EDGE SEPT 16

September 16 - EDGE 79 : Sarah Gonzales, Shelly Taylor & Orlando White 

Wednesday, September 16
7:30 PM
Suggested Donation: $5

At the ZUZI! Theater in the Historic Y
738 N. 5th Ave. (corner of E. University Blvd.)

EDGE is a lit & performance series of local and national writers and cross-genre artists, emphasizing diversity of narrative, identity and literary source. Its purpose is to create community and foster visibility & voice for diverse peoples and words; emerging and/or younger writers; and performers working across media and art form. Broadsheets of the authors' work are available with donation at each reading. Books and journals will be available for purchase and signing by the authors. Founded by poet and dancer/choreographer, Melissa Buckheit in 2008 at Casa Libre en la Solana in Tucson, Edge is currently in its eighth year and has featured over 250+ writers and artists. Starting in Fall 2015 EDGE is housed and affiliated with ZUZI! in The Historic Y and co-curated by poet Melissa Buckheit & fiction writer Estella Gonzalez. 

Sarah Gonzales serves as a community organizer and artist in Tucson, AZ and as a social justice education consultant nationally via her company, TruthSarita, LLC. Sarah is also the Codirector/Co-Founder of Spoken Futures, Inc home to programs including Tucson Youth Poetry Slam and Liberation Lyrics which creates space for youth to process and address issues such as the school to prison pipeline, LGBTQ rights and migrant justice through spoken word poetry. In addition to facilitation, training and youth organizing work, Sarah is an extensive haiku writer, fierce dance floor occupier and a trickster performance artist whose work landed her in 6th place in the Arizona US Presidential Primaries in 2012. She has published about her youth work in the Community Literacy Journal. Her poetry has been published recently by the Feminist Wire and will be included in the upcoming book, Talking Back and Looking Forward: Poetry and Prose for Social Justice in Education. Sarah has previously worked at Oklahoma State University, University of Arizona and Duke University. She currently serves as the Program Coordinator for the UA Cultural Centers.

Shelly Taylor is the author of two full-length collections: Lions, Remonstrance (Coconut Books Braddock Book Prize: 2014) & Black-Eyed Heifer (Tarpaulin Sky: 2010), as well as three chapbooks: Peaches the yes-girl (Portable Press at YoYo Labs: 2008), Land Wide to Get a Hold Lost In (Dancing Girl: 2009), and Dirt City Lions (Horse Less: 2012). Hick Poetics, an anthology of contemporary American rural poetry co-edited with Abraham Smith, will be released from Lost Roads Press in 2015. Born in deep south Georgia, Taylor is an instructor at the University of Arizona. She calls Tucson & horseback home.

Orlando White is the author of Bone Light (Red Hen Press, 2009) and LETTERRS (Nightboat Books, 2015). Originally from Tółikan, Arizona, he is Diné of the Naaneesht’ézhi Tábaahí and born for the Naakai Diné’e. His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Omnidawn Poetry Feature Blog, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Residency and Bread Loaf John Ciardi Fellowship. He teaches at Diné College and in the low-residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.