We ended March by facilitating a portion of a staff retreat—including a Poetry Writing workshop—for Dissenters here in Chicago, supporting their efforts to mobilize youth resistance to the U.S. war machine. Our essay in conjunction with Transgender Law Center on trans resistance in Puerto Rico is also now up on Autostraddle, and can be read here.

We’re proud to share that we will be an embedded writer for Chicago Dancemakers Forum’s Production Residency program. Our role will be documenting the performance making process of one resident, our mentor and supporter of our project World After This One, the legendary Bombera de Corazón Ivelisse Díaz. We will be visiting her throughout her months-long residency at Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center, publishing occasional pieces of writing about her current projects in conjunction with the Performance Response Journal. Look for these in the summer and fall.

In terms of facilitating, this month we’ll be guest lecturing at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Work for a class on PIC Abolition, discussing why expanding incarceration won’t end police violence. We’ll also teach a Linking Anti-Blackness with Anti-Immigration workshop to People Matter, an org building solidarity between Black and Asian communities in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood (co-founded by one of our former youth!). Finally, we’ll be virtually visiting the classroom of our former English teacher at Amherst Regional High School, discussing writing for racial justice, and leading an abbreviated Trans & Queer Resistance to Policing workshop.

We’ll have a quieter summer than usual, scaling back to make room in our schedule to continue drafting our performance World After This One. We hope to find creative ways to share this piece later in the year, so please stay posted!

BH