SAT FEB 22 · 7 PM

Join us for the release of Try This at Home, an anthology chapbook from Spokane’s Diverse Voices Writing Group. The release party will feature readings from authors included in the anthology, and proceeds from book sales will go to the nascent Carl Maxey Center and Friends of the Black Lens.

In Try This at Home, Black poet and activist Bethany Montgomery of Power 2 the Poetry urges Spokane residents to stop discriminating based on skin color and sexual orientation; Jewish poet Jazlyn Jacobs examines history, “the names of my ancestors scrawled backward into clay / until writing uninvents itself,” and open-mindedness, “Teach the words to me anyway”; renowned artist and organizer Karen Mobley, who has symbrachdactlyly, writes with wit and humor about being a member of “The Gimp Club;” and Jackie McCowen Rose, the group’s first facilitator, pens sharp, powerful vignettes about womanhood, Black lives, and the constant work for all of us “to be just, to be loyal, to be kind and courageous.” Spanning multiple genres and settings—including Aretha Williams’s historical novel excerpt about the life of Shih Yang (Ching Shih), a Chinese woman pirate—this is an honest, fierce, and intimate collection, and an introduction to ten talented writers.

“To a writer, whether a new or seasoned word warrior, the only thing more terrifying than a blank page or screen may be offering his/her/their work to unknown and often unseen readers… Courage is required to offer the work, which is itself uncovered and vulnerable, especially for those whose voices have been drowned out by mainstream voices for so long. The participants in the Diverse Voices Writing Group have come to lean on one another for that courage and genuine, constructive help.”

—From Try This at Home’s foreword, by Jackie McCowen Rose, Founding Group Facilitator

This event is free and open to the public. Proceeds from sales will be donated to the nascent Carl Maxey Center in East Central, a community betterment project of The Friends of the Black Lens, www.carlmaxeycenter.org.

The Diverse Voices Writing Group meets at Spark Central every first Thursday of the month from 5:30 - 6:45 pm.