Join us for a reading celebrating the work of Latinx literary voices. This virtual installment of the Latinx & Proud! Reading Series will feature nationally recognized poets Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Ana Portnoy Brimmer and Emerging Poet Laureate of Allegheny County Paloma Sierra. Latinx & Proud! board member and poet Eloisa Amezcua will be your virtual host!

Melissa Lozada-Oliva is the author of Peluda (Button Poetry 2017), which explores the intersections of Latina identity, feminism, hair removal & what it means to belong. Oliva performs poems in universities & venues across the country, she also hosts workshops on incorporating humor into poetry & general creative writing classes. Oliva is the co-host of the podcast Say More with fellow poet Olivia Gatwood. Oliva's work has been featured or is forthcoming in REMEZCLA, PAPER, The Guardian, BreakBeat Poets, Kenyon Review, Vulture, Bustle, Glamour Magazine, The Huffington Post, Muzzle Magazine, The Adroit Journal, and BBC Mundo.

Ana Portnoy Brimmer is a Puerto Rican poet and performer, writer and ARTivist. She holds a BA and an MA in English (Literature) from the University of Puerto Rico, and is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Rutgers University-Newark. Her chapbook manuscript, To Love An Island, is the winner of YesYes Book's 2019 Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest, forthcoming in March 2020. Ana is the recipient of The Ancinas Family Scholarship; the inaugural recipient of the Sandra Cisneros Fellowship; a 2019 Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets and Best of the Net nominee; and a #PoetsForPuertoRico organizer. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Winter Tangerine, Gulf Coast, Foundry Journal, Sx Salon, Huizache, Anomaly, Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm, Centro Journal, among others.

Paloma Sierra is a Puerto Rican poet, playwright, and translator based in Pittsburgh. A writer with poetic and musical roots, Paloma has had her work developed by Poetic Theater Productions, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama. Her verse dramas, poetry, and translations are published in Bridge: The Bluffton University Journal, Persephone's Daughters, and Sampsonia Way. Paloma holds a BHA in Creative Writing and Drama from Carnegie Mellon and is currently pursuing an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the same institution. Read Paloma's poem "BuT yOuR eNgLiSh Is So GoOd!"

Eloisa Amezcua is from Arizona. She earned a BA in English from the University of San Diego, where she was the recipient of the Lindsey J. Cropper Award for Creative Writing in Poetry selected by Ilya Kaminsky. In 2014, she completed the MFA program at Emerson College in Boston, MA. She's received fellowships & scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, the Bread Loaf Translators' Conference, the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Workshop, the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, & the NY State Summer Writers Institute. Amezcua's debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón, (Shelterbelt Press, 2018). She is the author of three chapbooks: On Not Screaming (Horse Less Press, 2016), Symptoms of Teething, winner of the 2016 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2017), and Mexicamericana (Porkbelly Press, 2017). The founding editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry, Associate Poetry Editor at Honeysuckle Press, & founder of Costura Creative, Eloisa lives in Columbus, OH.

Adriana E. Ramírez, Eloisa Amezcua, Malcolm Friend & Karla Lamb

The mission of the Latinx & Proud! reading series is to incite conversation, empower, & amplify the Latinx community in Pittsburgh, PA & beyond.

The Show Must Go On(line) is made possible thanks to generous support from the Benter Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, the Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, the Opportunity Fund, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and an Anonymous Foundation.

Latinx & Proud! Reading Series ft. Melissa Lozada-Oliva presented by City of Asylum