Cinelle Barnes, Devi Laskar, Soniah Kamal and Natalia Sylvester - A Measure of Belonging Virtual Event

Cinelle Barnes, Devi Laskar, Soniah Kamal and Natalia Sylvester - A Measure of Belonging Virtual Event

Thursday, Oct 15, 2020 7:00 PM

Location:
Atlants History Center on Zoom

A fierce collection celebrating the incredible diversity in the contemporary South, “A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South” features essays by many of the finest young writers of color living and working in the region today.

The Atlanta History Center welcomes contributors Cinelle Barnes, Devi Laskar, Soniah Kamal, and Natalia Sylvester for a virtual discussion on Thursday, October 15, 2020, at 7:00 PM (EST).

This event is free and open to the public. Join the event via the link below.

A Cappella Books will have copies of “A Measure of Belonging” available after the event. Pre-order via the link below. At checkout, choose between the local delivery, curbside pick-up, or shipping options. For zip codes not listed in the above banner, select curbside pick-up or USPS shipping.

About the Book

Assembled by editor and essayist Cinelle Barnes, essays in "A Measure of Belonging" acknowledge that from the DMV to the college basketball court to doctors’ offices, there are no shortage of places of tension in the American South. Urgent, necessary, funny, and poignant, these essays from new and established voices confront the complexities of the South’s relationship with race, uncovering the particular difficulties and profound joys of being a Southerner in the 21st century.

About the Authors

Cinelle Barnes is a memoirist, essayist, and educator from Manila, Philippines, and is the author of "Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir and Malaya: Essays on Freedom." She earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Converse College. Her writing has appeared in Buzzfeed Reader, Catapult, Literary Hub, Hyphen, Panorama: A Journal of Intelligent Travel, and South 85, among others. Her work has received fellowships and grants from VONA, Kundiman, the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund, and the Lowcountry Quarterly Arts Grant. Barnes is the 2018-19 writer-in-residence at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC, where she and her family live.

Devi Laskar is a native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in Tin House and Rattle, among other publications. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and is an alumna of The OpEd Project and VONA. Laskar is the author of two poetry chapbooks, and the novel "The Atlas of Reds and Blues." She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Soniah Kamal is an award winning novelist, essayist and public speaker. Soniah's novel "Unmarriageable" is a Financial Times Readers’ Best Book of 2019, a People’s Magazine Pick, a Library Reads Pick, an NPR Code Switch Summer Read Pick, a 2019 Book All Georgians Should Read, a 2020 Georgia Author of the Year for Literary Fiction nominee. It was featured on PBS Books and accolades include the Publisher's Weekly Starred Review saying "Unmarrigeable" is a 'must read for devout Austenites', and the Shelf Awareness starred review saying 'If Jane Austen lived in modern day Pakistan, this is the version of Pride and Prejudice she might have written.' Soniah's novel "An Isolated Incident" was shortlisted for the Townsend Prize for Fiction and the KLF French Fiction Prize. Soniah’s TEDx talk is about second chances and she has delivered numerous keynotes at Writers Conferences as well as ‘We are the Ink’, at a U.S. Citizenship Oath Ceremony about immigrants and the real American Dreams and her keynote at the Jane Austen Festival is about universality across time and cultures. Soniah’s work has appeared in critically acclaimed anthologies and publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Georgia Review, The Bitter Southerner, Catapult, The Normal School, Apartment Therapy and more. She has taught creative writing at Emory University, Oglethorpe University and teaches at the MFA program at Reinhardt University.

Natalia Sylvester was born in Lima, Peru and came to the U.S. at age four and grew up in Florida and Texas. She received a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami and now works as a freelance writer in Texas. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Bustle, Catapult, Electric Literature, Latina magazine, McSweeney's Publishing, and the Austin American-Statesman. Natalia’s first novel, "Chasing the Sun," was named the Best Debut Book of 2014 by Latinidad. Her latest novel, "Everyone Knows You Go Home," won an International Latino Book Award, the 2018 Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters, and was named a Best Book of 2018 by Real Simple magazine. Natalia's debut YA novel, "Running," is out now from Clarion Books/HMH.