Poetry Reading at Grit City Books

Grit City Books is excited to welcome local poets Robert Lashley, Rainah Miqueli, and Christina Vega for an evening of poetry.

About Robert Lashley:

Robert Lashley (he/him) was a 2016 Jack Straw Fellow, Artist Trust Fellow, and a nominee for a Stranger Genius Award In 2019, Entropy Magazine named “The Homeboy Songs” one of the 25 essential books to come out of Seattle. His novel, “I Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer,” was selected as a finalist for a Washington State Book Award in 2024.

About Rainah Miqueli:

Rainah Miqueli (they/them) is a writer and disability activist whose work explores memory, rupture, and the soft violence of survival. They hold an MFA from a university in Dublin, Ireland, where the lyricism of the land continues to echo in their voice. Their writing has been featured in The Fat Zine, and their chapbook Purge was awarded the John Pierce Chapbook Prize. They currently live in Tacoma, WA, on the occupied lands of the spuyaləpabš (Puyallup Tribe of Indians), where they often think of the sea and write in solidarity with liberation movements past, present, and imagined.

About Christina Vega:

Christina Vega (they/them) is a Queer Chicana poet from the borderlands of Texas & Mexico. They live on Puyallup and Nisqually Land.

Christina is also a non-binary parent. They are the publisher at Blue Cactus Press, where they work with change-makers to create books that serve as tools and community resources. They primarily work with and skill-share with folks from historically marginalized groups who are gate-kept from publishing and creative entrepreneurial spaces/positions. They seek deep collaborations and work that emerges through relationship.

They published their first poetry collection, Maps, in 2017, Decay, a chapbook co-published with Winter Texts in 2022, and are working on a forthcoming poetry collection, Vega which comes out later this winter.

Christina believes we have the power to reshape our communities with principles of Emergent Strategy, transformative justice, and collective laboring of love. They believe revolution starts at home.

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