Generative Joy, Kin-making, & Collective Thinking: A Conversation w/ Poets

✦ and Host Publications are thrilled to celebrate the poetry collection by heidi andrea restrepo rhodes at the historic Antone's (Upstairs!)! Join us for a relaxed gathering and brunch-time conversation on generative joy, kin-making, & collective thinking between poets ignacio carvajal and heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, moderated by poet Laura Villareal. Expect giveaways, shopping w/ The Little Gay Shop, book signings, & small bites! <3

✦ Free & open to all lovers of literature.

✦ There will be free small bites and refreshments for purchase.

✦ Health and safety note: masks are encouraged and will be provided.

✦ panelist-poet bios ✦

ignacio carvajal is a poet, scholar, and translator. ignacio is the author of the chapbooks allow – a litany – (La Resistencia Press 2021) and Plegarias, and his poems have appeared in places like the Acentos Review and the anthology The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States, among others. ignacio was born in costa rica; they teach Central & Latin American Literature, Latin American Studies and creative writing at the University of California San Diego.

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes (they/them) is a queer, non-binary, crip/disabled, brown, writer, artist, scholar, educator, cultural worker and creature of the Colombian diaspora. They are author of (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), Ephemeral (Ecotheo Collective, 2024), (Duke University Press, 2025), and Ampersand Organ: a more-than-human lyric anatomy (Milkweed Editions, forthcoming in 2026). Their art, photography, and writing, have been in a number of community art shows including at the National Queer Arts Festival and Rosebud Gallery in San Francisco, the BGSQD in New York City, and exhibitions across Canada, the United States, and Belgium. They are a professor of feminist, queer, and disability studies; and poetry co-editor at . A VONA Alum, and 2023 recipient of the Creative Capital Award, they have received poetry fellowships from Zoeglossia, CantoMundo, Radar Productions, and Yale’s Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. Their poetry and creative non-fiction have been published in American Poetry Review, Los Angeles Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Poetry among other places. They live in southern California.

✦ moderated by ✦

Laura Villareal is a poet and book critic. Her debut poetry collection, Girl’s Guide to Leaving (University of Wisconsin Press 2022), was awarded Texas Institute of Letters' John A. Robert Johnson Award for a First Book of Poetry and the Writers' League of Texas Book Award for Poetry. She is an associate with Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies.

✦ pop-up w/ The Little Gay Shop ✦

is an unapologetically queer marketplace and community organizer in the heart of Texas that amplifies the voices and artistry of queer creatives from around the world.

✦ Sponsored by Letras Latinas & Host Publications✦

strives to enhance the visibility, appreciation and study of Latinx literature both on and off the campus of the University of Notre Dame. They put an emphasis on programs that support newer voices, foster a sense of community among writers, and place Latinx writers in community spaces.

is an award-winning, women-led independent publisher located in Austin, Texas. Devoted to our mission to elevate historically marginalized writers, Host Publications publishes radical poetry and fiction by emerging LGBTQ+, BIPOC, intersectional feminist, and immigrant voices.

✦ About ✦

heidi andrea restrepo rhodes offers poems as portals into a “wilderness of intimacies” where the crip marvelous, the sacred profane, and trans love emerge in an ecstatic throng. With a poetics that resists taxonomy, many voices surge through this collection. They speak us new names, and urge us toward vibrant becomings.

This is deeply necessary, restorative work—kinning marigolds, cicadas, fungi, universes—Wayward Creatures dismantles the myth of separateness, inviting us to allow ourselves to be nourished by this living entanglement, ignited by mutual spark. From the burning map of this lexicon, may we learn “lessons / of fire,” how to “tend a basic flame / & char down the plantation.”

Info: Join us for small bites, shopping with The Little Gay Shop, friend-making <3

Info: A poetry reading and panel discussion moderated by poet Laura Villareal, featuring poets heidi andrea restrepo rhodes and ignacio carval.

Info: Stay for book signings, shopping with The Little Gay Shop, & some drinks & snacks.

Also check out other Arts events in Austin, Literary Art events in Austin.