Join Torch Literary Arts for the 3rd Annual Carrying the Torch: A Reading and Remembrance for the Future. This special event acknowledges the historical significance of Juneteenth and celebrates the accomplishments of the African American community. Poets, writers, and guest speakers will share original work to acknowledge the federal holiday and celebrate the future of African Americans in Texas.
Cost: Free
RSVP:
https://secure.qgiv.com/for/torlitart/event/carrythetorch/
6:30 pm - Doors open / Catered reception
7:00 pm - Program Begins
Location: African American Cultural and Heritage Facility
Food: Mashae's Catering
Photography: Larry Choyce
Alicia Harmon is a writer of fiction, poetry, and occasionally film scripts. She graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor's in sociology and African American and African Diaspora Studies, with minors in psychology, Spanish, and creative writing. Currently, she is a fiction fellow at the Michener Center for Writers. She has fiction published in Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora and poetry upcoming in the Praisesong for the People printed anthology.
Bri Nunn is a community outreach manager for a nonprofit based in Austin, TX, as well as the host of her podcast, Bri the Black Sheep. She is currently working on her BA at Huston-Tillotson University, where she plans to become a producer and create positive media for Black Youth. Her previous work as the admin fellow for Torch Literary Arts and as an advocate in the domestic violence field has allowed her to use her passions of speaking up for Black Women and their wellness to make a positive change in our community. She is a writer, a poet, and mother of two beautiful girls.
Jennifer M. Wilks is an associate professor of English, African and African Diaspora Studies, and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin, where she serves as Director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. Her book Carmen in Diaspora: Adaptation, Race, and Opera’s Most Famous Character is a cultural history of Carmen adaptations set in African diasporic contexts and was published by Oxford University Press in 2024. An award-winning teacher, Wilks is a member of the inaugural Texas 10, the Texas Exes’ annual recognition of top UT Austin professors, and a recipient of the Harry Ransom Award for Teaching Excellence and the Thomas Cable Upper-Division Teaching Award. Wilks also serves on the boards of the Texas Book Festival and Austin Opera.
Amanda Johnston is a writer, visual artist, and the 61st Poet Laureate of Texas. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, The Moth Radio Hour, Bill Moyers, The Rumpus, and the anthologies Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, American Short Fiction, and the Academy of American Poets. She is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, cofounder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder of Torch Literary Arts.
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