This event takes place in person at Charis and on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance. Please read the in-person event guidelines at the bottom of this page to be sure you can participate in the event.

Charis welcomes Radhika Singh in conversation with Holiday Simmons for a discussion of Earthly Playing Field, a novel that traces love and revolution in a crumbling world order.

Roma has a steady job, a mortgage, and a surrogate family in Queens. But as she moves through her daily routines, the powerful Empire that rules her world bares its teeth elsewhere-crushing freedom movements across the planet, including the Punjabi farmers' uprising where her younger brother struggles on the frontlines.

Roma's life is upended when her older brother entrusts her with a strange gift: an ordinary-looking plant that manifests a sophisticated bioengineered technology. The 'cell' opens a portal for an extraterrestrial spirit-body bearing news of a liberated future-and the potential to hack AI warfare--propelling Roma and her family into the core of a rising resistance.

As dreams and dialectics converge, Roma meditates on the role of faith--ruminating on mystic poetics and anticolonial legacies while yearning for a bewitching woman whose heart will only ever belong to the revolution.

Radhika Singh lives, writes and teaches in Queens, New York. Her fiction speculates on the presence of magic in this world, the connection to spirit and consciousness, and the power of the people to organize for collective liberation. Her novel Earthly Playing Field connects ongoing People's movements against global imperialism through a queer, Sufi love story. Her novel Weirdly Tuned Antennae, winner of the 2025 Sukenick Prize for Innovative Fiction, is forthcoming from FC2 Press. For more information visit: rhsingh.work.

Holiday Simmons, MSW (he/him) is the founder and Lead Practitioner at Southern Soul Wellness, a holistic mental health and spiritual wellness practice. Through somatic coaching, organizational wellbeing support, and generative conflict mediation, Southern Soul Wellness supports individuals and social justice organizations in the healing and transformation of mind, body, community, and the planet. Holiday has over two decades of experience in social work, social justice organizing and healing justice. He makes his home in the Muscogee Creek territories of Atlanta, GA and the Zinu territories of Cartagena, Colombia.

Queers for Climate Justice is a small and scrappy grassroots collective that uplifts LGBTQ+ brilliance throughout the climate justice movement and creates intentional spaces for climate justice organizing within LGBTQ+ movement convenings. Learn more at: https://www.instagram.com/queers4climatejustice/.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person at the event.

Charis Books is a fully wheelchair accessible space with on site van accessible parking, two ramps, and additional overflow accessible parking nearby. Additional accessibility information can be found on the Accessibility page of our website. 

In-person event guidelines:

All attendees must wear a face mask during the event.

We will begin seating people at 7:00 PM ET.

This event will be live-streamed via Crowdcast. 

As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request specific accessibility accommodations, please contact info@charisbooksandmore.com or call the store at 404-524-0304.

Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org.

By attending our event, whether in person or virtually, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email info@chariscircle.org.

Earthly Playing Field -- Radhika Singh in Conversation with Holiday Simmons