Please join us for Tribes Spotlight Series, featuring four amazing authors sharing their work, hosted by Chavisa Woods.

This is event is FREE and open to the public.

To attend, simply open this Zoom link at 7pm EST on Thursday, September 2nd! :

You can also dial in and listen by phone: 1-646-558-8656

FEATURED GUESTS

Ishmael Reed is a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, songwriter, public media commentator, lecturer and publisher. Author of more than thirty books, Dalkey Archive Press published his eleventh novel, Conjugating Hindi, in 2018. In 2020, his latest non-fiction work, Malcolm and Me, was published by Audible, with Reed as narrator. Baraka Books of Montreal published his latest essay collection, Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico, in 2019. Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues, his most recent poetry collection, is forthcoming in 2020 by Dalkey Archive Press. Other recent books include his tenth novel, Juice! (2011); and The Complete Muhammad Ali (Baraka Books, 2015). New York’s Nuyorican Poets Café premiered his ninth and newest play, The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, May 23, 2019, which garnered three 2019 AUDELCO awards; the Nuyorican produced his eighth play, Life Among the Aryans in 2018. Reed is founder of the Before Columbus Foundation and PEN Oakland, non-profit organizations run by writers for writers. He is a MacArthur Fellow, and among his other honors are the University of Buffalo’s 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize nominations, and a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award. Awarded the 2008 Blues Songwriter of the Year from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame, his collaborations with jazz musicians for the past forty years were also recognized by SFJazz Center with his appointment, from 2012-2016, as San Francisco’s first Jazz Poet Laureate and in Venice, Italy, where he became the first Alberto Dubito International awardee, honored as “a special artistic individual who has distinguished himself through the most innovative creativity in the musical and linguistic languages.” Reed is currently working on The Terrible Fours, the third novel in his “Terribles” trilogy. His online international literary magazine, Konch, can be found at www.ishmaelreedpub.com. His author website is located at www.ishmaelreedpub.org.

Nancy Mercado was named one of 200 living individuals who best embody the work and spirit of Frederick Douglass on the bicentennial of his birth by the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. She is the recipient of the 2017 American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement presented by the Before Columbus Foundation. In December 2020, Mercado edited a special memorial section for Tribes honoring Miguel Algarin, founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. She is the editor of the first Nuyorican women writers anthology published in Voices e/Magazine from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College- CUNY, and serves as a guest curator for the Museum of American Poetics. Featured on National Public Radio’s All of It, The Talk of the Nation, and the PBS NewsHour Special; America Remembers 9/11, she is the author of It Concerns the Madness (2000), a poetry collection, Las Tres Hermanas (2017), a children’s coloring book, and the editor of if the world were mine (2009), a young adult anthology. Currently, Mercado is editing another special memorial section for Boog City honoring Miguel Algarin. For more information visit: https://www.nancy-mercado.com

reg e gaines is a poet, playwright, director, lecturer and Artistic Director of the Downtown Urban Arts Festival in New York City since 2007. He is a two time Tony Award nominated playwright, Grammy nominated lyricist, ( Bring in da Noise/ Bring in da Funk) and author of four books of poetry including, Abstract Sax and The Original Buckwheat. A former Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Champ, reg appears in numerous poetry anthologies including, Bum Rush The Page, Paterson Literary Review, Aloud: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and A Year in Ink. He has composed the score for the PBS documentary, Senior Year and has released four poetry albums. reg has appeared on seasons 3-4 of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam as well as the Arsenio Hall Show, the John Stewart Show, MTV Spoken Word Unplugged and MSNBC’s Edgewise. He has performed at Woodstock ‘94, Central Park SummerStage, The Berlin Jazz Festival, Carre Opera House in Amsterdam, Aaron Davis Hall, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and NYU’s Gallatin Center. reg is currently writing and directing The 88, a musical with music composed by Calvin Gaines.

Zarrin Ferdowsi was born in Iran and finished high-school right around the aftermath of Islamic revolution of Iran. Growing up in the family with love of literature, read any books she could get her hands on due to difficulty to attend college in her birth country she Immigrated to united states in 1986 and worked her way through many years till finally finished her bachelor's degree in molecular cell biology at the University of California in Berkeley. Followed with a professional degree in dentistry from the University of Washington in Seattle. She is married with one son and she lives and practices in East Bay San Francisco for twenty years.