Friday, March 10: House of Godzilla, Rare Birds & Further Possibilities

7pm-10pm

A Lambda Litfest READING & WORKSHOP
Co-sponsored by Kundiman SoCal

Celebrate the release of new poetry collections from Chen Chen, Kazumi Chin, Michelle Lin, and Shelley Wong, by exploring how we all might, through language, build a house that exceeds containment and disrupts binaries: dream/waking; beast/familiar; past/to come. Let us move toward a radical imagining of a home that transcends borders. We will shape, together, what it means to be in relation to identity and language; our orientation towards these markers; our situatedness both within and beyond intersectional identities. Which is to say: our house exists in its being built. It is not one we belong to, but one we work toward, always with the potential for further possibilities.

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CHEN CHEN is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize and forthcoming spring 2017 from BOA Editions, Ltd. Chen’s work has appeared in two chapbooks and in publications such as Poetry, Gulf Coast, Buzzfeed, and The Best American Poetry. He has received fellowships from Kundiman, Lambda Literary, and the Saltonstall Foundation. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in English and Creative Writing at Texas Tech University. For more, visit chenchenwrites.com.

KAZUMI CHIN is the author of Having a Coke with Godzilla (Sibling Rivalry Press). He lives in California, where he works to build loving communities with marginalized people, to put language to the mechanisms of structures and identities, and the create spaces and tools that allow others to do the same. He is interested in scholarship at the intersection of art-making and critical theory, and has a profound love for maps, spreadsheets, algorithms, taxonomies, simulations, and also poetry & the mythical power of true friendship. Read his blog atkazumichin.wordpress.com.

MICHELLE LIN is the author of A House Made of Water (Sibling Rivalry Press). Her latest poems can be found in HEArt, Apogee, Powder Keg Magazine, and more. She has taught for the LEAPS summer program, Gluck Fellows Program for the Arts, Young Writer’s Institute, and the University of Pittsburgh. She has performed for Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture, grlhood--redefining the I // here I am, Litquake, and more. A former editor for journals Hot Metal Bridge, B.E. Quarterly, and Mosaic, she currently serves as Poetry Reader for Twelfth House Journal. Learn more at michellelinpoet.wordpress.com.

SHELLEY WONG is the author of RARE BIRDS, a winner of the 2016 Diode Editions chapbook award. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Kundiman fellowship, and scholarships from Fine Arts Work Center and Napa Valley Writers’ Workshop. Her poems have appeared in Sixth Finch, Crazyhorse, Drunken Boat, The Margins, Vinyl, and other journals. She lives in Oakland, California, and earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and an MFA in creative writing from the Ohio State University, where she was a poetry editor for The Journal. Learn more atcaliforniawong.wordpress.com.

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LAMBDA LITFEST is a celebration of contemporary voices honoring and expanding on the rich, diverse tradition of LGBTQ writers and letters in the Southland.

Lambda LitFest will be held in Los Angeles, California from March 6-12, 2017, with all events FREE and open to the public! No reservations are required.

https://www.facebook.com/events/145820382578227/