The Cha Cha Files: From Oakland to New York City

Author and poet Maya Chinchilla reads from her new book “The Cha Cha Files: A Chapina Poética” with special guests Sabina Ibarrola, Mariama Lockington, Liz Latty and Ynanna Djehuty

Sunday Feb. 15, 2015
3-5pm
$5-10 donation
*No one turned away for lack of funds.

Join us for an afternoon filled with stories of heartbreak, tenderness, heavy breathing and delivering the goods. Poet Laureate of rainbows and alternative futures, Chinchilla brings her visions of revolution, survival, and Central American unicorns to New York City joined by a powerful line up women writers, poets and performers.

YNANNA DJEHUTY is an Afro-Quisqueyana born and raised in the Bronx. She is a midwife, doula and writer. The focus of her work is the empowerment of women and people of the African Diaspora. She utilizes her experience as a midwife and reproductive health advocate to raise awareness on maternal and reproductive health for women, highlighting the disparities in the healthcare system in the United States for women of color. She is pursuing certification to receive her midwifery so she may continue to serve women in New Jersey and New York.
www.thesewatersrundeep.com

LIZ LATTY is the author of Split (Unthinkable Creatures Press, 2012). Her poetry and nonfiction can be found in make/shift magazine, The Feminist Wire, Jupiter 88, HOLD: A Journal, and the Seal Press anthology We Don’t Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists, among others. She is a Lambda Literary Fellow and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, as well as the Jackson, Phelan, and Tanenbaum Literary Awards from the San Francisco Foundation. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, teaches in Manhattan, and lives in Brooklyn.

MARIAMA LOCKINGTON calls many places home but currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. She is published in The Comstock Review poetry journal (2009), Sparkle and Blink Issue 3.8 (July 2012), and is a San Francisco Literary Death Match champion (Episode 46).
Mariama performs her work around the country and teaches writing workshops for various youth organizations. She holds a Masters in Education from Lesley University and an MFA in Poetry from San Francisco State University. When she is not writing or teaching, you’ll find Mariama singing Karaoke, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or re-reading her favorite book, Sula by Toni Morrison.

SABINA IBARROLA is an artist and budding herbalist. This bruja finds the meat and magia of her work in the natural world and urban ecosystems of Brooklyn, New York. Inspired by a brilliant galaxy of queer femme artists and instigators, she explores themes of love and heartbreak, mixed-race ancestry, apocalypse and faith. Sabina’s collaborations include Heels on Wheels Glitter Roadshow, EmergeLAB@BAX, and The Femme Show, and she apprentices with Robin Rose Bennett of Wisewoman Healing Ways. Sabina works as a lead facilitator for Digging Deep, Facing Self online writing course.

MAYA CHINCHILLA is a Guatemalan, Bay Area-based writer, video artist, educator and author of “The Cha Cha Files: A Chapina Poética.” Maya received her MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College and her undergraduate degree from University of California, Santa Cruz, where she also founded and co-edited the annual publication, La Revista. Maya writes and performs poetry that explores themes of historical memory, heartbreak, tenderness, sexuality, and alternative futures. Her work —sassy, witty, performative, and self-aware— draws on a tradition of truth-telling and poking fun at the wounds we carry.

Her work has been published in anthologies and journals including: Mujeres de Maíz, Sinister Wisdom, Americas y Latinas: A Stanford Journal of Latin American Studies, Cipactli Journal, and The Lunada Literary Anthology. Maya is a founding member of the performance group Las Manas, a former artist-in-residence at Galería de La Raza in San Francisco, CA, and La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, CA, and is a VONA Voices, Dos Brujas and Letras Latinas alum. She is the co-editor of “Desde El Epicentro: An anthology of Central American Poetry and Art” and is a lecturer at San Francisco State University, UC Davis and other bay area universities. http://www.thechachafiles.com
http://www.mayachapina.com