Through Our Lens: Reading & Conversation featuring Trapeta Mayson, Jonathan Escoffery & Leesa Fender
Through Our Lens: Reading & Conversation featuring Trapeta Mayson, Jonathan Escoffery & Leesa Fenderson
Sunday, January 17, 3 - 4:30 p.m.
[RSVP FOR FREE]
On Sunday, January 17, the African American Museum in Philadelphia convenes this special MLK Weekend reading and discussion featuring Philadelphia Poet Laureate Trapeta Mayson in conversation with noted author and fiction writer Jonathan Escoffery. Moderated by fellow author and fiction writer Leesa Fenderson and inspired by this year’s MLK Celebration theme of; “What can we do for others?”, Through Our Lens looks to lift up the experiences of immigrant and first generation citizens while centering Blackness within a fuller national and global contexts.
More on our speakers:
Trapeta B. Mayson (ACG '14, LTA '07) is the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate. She is a recipient of a Pew Fellowship in Literature, Leeway Transformation Award, Leeway Art and Change Grant and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grants. Her work was also nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. Mayson is a Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow and a 2019 Aspen Words Emerging Writers Fellow with the Aspen Institute. She is the author of She Was Once Herself and Mocha Melodies. Mayson also released two music and poetry projects, SCAT and This Is How We Get Through, in collaboration with internationally acclaimed jazz guitarist, Monnette Sudler. Her other publications include submissions in The American Poetry Review, Epiphany Literary Journal, Aesthetica Magazine, Margie: The American Journal of Poetry among others. Mayson is a native of Liberia. She is a graduate of Temple University, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and Villanova University School of Business. Currently working in the social services field, Mayson is a member of several local organizations where she uses the arts to mobilize, build community and create change. trapetamayson.com
Jonathan Escoffery is a Jamaican American writer whose prose has appeared in The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, ZYZZYVA,Pleiades, AGNI, The Best American Magazine Writing 2020, The Caribbean Writer, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the 2020 National Magazine Award for Fiction from the American Society of Magazine Editors, and a 2020 Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico grant. He has received support, awards, and honors from The Best American Short Stories anthology, Prairie Schooner, Passages North, Aspen Words, the Somerville Arts Council, The Writers’ Room of Boston, Kimbilio Fiction, the Anderson Center, Wellspring House, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Jonathan earned his MFA in Fiction from the University of Minnesota and attends the University of Southern California’s Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature Program as a Provost Fellow.
Leesa Fenderson writes fiction, non-fiction, scripts, and plays. She is working on a collection of essays and a collection of short stories. Her writing has been published online and in print in Callaloo Journal, Uptown Magazine, Moko Magazine, Nottingham Review, and she was a Finalist in Paper Darts' Short Fiction contest. Leesa’s fiction was chosen as a semi-finalist for American Short Fiction’s 2020 Halifax Ranch Prize. She is an attorney, a teacher, and serves on the board of directors of Next Move Jamaica, a not-for-profit charity serving the needs of Jamaican students. Leesa was born in Jamaica, grew up in New York, and currently writes in Los Angeles where she is a PhD Provost Fellow in the USC Creative Writing and Literature Program.
Please note, the individual viewing links for MLK Weekend programs will be emailed to attendees immediately after registration, and again at least 30 minutes prior to the start of programs. Please be sure to check your spam and junk folders for these emails.
