‘Houston Eyes, Silver Screens’ Reading Series

’Ojos Houstonianos, Pantallas de Plata’ Serie de Lecturas

‘Houston Eyes, Silver Screens’ was a virtual, 3-month-long reading series where writers of color from Houston present original pieces of writing, such as poetry, fiction, or essay, that respond to, critique, and/or transform pop culture. Reyes Ramirez & friends processed pop culture & digital media in a context where we are ingesting films, video games, and music more than ever.

‘Ojos Houstonianos, Pantallas de Plata’ fue una serie de lectura virtual de 3 meses donde escritores de color de Houston presentaron escritos originales, como poesía, ficción o ensayo, que responden a, crítican y / o transforman la cultura pop. Reyes Ramirez y sus amigos procesaron la cultura pop y los medios digitales en un contexto en el que estamos ingiriendo películas, videojuegos y música más que nunca.

Archive

Click on images or button to be taken directly to video /
Haga clic en las imágenes o en el botón para Ir directamente al video

October, Film / octubre, películas
FEATURING / PRESENTANDO
Anthony Sutton, Edward Garza, Claudia Corletto
CAPTIONS AVAILABLE / SUBTÍTULOS ESTAN DISPONIBLES

Bios / Biografías

Claudia Corletto was born in New York City and raised in Houston, Texas. She crafts her time as an art nomad. She works as a visual artist, creative consultant, art educator, certified juror, curator and producer in film and fashion. She founded MEZCLA, a traveling art exhibit firmly rooted in the principal that Hispanic/Latinx artists should be the only authors of their own narrative, culture and identity in 2017. Claudia is also a former member of the collective the Mamis and the Papis, a collective of womxn, femmes, and gender nonconforming folks that play music and raise funds for non-profits doing work that matters in the community such as The Carolina Abortion Fund, NC Field's Poder Juvenil Campesino Program, and SONG (Southerners on New Ground). Claudia has had the pleasure of working with The Design Studio for Social Intervention, The University of Houston, FotoFest, North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina Museum of History, Marbles Kids Museum, The Exploris School, Casa Esperanza Montessori School, The City of Raleigh, The City of Durham, Black Genius, PBS and The Southern Documentary Fund.

Edward Santos Garza (Twitter and Instagram: @edwardsgarza) teaches in the humanities at Houston Community College. His writing has appeared in *Praxis*, *Texas Books in Review*, and the *Houston Chronicle*, among other venues.

Anthony Sutton resides on former Akokiksas, Atakapa, Karankawa, and Sana land (currently named Houston, TX) and has had poems appear or forthcoming in Southern Indiana Review, Indianapolis Review, Grist, Gulf Coast, The Journal, Passages North, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Quarter After Eight, and elsewhere.

November, Video Games / noviembre, videojuegos
FEATURING / PRESENTANDO
Rahul Rao, Omer Ahmed, Farrah Fang
CAPTIONS AVAILABLE / SUBTÍTULOS ESTAN DISPONIBLES

Bios / Biografías

Omer Ahmed (Pronouns: He/Him) is a Black and Muslim educator, writer, and performer. He has works published in issues or forthcoming issues of The Sonora Review, The Penn Review, Contra: Texas Anthology and internationally in Bareknuckle Poet amongst other places. Omer currently works for Writers in the Schools and hopes to expand his love of writing to further audiences, with a high focus on the youth.

Farrah Fang is a Mexican multi-disciplinary artist from Houston, TX. Her mediums include poetry, performance art, photography, collage art, etc. She is an activist for trans rights.

Rahul Rao is a writer and performer from Houston, TX who utilizes sounds and sampling in his spoken word project coyotebloodbath. The project name itself derives from Rahul's online gaming handle, though its use as a Midwestern farming colloquialism does not go unacknowledged. It is, at the very least, interesting to watch.

December, Music / diciembre, música
December 18, 7:00 PM
FEATURING / PRESENTANDO
Miranda Ramírez, Aliah Lavonne Tigh, & José Eduardo Sánchez
CAPTIONS AVAILABLE AFTER READING / SUBTÍTULOS ESTARAN DISPONIBLES DESPUES DE LA LEYENDA

Bios / Biografías

Aliah Lavonne Tigh’s poems have been featured in Guernica, The Texas Review, Matter Monthly, Storyscape, and other journals. Tigh has joined other writers for the Tin House Summer Workshop, read for Houston’s Poison Pen Reading Series, contributed work for a Gulf Coast Journal and Texas Contemporary ekphrastic collaboration and was a grateful Recipient of Idyllwild Arts’ 2017 Bentley-Buckman Writing Fellowship and a Neal Marshall Creative Writing Fellowship. She holds poetry and philosophy degrees from the University of Houston and an MFA from Antioch Los Angeles. As a member of Houston's CASM, Creatives for Asylum Seekers and Migrants, she presented with other artists at the 2019 Creative Community Silent Auction benefiting the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative. Follow her at @Alovetigh on twitter.

Miranda Ramírez is an activist/artist residing in Houston, Texas. You may find her publications in Ripples in Space, Glass Mountain, Shards, The Bayou Review, Coffin Bell, and most recently, Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century. She is also the founder of Defunkt Magazine, an international publication that seeks to uplift marginalized voices.

José Eduardo Sánchez is a queer immigrant artist, cultural organizer, language worker, and popular educator. His collaborative experiments with language and space - including poetry, performance, and translation - have appeared in Defunkt Magazine (2020), Border Tuner at the Rubin Center - UTEP (2019), El Zócalo at the Alley Theater (2019), ALOUD at the Los Angeles Public Library (2018), and Pacific Standard Time (2017), among others. Sánchez is currently working on Notas Jotas, a bilingual community workshop series, online archive, and future publication uplifting the cultural power of LGBTQ+ Latinx voices, through a grant from The Idea Fund. Sánchez is also a 2020 KGMCA-PRH Social Engagement Fellow investigating the implications and ramifications of creative placemaking in Houston’s historic Third Ward. Sánchez was born in Guanajuato, Mexico and now calls Houston, Texas home.

Thank you to the Sponsor(s) / Gracias a los patrocinadores:

This event is supported in part by Poets & Writers, thanks to a grant from the Hearst Foundations / Este evento es apoyado en parte por Poets & Writers, gracias a una subvención de Hearst Foundations