JOIN THE ENTIRE 2020 COHORT FOR A CELEBRATION OF NECESSARY ALTERNATIVES
All six members of The 3rd Thing’s 2020 Cohort will be in Seattle on April 4th! Join us to celebrate the launch of all four books, with authors Jennifer Calkins, Marilyn Freeman, Megan Sandberg-Zakian and Carlos Sirah, along with 2020 Land Acknowledgment Writer, Melissa Bennett and 2020 Cover Artist, Juan Alonso-Rodríguez. Juan is hosting this event at his beautiful downtown Seattle studio in the Tashiro/Kaplan Building. There will be short readings, refreshments and a lot of joy.
Books will be available to purchase and have signed by the authors:
Fugitive Assemblage, by Jennifer Calkins
The Illuminated Space, by Marilyn Freeman
There Must Be Happy Endings, by Megan Sandberg-Zakian
The High Alive, by Carlos Sirah
Jennifer Calkins (Fugitive Assemblage) is a writer, attorney and evolutionary biologist. She is the author of the book A Story of Witchery (Les Figues Press) and the chapbook Devil Card (Beard of Bees Press). Between 2010 and 2015 she produced The Quail Diaries, an interdisciplinary project melding science and lyric essay. Her most recent creative works are published in Snail Trail, The Fanzine, Entropy, Queen Mob’s Teahouse and Quarterly West. She lives in Seattle with creatures including teenagers. Visit Jennifer’s website.
Marilyn Freeman (The Illuminated Space: A Personal Theory & Contemplative Practice of Media Art) is a writer and media artist. Her text and time-based essays can be found at TriQuarterly, Blackbird, Ninth Letter, The Fourth Genre and Abbey of the Arts. Freeman’s media work spans and intermixes narrative, documentary, experimental, installation-based and contemplative forms. Her films have been exhibited on PBS, in movie theaters and galleries, and at spirituality centers and film festivals worldwide. She lives in Olympia with her spouse Anne. Visit Marilyn’s website.
Megan Sandberg-Zakian (There Must Be Happy Endings: On A Theater of Optimism & Honesty) is a freelance theater director with a passion for the development of diverse new American plays & playwrights. She is a co-founder of Maia Directors, a consulting group for artists and organizations engaging with stories from the Middle East and beyond, a graduate of Brown University, and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. Megan lives in Jamaica Plain, MA, with her wife Candice. Visit Megan’s website.
Carlos Sirah (The High Alive) is a writer, performer, and culture worker from the Mississippi Delta. Sirah creates formal structures rooted in Black expressions of possibility. The High Alive is his first book. Sirah has been a Lambda Literary and Millay Colony fellow and has performed and developed his work with a wide array of place-based social justice and arts organizations, and theaters, both nationally and internationally. Sirah has been a MacDowell fellow and received his MFA from Brown University. Visit Carlos’s website.
Juan Alonso-Rodríguez (2020 cover artist) is a self-taught Cuban-American artist. His work has exhibited throughout the US, Canada and Latin America, has been commissioned for significant public works projects, and is included in permanent public and private collections including the Portland Art Museum and Museum of Northwest Art. His many awards include, most recently, a 2019 Artist Trust Fellowship and a 2019 Washington State Governor’s Arts Award. Juan is a Seattle Arts Commissioner and serves on the Public Art Advisory Committee for the City of Seattle. Visit Juan’s website.
Melissa Bennett (2020 Land Acknowledgment writer), M.Div. (Umatilla/Nez Perce/Sac & Fox/Anishinaabe) is a writer, storyteller, story listener, educator, and spiritual care provider living as a guest on Medicine Creek Treaty Tribes land. Melissa is interested in story as medicine, especially its ability to heal historical trauma among Indigenous communities. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Melissa writes poetry and creative non-fiction with a focus on ancestral medicine, culture, place, tradition, and faith. Follow Melissa on Instagram.
