Readings & Artist Talk: Lacy Johnson, Aja Monet and Daniel Heyman

In addition to 100 open-enrollment workshops in visual arts and creative writing, the Fine Arts Work Center Summer Program offers free, nightly readings and artist talks for the community. Books will be available for purchase and signing, cash and cards are accepted.

Lacy M. Johnson is a Houston-based professor, curator, activist, and is author of the critically acclaimed memoir The Other Side (Tin House, 2014). She is also author of Trespasses: A Memoir (University of Iowa Press, 2012). Her third book, The Reckonings, is forthcoming from Scribner in 2018. She teaches creative nonfiction in the Low-Residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada College and at Rice University.

Aja Monet, NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Literary Work-Poetry 2018, is an internationally established poet of Cuban-Jamaican decent. Harry Belafonte has called Aja Monet “The true definition of an artist”. Her craft is an in-depth reflection of emotional wisdom, skill, and activism. The youngest individual to win the legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Café Grand Slam title, she is recognized for combining her spellbound voice and powerful imagery on stage. Monet was a featured speaker at the Women’s March on Washington DC where she read the title poem of her latest book My Mother Was A Freedom Fighter (Haymarket books 2017). Monet’s other books include Inner-City Chants & Cyborg Cyphers (2015), and The Black Unicorn Sings (Penmanship books). In addition, she collaborated with poet/musician Saul Williams on the book Chorus: a literary mixtape (MTV books/Simon & Schuster).

Daniel Heyman, a printmaker and painter, is a recipient of Guggenheim and Pew Fellowships. His work is in over 25 public collections including Getty Research Institute, Hood Museum of Art, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His latest project, “In Our Own Words: Native Impressions” is a collaboration with Lucy Ganje portraying contemporary Native American life in North Dakota and is currently touring the country. He teaches at RISD, Princeton University, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Art, and is represented by Cade Tompkins Projects.