I Scream Social Reading & Open Mic: Galentine’s Edition

When:
February 23, 2018 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
2018-02-23T19:00:00-06:00
2018-02-23T21:00:00-06:00
Cost:
Free

Get your cones ready for a special Galentine’s Edition of Malvern Books’ FREE reading series, I SCREAM SOCIAL, hosted by Malvern’s own Annar Veröld & Schandra Madha. We’ll be celebrating the best kind of love there is: the love of your girl gang!

Featuring women-identified writers from the Austin community (and beyond!), this month’s I Screamers are Sheenika Medard, Christina Romero, and Breana Miller.

This month’s three featured readers are from the Speak Piece Poetry Project, a collective of artists committed to developing the language, comprehension, and presentation skills of youth in central Texas through competitive spoken word poetry. The organization also provides a safe space for youth in central Texas to express themselves freely, and promotes the artistic and leadership talents of young people as they engage with their community.

~7pm – Ice cream & Open Mic for women-identified and non-binary writers. We want a chance to hear everyone’s wonderful work, so please try to keep readings under 3 minutes.

~The featured reading begins after the open mic and will be followed by even more ice cream.

Can’t make it this time around? No worries. I Scream Social is every month ’til the end of time.

Sheenika Medard is a first-generation West-Indian American poet, performer, educator and organizer. After competing at Brave New Voices 2010 with the Austin TheySpeak youth team, she was inspired to spread the art of spoken word and slam as a viable platform for both literacy and as a tool of change. She has since begun programs in her home country of St. Lucia, and has appeared on several stages across the world. She recently participated in the Youth Speaks Future Corps Fellowship and launched the #FirstGenWoes and #SpeakWithoutCage initiatives. She intends to use her work in different mediums to further level the playing field for women, ethnic groups and the youth. She firmly believes that recording our stories in history is leaving a road for future generations to follow and by openly discovering and expressing our truth, we leave a framework behind for others to do the same. She is excited and honored to be a part of this team and cannot wait to begin the work of building opportunities for the youth to speak up!

Christina Romero is a teacher, a performer, and a life-long learner. She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a BFA in Theater Education and has spent the subsequent years establishing her approach to teaching literacy through the arts. While teaching Performing Arts in Beijing, Christina performed regularly at Spittoon Poetry’s monthly meetings and spearheaded their budding Slam Poetry events. She is an Austin Poetry Slam champion and participated in the 2017 Women of the World poetry slam qualifier. She believes that the marriage between written expression and performance is crucial in developing self-awareness, strong communication skills, and leadership. It is her hope to cultivate a learning environment that is safe, challenging, and inspiring in order to bring meaningful change through storytelling and community engagement. She currently teaches English Language Arts to grades 5-7.

Breana Miller is a black female youth poet. She is an Austin native. She began writing at the age of 11 and performing at the age of 12. She has been a part of the youth slam scene for about six years and is now working on transitioning into being a teaching artist to help bring about the next generation of youth poets. Writing was the driving force of her self-discovery as a black queer woman, but poetry has been her main tool for seeking and providing inspiration for those whose voices are not heard. She is a psychology major at Texas State University with hopes of becoming a licensed psychologist and plans to use creative writing as a means to treat clients who suffer from traumas and other disabilities. Storytelling is one of the few things Breana claims to be a specialist in. She lives by the words of one of her favorite poets, Maya Angelou: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”.

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