Joys of Queerness and the Word: An Indigiqueer Reading

Palabras Bilingual Bookstore, along with community partners PEN America Arizona and Abalone Mountain Press, was delighted to bring you, “Joys of Queerness and the Word: An Indigiqueer Reading,” a poetry event celebrating LGTBQ2S. Our talented, emerging Native poets are Jalen Charley, Kinsale Drake, Boderra Joe, Manny Loley, and Taté Walker. This free event was hosted on June 25th, 2022 at 6:00pm MST.

Books and zines by the authors were available and for sale at the event.

featured authors

Jalen Charley is Honey Combed Rock clan, born for the Bitter Water clan. Their pronouns are all of the above, and they are the recipient of the 2021 SkyWords Emerging Writers Prize.

Kinsale Drake (Diné; she/they) is a poet/playwright whose work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, Yale Literary Magazine, TIME, NPR, The Foundationalist, and elsewhere. She previously served as a National Student Poet and was an inaugural Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow. Most recently she was the winner of The Academy of American Poets Prize/Sean T. Lannan Poetry Prize and the Young Native Playwrights Award. Her work is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets (poets.org), diode poetry, Wax Nine, and elsewhere. “Hummingbird Heart” (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022) is her latest project with artist Alice Mao.

Boderra Joe is a poet, journalist, and photographer from Bááhazł’ah (Twin Lakes), New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation. She is Diné of the Folded Arms Clan, born for the Water’s Edge Clan. She is the author of the poetry collection, Desert Teeth (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022). Her work can also be found in the first issue of the New Mexico Poetry Anthology, Yellow Medicine Review, Tribal College Journal, Mass Poetry, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA and BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She serves as the Program Coordinator at the Institute of American Indian Arts in the MFA Creative Writing Department. She is an Indigenous Nations Poet Fellow, a member of the Alpha Chi National Honor Society, Truman Capote Recipient, Idyllwild Writing Fellow, Naropa University Fellow, and a recipient of the Bosque Redondo Memorial Artists-in-their-Residence Fellowship. She resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Manny Loley is a Diné storyteller from T’iis Sikaad on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. He holds an M.F.A. in fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts and he is a current Ph.D. candidate in English and literary arts at the University of Denver. Loley is a member of Saad Bee Hózhǫ́: Diné Writers’ Collective and director of the Emerging Diné Writers’ Institute. He is also the program coordinator for Six Directions: Indigenous Creative Writing Program through Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, CO. His work has found homes in Pleaides Magazine, the Massachusetts Review, the Santa Fe Literary Review, Broadsided Press, the Yellow Medicine Review, and the Diné Reader: an Anthology of Navajo Literature, among others. His writing has been thrice nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Loley is at work on a novel titled, They Collect Rain in Their Palms.

Taté Walker is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. They are an award-winning Two Spirit storyteller for outlets like The Nation, Everyday Feminism, Native Peoples, Indian Country Today, Apartment Therapy, and ANMLY. They are also featured in several anthologies, including FIERCE: Essays by and about Dauntless Women, South Dakota in Poems, and W.W. Norton’s Everyone’s an Author. Taté recently released their first full-length, illustrated poetry book, The Trickster Riots (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022). Learn more at jtatewalker.com.

Community Partners

	Palabras Bilingual Bookstore