COMING UP – CONVERSATIONS ABOUT BLACKNESS IN COLOMBIA
🚨New episode drops tomorrow at 1 pm cst 🚨
Catch a glimpse of my conversation with Colombian artist Alexander Paz and American artist Traveon Dinell Rogers as we talk about race, colorism and how it all intersects in Colombia.
Genesis Evans on Bootleg Like Jazz discussing NY fashion week, her Garifuna roots and Afro-Latinidad
Genesis Evans was born in New Orleans, LA and currently resides in Houston, TX. She was crowned Ms. Honduras Houston and as a result has participated in multiple pageants. In October 2017 she was crowned Miss Teen Turismo Model Universe and in 2018 Genesis represented Honduras at Miss Lumiere International World in Singapore and Malaysia.
In 2019, Genesis directed and organized the first Miss Raices Fashion Show in Houston to fundraise for an orphanage in Honduras. Although Genesis was born in the United States, her maternal and paternal grandparents originated from Garifuna communities in Honduras. She is the owner of Genesis Modeling Agency where she coaches and directs other models.
Q drops into Sweets By Belén and samples her alfajores, discusses her experiences as a Afro-Latina and her journey to becoming an Entrepreneur.
Q drops into Sweets By Belén and samples her alfajores, discusses her experiences as a Afro-Latina and her journey to becoming an Entrepreneur.
@sweetsbybelen
Music by: Idyll Green
Leslie Contreras Schwartz is the fourth Houston Poet Laureate, serving from 2019-2021. She is a multi-genre writer whose book, Who Speaks for Us Here, is scheduled for spring 2020 publication with Skull + Wind Press.
Leslie Contreras Schwartz is the fourth Houston Poet Laureate, serving from 2019-2021. She is a multi-genre writer whose book, Who Speaks for Us Here, is scheduled for spring 2020 publication with Skull + Wind Press. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Anomaly, The Missouri Review, The Collagist, [PANK], Iowa Review, Verse Daily, and the anthology Xicanx: 21 Mexican American Writers of the 21st Century (University of Arizona, 2022), among others. She is also the author of Nightbloom & Cenote, (St. Julian Press, 2018).
A multi-genre writer from Houston, Schwartz’s work examines the individual versus public bodies and documents lived experiences and narratives of those usually silenced, such as people with mental illness, sex workers, women who are trafficked, or children in custody.
http://www.lesliecschwartz.com
@lesliecontschwartz
Music by: Idyll Green
Jasminne Mendez is an Afro-Latina poet, educator and award winning author. She received her B.A. in English Literature and her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Houston. Mendez has had poetry and essays published by or forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Acentos Review, Crab Creek Review, Texas Review, La Galeria, Label Me Latino/a, Gulf Coast, Bird’s Thumb, The Rumpus and others. Her first multi-genre memoir Island of Dreams (Floricanto Press, 2013) was awarded Best Young Adult Latino Focused Book by the International Latino Book Awards in 2015. Her poetry and essays have been named finalists and honorable mention for several awards including the Rose Metal Press Chapbook prize and the Barry Lopez Creative Non-Fiction prize. Recently she won the Cogswell College Magazine Poetry Prize judged by Major Jackson. She is the co-founder of Tintero Projects: A Reading & Writing Workshop Series, an organization that seeks to build and promote emerging and established Latinx writers in Houston. She is a 2017 Canto Mundo Fellow and an MFA candidate in the creative writing program at the Rainier Writer’s Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
Night Blooming Jasmin(n)e published Art PĂşblico Press Houston, TX
For Jasminne Méndez, pericardial effusion and pericarditis are not just an abnormal accumulation of fluid and increased inflammation around the heart. It’s what happens “when you stifle the tears and pain of a miscarriage, infertility and chronic illness for so long that your heart does the crying for you until it begins to drown because its tears have nowhere to go.”
Diagnosed with scleroderma at 22 and lupus just six years later, her life becomes a roller coaster of doctor visits, medical tests and procedures. Staring at EKG results that look like hieroglyphics, she realizes that she doesn’t want to understand them: “The language of a life lived with chronic illness is not something I want to adapt to. I cannot let this hostile vocabulary hijack my story.”
The daughter of Dominican immigrants, Méndez fought for independence against her overly-protective parents, obtaining a full scholarship to college, a dream job after school and a master’s degree shortly thereafter. But the full- time job with medical insurance doesn’t satisfy her urge to write and perform, so she leaves it in search of creative fulfillment. In this stirring collection of personal essays and poetry, Méndez shares her story, writing about encounters with the medical establishment, experiences as an Afro Latina and longing for the life she expected but that eludes her.
JASMINNE MÉNDEZ is a Macondo and Canto Mundo Fellow, as well as a Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA) alumna. She is the author of a multi-genre memoir, Island of Dreams (2013), winner of an International Latino Book Award. She lives and works in Houston, Texas.
Arte PĂşblico Press : https://artepublicopress.com/
Music by : Idyll Green https://soundcloud.com/idyll-green
Promo by : Sam Osborne Instagram: @yzbeatz713
Instagram: @bootleglikejazz
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