LUSH: A SOMArts Series

Loading Events

LUSH: A SOMArts Series launches on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. The first of three virtual programs, this event features readings, a panel discussion, and Q&A with Juli Delgado Lopera, author of Fiebre Tropical, and Elaine Castillo, author of America is Not the Heart, two Bay Area novelists whose writing reflects diasporic and queer life in the US today, moderated by Claire Calderón.

LUSH: A SOMArts Series draws inspiration from Solarpunk, a genre that imagines futures that reject dystopian narratives, instead favoring visions of sustainability and interconnection. LUSH asks us how we, as artists, curators, writers, filmmakers, musicians, and activists, can create a future where we are thriving in abundance?

Accessibility

Closed captioning will be provided during the virtual stream

Donations

Access to this event is donation based on a sliding scale ($5-20; no one turned away for lack of funds. Your donation ensures that SOMArts continues to provide critical space and support to Bay Area artists and curators for years to come, while ensuring the arts are accessible to all! Click here to donate!

LUSH: A SOMARTS SERIES LITERARY LINE UP

LUSH: A SOMArts Series Literary

Claire Calderón is an Oakland-based writer and curator at work on her first novel. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and is the manager of The Ruby, a gathering space for women and non-binary artists and writers in San Francisco.

Photo credit: Alexa Treviño

LUSH: A SOMArts Series Literary

Named one of “30 of the planet’s most exciting young people” by the Financial Times, Elaine Castillo was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her debut novel America Is Not the Heart was named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, The New York Public Library, The New York Post, The Boston Globe, Real Simple, Lit Hub, and has been nominated for the Elle Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, the Aspen Words Prize, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Book Award, and the California Book Award. Her writing can be found in The New York Times, The Nation, Freeman’s, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a book of essays about the politics of our reading culture, as well as a second novel.

Photo credit: Amaal Said

Juli Delgado Lopera is an award-winning Colombian writer, historian, speaker and storyteller based in San Francisco. They’re the author of The New York Times acclaimed novel Fiebre Tropical, out March 2020 from The Feminist Press. Juli is also the author of Quiéreme (Nomadic Press 2017) and ¡Cuéntamelo! (Aunt Lute 2017) an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. Juli’s received awarded fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, Headlands Center for The Arts, Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and The SF Grotto. Their work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Teen Vogue, The Kenyon Review, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, The White Review, LALT, Four Way Review, Broadly, TimeOut Mag to name a few. They are the former executive director of RADAR Productions a queer literary non-profit in San Francisco.

Photo credit: Rebeka Rodriguez

Go to Top