Asian American Pacific Island Poetry Reading

What

The City of St. Petersburg is holding its second annual City of Writers Poetry Festival, with The Woodson African American Museum of Florida is a host for emerging and established writers who reflect the talent, diversity, and creativity of St. Petersburg on April 21, 2024! Join us in engaging in an Asian American Pacific Islander poetry reading with speakers Avni Vyas, Alexa Stoffer, Jamie Lu, and MC Sam Obeid.

About the Speakers:

Jamie Lu is a 17-year-old Filipino-American writer born and raised in Florida. She is an alumnus of the Adroit Summer Mentorship Program for Fiction and a recipient of a Gold Key from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Her art is inspired by her parents’ stories of childhood, Filipino history, the people she encounters, the macabre, the divine, and everything in between.

Alexa Stoffer is a Chinese adoptee navigating her past while planning for the future. She is 22 years old and has been writing poetry for the past 6 years. From being featured in writing magazines to performing with close friends, she has built a community rooted in the feeling of safety and creative expression. She hopes to leave her mark in the ever-changing world of mental health through her words and her collegiate studies.

Avni Vyas is the author of Little God (Burrow Press 2021), and the chapbooks Far from Glorious Feeling (TOA 2021) and co-author of Candy In Our Brains (CutBank 2014). Her poetry and nonfiction can be found in journals such as Grist, Meridian, Arts and Letters, and others. She serves as a poetry editor at The Offending Adam. She teaches writing at New College of Florida.

About the MC:

Sam(ira) Obeid is an internationally renowned spoken word poet, a reputed educator on intersectionality, systemic discrimination and resistance, and a local activist. A masculine performing, Indian lesbian raised Hindu on her mother’s side and Muslim on her father’s side, Sam moved to the U.S. in 2007 earning her second and third master’s in Multimedia Journalism and Women’s & Gender Studies.

To register, email education@woodsonmuseum.org