In Full Color

Brown Girl Book Lover is jumping in the pool and you’re invited! Join us as luminous creatives from across the diasporic spectrum convene in Albany to share their award-winning work.

Saturday 9/7/24, 4—7pm

Guest Curator

Hi! I’m Leslie-ann Murray, a fiction writer and book lover from Trinidad and Tobago. As the founder of Brown Girl Book Lover, I’ve spent over ten years talking about the importance of diversity in literature through writing workshops, literary panels, and gatherings like this one, all around the world.

By researching, interviewing and highlighting diverse writers in the literary sphere, we open portals to new worlds — ripe with the manna of living, breathing imagination. Join us as we celebrate rich perspectives from the across the cultural spectrum.

Photo c/o Cliff Faust

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  • Exhibition of Artworks by Nuveen Barwari

    Nuveen Barwari was born in Nashville, TN and grew up in Duhok, Kurdistan. Through a combination of collage, painting, textiles, and installation, Barwari reimagines the space between the homeland and the host land. She holds an MFA from the University of Tennessee. Read an essay by Nuveen

  • Mary McLaughlin Slechta, Writer

    Mary McLaughlin Slechta is the 2021 recipient of the Kimbilio National Fiction Prize. Her winning collection, Mulberry Street Stories published by Four Way Books in 2023 and her previous chapbooks were widely celebrated. She is an editor for great weather for MEDIA and lives in Syracuse, New York with her family.

  • Phat X. Chiem, Writer

    Phat is an all-American boy born in Vietnam. He and his family braved a clandestine journey from their wartorn home country to settle in Southern California. Phat spent years as a senior editor at Yahoo, and got his start in journalism as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. He holds an MBA from Pepperdine and a BA in English Lit. from UC Irvine.

  • Avery Irons, Writer

    Avery Irons was born and raised in central Illinois. She is a writing consultant based in Albany, New York. Her novella Glass Men won Big Fiction Magazine’s Novella Prize in 2016. Her short fiction has appeared in the African American Review, Ragazine.cc, and Sinister Wisdom. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.