**PLEASE RSVP VIA THE LITTLE LIGHTS READING SERIES TO RECEIVE AN EMAIL WITH THE LINK TO THE ZOOM EVENT.**
Women & Children First & The Little Lights Reading Series are proud to present a virtual poetry reading via Zoom in celebration of Arhm Choi Wild's collection Cut to Bloom. Poets Franny Choi and Lauren Whitehead will read alongside Wild. The Little Lights Reading Series celebrates the bright lights, the folks who have been lighting the way not only before this pandemic but also as we chart a new course during these unprecedented times. This virtual room is a place for all folks to shine, especially people of color, womxn, queer, trans, and GNC folks in a celebration and cultivation of joy, pride, and community.
Arhm Choi Wild is a Kundiman fellow with an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Their first book of poems, Cut to Bloom, was the winner of the 2019 Write Bloody Book Contest. They were a finalist for the Jake Adam York Prize in 2019 and their work appears in The Queer Movement Anthology of Literatures, Barrow Street, The Massachusetts Review, Split this Rock, Hyphen, Foglifter, Lantern Review, F(r)iction, and other publications. They work as the Director of the Progressive Teaching Institute and Diversity Coordinator at a school in New York City.
Franny Choi is the author of Soft Science (Alice James Books) and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing). She is a Kundiman Fellow, a 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, and a graduate of the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers Program. She co-hosts the podcast VS alongside fellow poet Danez Smith and is a Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow in English at Williams College.
Lauren Whitehead is a writer, performer and MFA recipient in Dramaturgy (Columbia University). She writes in several forms including poetry, nonfiction, adaptations and drama. Her writings have been published in Apogee Journal, Winter Tangerine, HEArt Online Journal and in selected anthologies including Break Beat Poets, Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic. Most recently, Lauren adapted Ta-Nehisi Coates’ award winning memoir, “Between the World and Me,” for staging at the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (Dir. Kamilah Forbes). Last fall, Lauren originated the leading role of “Un/Sung” in the opera “We Shall Not Be Moved” which she has performed at the Wilma Theater, the Apollo Theater and at the Stadsschouwburg Theater in Amsterdam (Dir. Bill T. Jones). Lauren is a Sundance Theater Lab Fellow and she has worked as a dramaturg at Hedgebrook and at The Denver Center for Performing Arts. Her work as a writing coach was featured in the full length documentary, “Don’t Be Nice” and on the HBO documentary series, "Russell Simmons Presents: Brave New Voices." She teaches dramaturgy and global theater at The New School for Drama in New York.
