 20:00 | Nokomis Library, 5100 34th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN, 55417, United States
Whether you are writing a short story or a novel, a memoir or even a poem, your characters need to be full and round. Marcie Rendon (White Earth Nation) will provide writing exercises to create and develop strong, memorable characters. We will share our work and engage in a brief Q&A about the business of writing. Collaborator: More Than a Single Story. This program is funded with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
REGISTER HERE

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR
Marcie Rendon, a citizen of the White Earth Nation, is an author, playwright, poet and freelance writer. Also a community arts activist, Rendon supports other native artists/writers/creators to pursue their art, and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership and writing.

Writer to Writer: Writing to Tell a Story
2022-09-21 17:00 - 19:00 | Franklin Library, 1314 E. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis, MN, 55404
Dakota and Diné Documentary Producer, Leya Hale, will share her process for developing story structures and character narratives for non-fiction documentary storytelling. The workshop will be followed by a Q&A. Collaborator: More Than a Single Story. This program is funded with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
This writing workshop is part of the Writer to Writer series.
REGISTER HERE

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR:
Leya Hale comes from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Diné Nations. She makes her home in Saint Paul, Minnesota with her companion and children. She is a producer for Twin Cities PBS and is best known for her first feature documentary “The People’s Protectors,” a Vision Maker Media grant production and winner of the 2019 Upper Midwest Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural Documentary.

Writer to Writer: Marcie Rendon & Leya Hale
2022-09-13 18:30 - 20:00 | Zoom
Writer to Writer is a series featuring conversations between BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) writers.
Join author and playwright, Marcie Rendon (White Earth Nation) and documentary producer Leya Hale (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Diné Nations) in a conversation on their writing and their lives. They will also discuss issues that affect their Indigenous communities such as generational trauma, reclaiming Indigenous cultures and languages, murdered and missing Native people and more. Collaborator: More Than a Single Story. This program is funded by money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

REGISTER HERE

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Marcie Rendon, a citizen of the White Earth Nation, is an author, playwright, poet and freelance writer. Also a community arts activist, Rendon supports other native artists/writers/creators to pursue their art, and is a speaker for colleges and community groups on Native issues, leadership and writing.
Leya Hale comes from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Diné Nations. She makes her home in Saint Paul, Minnesota with her companion and children. She is a producer for Twin Cities PBS and is best known for her first feature documentary “The People’s Protectors,” a Vision Maker Media grant production and winner of the 2019 Upper Midwest Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural Documentary.
The Zoom link to the live online discussion will be emailed to registrants in advance. If you’re new to Zoom, check Getting Started with Zoom.

We Are Meant to Rise Reading & Panel
2022-09-11 14:00 - 16:00 | Jewish Family Services, 1633 West 7th Street, Saint Paul, MN, 55102, United States
Jewish Family Service of St. Paul (JFS) invites the public to join the unveiling and
dedication of The Bruce Goodman Read in Color Little Free Library at on Sunday, September 11
at 2:00 p.m. The library, built by Highland Park residents Mike and Mary Link, brings diverse
books to Little Free Library book-sharing boxes that provide perspectives on racism and social
justice; celebrate BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized voices; and incorporate experiences
from all identities for all readers.
After the structure is unveiled, writers Carolyn Holbrook, Tess Montgomery and Kevin Yang
will read selections from We Are Meant to Rise, followed by a question-and-answer session.

Anthology Reading: We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World
2022-08-30 19:30 - 21:30
Soul Bone Literary Festival 2022 will host a reading of the anthology We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, edited by Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura. Our readers tonight are Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, Ahmad Qais Munhazim, Diane Wilson, and Sun Yung Shin. Carolyn Holbrook will introduce and curated this evening for us.
Register here.

Writing Workshop | Home & Exile: Novels Without Fiction
2022-07-30 10:00 - 12:00 | Ridgedale Library, 12601 Ridgedale Dr, Minnetonka, 55305, United States
| In-person Writing Workshop |
Novels without Fiction is how Spanish writer, Javier Cercas, describes his stories; books in which reporting and narrative go hand in hand. It is a style that includes dialogue and character development, and makes literary non-fiction come alive for many readers. Please bring your chosen topic to share. It can be drawn from a historical event, your personal or family history, or a combination of both. We will examine how to develop the topic with your readers in ways that help them understand and care along with you.
This writing workshop is part of our Our Stories, Ourselves: Home & Exile series. Check the calendar to see what else we have coming up.
Hennepin County Libraries is our partner for this event. Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

CLICK TO REGISTER

Tessa Bridal was born and raised in Uruguay, a third generation descendent of a resilient and courageous Irish woman who boarded a ship she had been informed was sailing for Boston. Her ancestor’s story is told in Bridal’s second novel, River of Painted Birds, published in English and Spanish (Río de los pajaros pintados). Her first novel, The Tree of Red Stars won the Milkweed National Prize for Fiction and the Friends of American Writers annual award. Bridal has also authored two works of nonfiction on the use of live theatre in museums, and is the recipient of the American Association of Museums (now the American Alliance of Museums) Educators Award for Excellence. Her latest book is The Dark Side of Memory: Uruguay’s Disappeared Children and the Families that Never Stopped Searching.

We Are Meant to Rise (Minnesota Writers Series)
2022-06-21 19:00 - 20:30 | Minnesota Humanities Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East, Saint Paul, MN, 55106, United States
Join the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC) for readings and an interactive round table discussion around the book, “We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World,” which was published by University of Minnesota Press with More Than a Single Story.
The book’s editors, Carolyn Holbrook and David Mura, will be joined by contributors Anika Fajardo, Samantha Sencer-Mura, Suleiman Adan, and Tess Montgomery, to discuss the heavy task of writing about the past few years as writers of color, from COVID-19 and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes to the community’s response to the murder of George Floyd. The panel, which includes two sets of family members, will also discuss how we talk about trauma and share stories generationally. Audience members will be invited to join in on the conversation at various points in the evening.
This event is part of the MHC’s new Minnesota Writers Series, which amplifies recent publications from Minnesota authors, and is being co-sponsored by Saint Paul Almanac.
This event is free but registration is required.
Register here!

African Americans Rooted & Rising: T. Mychael Rambo & Jasmine McBride
2022-06-14 08:00 - 17:00 | Zoom
| Virtual Event |

Embracing Our Roots is a conversation series that reaches back into the history of Minnesota’s African American arts community. The purpose is to pass this knowledge along to the new generation that is now ascending as leaders in our African American arts community. The series features Elders and Culture Bearers who engage with young leaders to discuss significant milestones in Minnesota’s Black arts history, and the impact that the artists and movements have had on our present day capacity to survive the storms and keep creating.
On Tuesday June 14, 2022, up and coming journalist, podcaster and spoken word artist, Jasmine McBride will join Emmy award winning actor, vocalist and educator, T. Mychael Rambo in a conversation about Mr. Rambo’s celebrated career here in Minnesota and beyond. They will also reflect on Ms. McBride’s growing career, and much more.
Embracing our Roots: African Americans Rooted and Rising is a collaboration with More Than a Single Story, Black Table Arts and In Black Ink.

Register here

BIOS
T. Mychael Rambo is a Regional Emmy Award winning actor, and vocalist. Whether acting with theaters like the Guthrie, Penumbra, Illusion, Ten Thousand Things, Minnesota Opera, the Ordway, and numerous others; or sharing his vocal stylings at local jazz clubs like the Dakota or Crooners; T. Mychael has made an indelible mark on the Twin Cities’ arts community. He has shared his performance talents nationally and internationally. Adding to his credits, he has done local and national television commercials, feature films, HBO mini-series, and other television programming. T. Mychael is also an accomplished arts educator, affiliate professor at the University of Minnesota (of 20 years), as well as a highly sought-after public speaker and committed community organizer.
Jasmine McBride, a dynamic and passionate storyteller, is an up-and-coming community leader from the Twin Cities of Minnesota. After traveling across the country consulting educators on education reform and turning to community journalism in the Twin Cities, Jasmine loves to explore social intersections through public engagement, community organizing, and art. Jasmine has paved her way into the worlds of journalism, film, podcasting and radio, and spoken word, working to travel the world and capture social intersections that rethink politics and societal norms.

Writing Workshop | Home & Exile: Mastering Your Memoir
2022-05-24 18:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
| Virtual Writing Workshop |

Everyone has a story to tell. But how can we tell captivating stories about real people? Whether you’re writing your own memoir or want to document a family history, you need to know what idea or message you want to convey to a reader. Once you’ve tackled the big picture, you can focus on the journey of writing. We will draw on the works of a diverse group of writers to help inform us on how to craft and layer our stories. In this workshop, writers can expect to learn how to find their ‘big picture’ ideas, organize story details, and sculpt drafts to manuscript-ready. Our objective is to arm writers with the tools required to write compelling creative non-fiction stories.
This writing workshop is part of our Our Stories, Ourselves: Home & Exile series. Check the calendar to see what else we have coming up.
Hennepin County Libraries is our partner for this event. Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

CLICK TO REGISTER

About the Facilitator
Ayaan Adan is an author, award-winning user experience designer, and community organizer. Her newest book, Daughters of Arraweelo: Stories of Somali Women was released by MN Historical Society Press in February 2022. She has been featured in Teen Vogue, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Twin Cities Daily Planet. Ayaan is an advocate for privacy, civil liberties, and accessibility. She is committed to making a positive impact in the lives of others through storytelling, design thinking, and community organizing.

Our Stories, Ourselves: Home & Exile
2022-05-22 14:00 - 15:30 | Zoom
| Virtual event |

Immigrants and refugees often come to the United States because they were traumatized in their homeland and many end up in Minnesota. Sometimes they were uprooted overnight and find themselves in a land that is strange to them. How do they make new lives for themselves in this new land? Though they are able to make homes out of necessity, do they ever really find home?
In this More Than a Single Story conversation, Carolyn Holbrook will engage with Somali author, Ayaan Adan, Uruguayan author Tessa Bridal, genderqueer Afghani writer and professor of Global Studies, Ahmad Qais Munhazim, and Hmong community leader, Terri Thao in a discussion on what home and exile means to them.
Check the calendar to see what else we have coming up. This discussion is part of our Our Story, Ourselves series. It is followed by two writing workshops. Check our calendar for more info.
Hennepin County Libraries is our partner for this event. Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

CLICK TO REGISTER

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Panelist Bios

Ayaan Adan is an author, award-winning user experience designer, and community organizer. Her newest book, Daughters of Arraweelo: Stories of Somali Women was released by MN Historical Society Press in February 2022. She has been featured in Teen Vogue, Minneapolis Star Tribune, and Twin Cities Daily Planet. Ayaan is an advocate for privacy, civil liberties, and accessibility. She is committed to making a positive impact in the lives of others through storytelling, design thinking, and community organizing.
Tessa Bridal was born and raised in Uruguay, a third generation descendent of a resilient and courageous Irish woman who boarded a ship she had been informed was sailing for Boston. Her ancestor’s story is told in Bridal’s second novel, River of Painted Birds, published in English and Spanish (Río de los pajaros pintados). Her first novel, The Tree of Red Stars won the Milkweed National Prize for Fiction and the Friends of American Writers annual award. Bridal has also authored two works of nonfiction on the use of live theatre in museums, and is the recipient of the American Association of Museums (now the American Alliance of Museums) Educators Award for Excellence. Her newest book is The Dark Side of Memory: Uruguay’s Disappeared Children and the Families that Never Stopped Searching.
Ahmad Qais Munhazim, a genderqueer Afghan, Muslim and perpetually displaced, is an assistant professor of global studies at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. As an interdisciplinary scholar, de/colonial ethnographer and community activist, Munhazim’s work troubles borders of academia, activism and art while exploring everyday experiences of migration and war in the lives of queer and trans Afghans. Currently, Munhazim is preparing their book manuscript based on a de/colonial ethnography of queer and trans Afghans in Afghanistan and Afghan refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers in the United States. Munhazim has published articles, poetry and non-fictions in the Journal of Narrative Politics, Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics, Antipode, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose and Pride and the Conversation. Munhazim, born and raised in Afghanistan and exiled currently in Philadelphia, holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Minnesota.
Terri Thao is passionate about building power with community. She is currently a program director of the local giving and opportunities program at the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies. Terri has spent her professional career in the fields of community economic development, community building, leadership development, and philanthropy. She also teaches classes on leadership and advocacy at Metropolitan State University. She serves on the boards of the F.R. Bigelow Foundation and Minnesota Housing. She obtained her Bachelors’ and Masters’ degrees from the University of Minnesota. She loves to read in her spare time.

Embracing Our Roots: Asian Rennaissance
2022-05-19 19:00 - 20:30
We are excited to announce a new strand in our Embracing Our Roots series: Asian Americans Rooted & Rising! For our first event in this sub-series, we have Asian Rennaissance:
On Thursday, May 19th More Than a Single Story and the Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL) invite you to join us for a virtual intergenerational conversation between Asian Minnesotan artists David Mura, Katie Hae Leo and Julia Gay as they honor the 30th anniversary of the Asian American Renaissance and discuss how our history of arts organizing has shaped the current landscape of AAPI movement in Minnesota. Why was the Asian American Renaissance so significant for our community and what should we be dreaming up next?
With the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, sharing knowledge intergenerationally is more important than ever. Embracing our Roots: Asian Americans Rooted and Rising reaches back into the rich history of Asian American social justice movements in Minnesota in order to pass this knowledge on to the new generation ascending as leaders. The series features Asian elders in conversation with young leaders to discuss significant milestones in Minnesota’s Asian history and the impact that the artists and the movements have had on our present day capacity to survive the storms and keep creating.
This event in Embracing Our Roots: Asian Americans Rooted and Rising is a partnership between More Than a Single Story and the Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL)

REGISTER HERE!

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ABOUT THE PANELISTS:

David Mura’s latest book is on creative writing and race, A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing. With essayist Carolyn Holbrook, Mura is co-editor of an anthology of Minnesota BIPOC writers, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. His next book is The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself, a collection of essays contrasting historical and fiction narratives by white Americans and African Americans, appearing fall 2022.
In 2021, for Twin Cities Public Television, Mura co-produced, wrote and narrated the documentary, Armed With Language, about the Japanese American linguists who served in the Military Intelligence Service during WWII. Armed With Language won a 2021 Upper Midwest Emmy.
A Sansei or third generation Japanese American, Mura has written two memoirs: Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei , which won a 1991 Josephine Miles Book Award from the Oakland PEN and was listed in the New York Times Notable Books of Year, and Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity . His novel Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the John Gardner Fiction Prize and Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award.
Mura’s latest collection of poetry is The Last Incantations. His second, The Colors of Desire, won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library, and his first After We Lost Our Way was a National Poetry Contest winner.

Katie Hae Leo (she/her) was born in Bucheon, South Korea and raised in Indiana. Her creative work explores the multiple intersections between the adopted body and notions of race, gender, place, home, and (dis)ability. Her poetry and essays have appeared in journals such as Asian American Literary Review, Kartika Review, and Water~Stone Review. She has performed in venues such as Theater Mu, Dreamland Arts, Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia), Phoenix Art Museum, and University of Regina (Canada). Her awards include the James Wright Prize for Poetry, a Gesell Award for nonfiction, and a Spark Leadership Award from the Coalition of Asian American Leaders. Katie is currently working on a young adult novel, initially supported by a Mirrors and Windows Fellowship for Indigenous writers and writers of color working in youth genres, from The Loft Literary Center. She is honored to be part of this conversation.
www.katiehaeleo.com

Julia Gay (she/they) is an artist and community organizer committed to uplifting the intersections of justice, healing and the arts. She is currently the Communications & Marketing Manager for the Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL) and the host of their newly released MinneAsianStories Podcast.
Outside of the office, Julia is a dancer, playwright and stand-up comedian. She was a dancer with professional company Ananya Dance Theatre from 2016-2021 and is currently a steering committee member for the Network of Politicized Adoptees. In October 2019, Julia produced her one-woman show, Motherlanded, exploring her personal narrative as a Chinese adoptee. Learn more about her artistic work at www.juliagay.com.

Writer to Writer: Ed Bok Lee & Kevin Yang
2022-05-04 19:00 - 20:30
Join writers Ed Bok Lee and Kevin Yang in a conversation about their writing, lives and mutual admiration. Lee and Yang will reflect on their identities as Asian American artists living in Minnesota and creating art for themselves vs. creating art for their communities and explore writing in different languages.
REGISTER HERE

ABOUT THE WRITERS
Ed Bok Lee is the author of three books of poetry, which have received the American Book Award, Asian American Literary Award (Members’ Choice), Minnesota Book Award, and PEN/Open Book Award. He is also the co-translator of Smiling in an Old Photograph: poems by Kim Ki-taek (OHM Editions, 2022). Lee attended kindergarten in Seoul, South Korea and is part-time faculty in Fine Arts at Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. www.edboklee.com
Kevin Yang is a Hmong American multidisciplinary artist from the Twin Cities, Minnesota with a focus on spoken word poetry and documentary filmmaking. He currently works at Twin Cities PBS and is a board member with Street Stops and Mountain Tops. He finds most of his artistic inspiration unraveling his Hmong American experience with others.

Writer to Writer is a collaboration with More Than a Single Story and Hennepin County Library. Funded by Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Reading and Panel: We Are Meant to Rise (TruArtSpeaks)
2022-04-30 12:00 - 14:00
TruArtSpeaks will co-host this We Are Meant to Rise reading and panel with writers Douglas Kearney, Arleta Little, Sun Yung Shin, Michael Torres and Kevin Yang.

REGISTER HERE

Reading & Panel: We Are Meant to Rise (Common Ground)
2022-04-24 14:30 - 16:30
Common Ground Meditation Center co-hosts this reading and panel discussion of We Are Meant to Rise.
In this significant collection, Indigenous writers and writers of color bear witness to one of the most unsettling years in the history of the United States. Essays and poems vividly reflect and comment on the traumas we endured in 2020, beginning with the arrival of the COVID-19pandemic crisis, deepened by the blatant murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the uprisings that immersed our city into the epicenter of passionate, worldwide demands for justice. We Are Meant to Rise lifts up the astonishing variety of BIPOC writers in Minnesota. In inspired and incisive writing these contributors speak unvarnished truths not only to the original and pernicious racism threaded through the American experience but also to the deeply personal, in essays about family, loss, food culture, economic security, and mental health.Their call and response is united here to rise and be heard.

REGISTER HERE

Here are the readers for this book event:

Arleta M. Little is the current Board Chair of Common Ground. Arleta joined the Loft Literary Center as executive director in late 2021. Prior, Arleta spent eight years directing the McKnight Artist Fellowships, a nearly $3M program providing unrestricted support for artists and culture bearers across 15 creative disciplines in Minnesota; before that, she served as the executive director of the Givens Foundation for African American Literature, working for more than 15 years as an organizational development consultant providing strategic planning, program evaluation, and grant writing services to Minnesota organizations. Her essay “Life and Death in the North Star State,” published in Water-Stone Review Vol. 24, was nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize. Her work is included in We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World; This Was 2020: Minnesotans Write About Pandemics and Social Justice in a Historic Year; and Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota. She also collaborated on writing and publishing Josie R. Johnson’s memoir, Hope in the Struggle.
Shannon Gibney is a writer, educator, activist, and the author of See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), and Dream Country (Dutton, 2018) young adult novels that won Minnesota Book Awards in 2016 and 2019. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing. A Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow, her new novel, Botched, explores themes of transracial adoption through speculative memoir (Dutton, 2023).
Ricardo Levins Morales is a Puerto Rican artist and organizer based in Minneapolis. He uses his art as a form of political medicine to support individual and collective healing from the injuries and ongoing reality of oppression.
Mona Susan Power is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux nation, and the author of four books of fiction: The Grass Dancer (winner of a PEN/Hemingway award), Roofwalker, Sacred Wilderness, and the forthcoming novel, A Council of Dolls. Her fellowships include a James Michener Fellowship, Radcliffe Bunting Institute Fellowship, Princeton Hodder Fellowship, USA Artists Fellowship, McKnight Fellowship, and Native Arts and Cultures Fellowship. She lives in Saint Paul, MN, where she’s currently at work on a new novel titled, The Year of Fury.
신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin (she/they) is a Korean-born writer and is author of four books of poems: The Wet Hex (forthcoming in June 2022); Unbearable Splendor (Minnesota Book Award winner); Rough, and Savage; and Skirt Full of Black (Asian American Literary Award). They are the editor of three prose anthologies: What We Hunger For: Refugee & Immigrant Stories about Food & Family; A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota; (co-editor of) Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. And they are also the author of two illustrated books for children: Cooper’s Lesson (bilingual Korean/English) and the (co-author of) forthcoming Where We Come From co-written by Diane Wilson, Shannon Gibney, and John Coy and illustrated by Dion MBD. They are a 2022 MacDowell Fellow. Please find their author self sunyungshin.com. @sunyungshin on FB, IG, and Twitter.

Reading & Panel: We Are Meant to Rise (MCTC)
2022-04-14 12:00 - 13:30
The MCTC School of Liberal Arts and Cultures and Student Life invites you to attend a virtual reading and panel discussion featuring editors and writers from the book We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. The event is free and open to the public.
The virtual event will highlight the compelling work We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, a significant collection featuring Indigenous writers and writers of color who bear witness to one of the most unsettling years in the history of the United States. Essays and poems vividly reflect and comment on the traumas we endured in 2020, beginning with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, deepened by the blatant murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers and the uprisings that immersed our city into the epicenter of passionate, worldwide demands for justice.

Join by zoom here.

About the speakers:

Moderator David Mura, editor, is the author of a new book A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity and Narrative Craft in Writing. He is the author of two memoirs, Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, which won the Oakland PEN Josephine Miles Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and Where the Body Meets Memory.

Pamela Fletcher Bush, contributor, is CEO and publisher of Arcata Press | Saint Paul Almanac and professor emerita of English (Saint Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota). She is a widely published writer in various genres and has won literary awards and fellowships for creative nonfiction, arts criticism and poetry. Fletcher Bush has lectured in Oxford, England; Accra, Ghana; Toronto, Canada and Mexico.

Shannon Gibney, contributor, is a writer, educator, activist and the author of See No Color (Carolrhoda Lab, 2015), and Dream Country (Dutton, 2018) young adult novels that won Minnesota Book Awards in 2016 and 2019. Gibney is faculty in English at Minneapolis College, where she teaches writing. She is a Bush Artist and McKnight Writing Fellow. She is co-editor of What God Is Honored Here? Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color (Minnesota, 2019), and her new novel, Botched, explores themes of transracial adoption through speculative memoir (Dutton, 2023).

Ricardo Levins Morales, contributor, is a Puerto Rican artist and organizer based in Minneapolis. He uses his art as a form of political medicine to support individual and collective healing from the injuries and ongoing reality of oppression.

Melissa Olson, contributor, is an Indigenous person of mixed Anishinaabe and Euro-American heritage, a tribal citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. For several years, Melissa has worked as a writer and producer of Independent Public Media having served as the co-managing editor of the MinneCulture program at KFAI Fresh Air Radio. In the spring of 2022, Melissa will contribute to Minnesota Public Radio’s North Star Journey project. Melissa lives in Minneapolis.

Diane Wilson, contributor, is an award-winning Dakota author of a recently published novel, The Seed Keeper; a memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past; a non-fiction collection, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life; and a middle-grade biography Ella Cara Deloria: Dakota Language Protector. Her essays have been featured in many publications, including We Are Meant to Rise; Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations; and A Good Time for the Truth. She has received numerous grants, including a 2013 Bush Fellowship, and the 2018 AARP/Pollen 50 Over 50 Community Leadership award. Wilson is enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation.
