Writers of Color Reading Series

Lucy Dou is a writer, actor, singer, and professional level zither performer. She loves writing and feel thankful to the joy that this storytelling format brings to her. She mainly writes fictions and plays, and also composes music. Her works has been awarded and published nationally. Currently she is a student at University of Iowa double majoring in creative writing and musical theater, but she's going to move to New York City in this fall to study musical theater at American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Shalini Jasti is a recent University of Iowa graduate having studied English and Creative Writing and Secondary Education. She recently spent time student teaching 8th grade English at Southeast Junior High in Iowa City. 

Shalini is passionate about English Education, the globalization of the English language, and the correlation between telling individual and unique stories in native tongues and rising understanding between different communities.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Shreya is a rising high school senior at West High School in Iowa City. She currently serves as the Inaugural Iowa Student Poet Ambassador for the 2021-2022 academic year. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Writing Awards and can be found, or is forthcoming, in Polyphony Lit and the Rising Phoenix Press. She hopes to write a bestselling novel one day.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Arinze Ifeakandu was born in Kano, Nigeria and studied English at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is a recent MFA graduate from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he was the winner of the 2018 Richard Yates Short Story Contest. Arinze was also shortlisted for The Caine Prize in 2017, and was the winner of a 2015 A Public Space Emerging Writer Fellowship, for his story “God’s Children Are Little Broken Things.” He is currently on a teaching fellowship at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and his stories have recently appeared in A Public Space and One Story.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

X.H. Collins was born in Hechuan, China, and grew up in Kangding, on the East Tibet Plateau. Flowing Water, Falling Flowers is her first novel. She lives in Iowa with her husband, son, and dog. To learn more about her and her work, visit her website at xhcollins.com.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Angela Pico was born in the Andes in 1994, spent her early childhood in Bogotá, Colombia and then moved with her parents and twin sister to the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural North Carolina.   She called western North Carolina home, until she moved forty minutes east of Los Angeles to study in Pomona College, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in Romance Languages and Literatures, specializing in Spanish and French Literatures. She won a prize for best thesis.  While completing her undergrad degree, she studied French Literature abroad at the Sorbonne University in Paris.  After her journey in California, she came back to North Carolina to work in an elementary school as a Program Coordinator for an academic enrichment program for underprivileged children ages 5-12.  While spending time with children, she realized she wanted to write the stories she told them. And she wanted to further her skills in poetry.  She was accepted into the MFA Spanish Creative Program at the University of Iowa with an Arts Fellowship, which is designed to recruit the most talented artists to the university.  During her MFA she won the Stanley Award, worked as an editor at Iowa Literaria, and shared her poetry in various literary festivals. After completing her MFA, she obtained a Masters in  French and Francophone Studies at the University of Iowa in Spring 2021. While at the University of Iowa, she has researched Latina/o/x Literature and has presented her work at conferences, she has also taught French and Spanish Language classes, as well as a course in Latina/o/x Literature. 

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw. 

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Dawson Davenport is a Meskwaki from the Meskwaki Settlement. A 2019 UI grad with a degree in Art, Dawson uses various mediums to showcase his Art. Dawson draws inspiration from his life experience and his Meskwaki way of life.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Jarod Valencia-Cheng is a 2nd-year student at the University of Iowa, being originally from Maryland, with a major in Creative Writing and minors in both Dance and Cinema. They are multifaceted in their interests as an RA, a member of the Change UIowa English (CUE) Committee, and a member of multiple dance groups like the Hawkeye Ballroom Dance Company and the UI Salsa Club.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Mekhia Hillgren is from West Des Moines, IA and just graduated from the University of Iowa, where she studied English/Creative Writing and Sustainability. She writes nonfiction work that explores mental health and how emotional abuse affects children as they grow into adulthood.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Yasmina Din Madden is a Vietnamese American writer who lives in Iowa. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published or are forthcoming in The Idaho Review, PANK, Necessary Fiction, The Forge, The Atticus Review,The Fairy Tale Review and other journals. Her short stories have been finalists for The Iowa Review Award in Fiction and The Masters Review Anthology. Her flash fiction stories have been finalists for the Fractured Micro-Fiction Contest and the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions Fiction Prize. She teaches literature and creative writing at Drake University and is at work on a collection of short stories.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Caroline Cheung is a PhD Candidate in English, working at the intersections of women of color feminisms, theories of state violence, transformative justice and prison abolitionism. As an educator, her pedagogy focuses on creating radical community in the classroom and amplifying the power that revolutionary, grassroots study has outside of academia, as well. Since teaching at the University of Iowa, Caroline has received the Champion for Student Success Award, Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, and the Doug Trank Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching. Her work has appeared in Creative Education, The Press-Citizen, The Daily Iowan, The Des Moines Register, and Imagining America. She has presented at various conferences including the Rethinking Poverty Conference, the Centre for Feminisms and Sexualities, the UCLA Thinking Gender Conference, the Mind-Body-Violence Symposium, Craft Critique Culture, the Jakobsen Conference, and NeMLA. She has also presented at the National Women’s Studies Association and served on the NWSA Women of Color Leadership Project. She is an Imagining America PAGE Fellow, a UI Center for Teaching Fellow, an Obermann Humanities for the Public Good Advisory Board member, and a recipient of the Adah Johnson/Otilia Maria Fernandez Scholarship for feminist activism and research.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Micah Ariel James is a playwright (Four Stories, How We Bury the War Dead, Better Weather, The Honey War), poet, producer, dramaturg, and teaching artist with particular interests in aging and memory studies, oral history, and restorative justice. She is also an arts administrator committed to developing and facilitates arts programming with an eye toward helping artists discover new approaches to creating meaningful engagement with campus and community partners, and to making the arts more accessible to all audiences. Micah received an MFA in Theatre Arts (Playwriting) from the University of Iowa and a BA in Playwriting from Columbia College Chicago.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Sarah Elgatian is a first generation writer with a lot of questions. She works in the arts hoping to make story telling and literature more accessible. For this episode, she is joined by Ryan Collins, a writer and the Executive Director of the Midwest Writing Center.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Kartika Budhwar is a writer, educator and editor based out of Ames, Iowa. She is an online writing instructor at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, and teaches composition and literature at the Iowa Western Community College. She serves as Senior Editor at the South Asian Avant-Garde Anthology and the forthcoming journal for work inspired by current events: Ripe Fiction. She was awarded Second place in the Arts and Letters Fiction Prize, the Blue Mesa Nonfiction Prize and the Indiana Review Fiction Prize; her prose and poetry  appears in the same journals. She was also a Finalist for the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize. She has received the Albert L. Walker Excellence in Literature Award , a Research Excellence Award, the Hogrefe Grant for Creative Writers, Teaching Excellence Awards and a fellowship at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Xochitl (So-Chee) Gonzalez is a writer and screenwriter, whose debut novel OLGA DIES DREAMING is forthcoming from Flatiron Books. (Jan '22)

A native Brooklynite, she is currently an Iowa Arts fellow at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop where she is an MFA candidate in fiction ('21). She is the recipient of the 2019 Disquiet Prize and her work has appeared in Vogue, The Cut, Ninth Letter and Joyland Magazine. Prior to getting her MFA, she worked as a strategic consultant, marketer, wedding planner and tarot reader. 

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming. 

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Nichole Shaw is currently a senior studying journalism and English on the publishing track at the University of Iowa. She is the Editorial Lead and Editor at Off-Kilter Media, an inclusive arts and culture company that houses several publications: Off-Kilter Magazine, KIZER Quarterly, The Journal, The Post, and Alphabetical Order. She also plans reports remotely for The New York Times Institute. In addition to her work at OK, Nichole also accepted the role of co-editor at NURU in the summer of 2020 to foster a partnership between NURU and The Daily Iowan in order to maximize inclusion, diversity, and equity for BIPOC and POC reporters. NURU is a publication at the University of Iowa supported by the National Association of Black Journalists. Nichole held the position of columnist at The Daily Iowan from 2018 to 2019.

Since then, she has left the paper to pursue her magazine work and instead became a member of The Daily Iowan’s Board of Trustees, SPI Board, serving as the only current student with that position. Today, she is the chair of the Board. She was also the Communications Director at Quill and Scroll, an international honor society for high school journalists, where she managed communications, web design, magazine production, and hosted their bi-weekly podcast THE SOURCE. In all these positions, her mission has been to tell the stories of voices that often go unheard or ignored in mainstream media, primarily those of BIPOC-identifying people.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Gyasi Hall is an essayist, poet, and general Writer of Stuff™ from Columbus, Ohio. Their work is forthcoming, published, or otherwise featured in Black Warrior Review, The 68to05 Project, Thoughtcrime Press, and Get Lit, among others. Their debut poetry chapbook, Flight of the Mothman: An Autobiography, was published by The Operating System in spring 2019. They are the lead nonfiction editor for The BreakBread Literacy Project, and they currently reside in Iowa City where they are pursuing their MFA in creative nonfiction.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Nick Mendoza is a writer, dancer, and musician from Iowa City. He works at United Action for Youth as their Community Engagement AmeriCorps. He has worn many hats; from leading support groups with Teen Parents and Transitional Living programs, assisting with events such as MLK Day of Service, PrideCon, and Juneteenth, to leading weekly music lessons, Dungeons and Dragons playgroups, and Writing Club.

In both his personal and professional life, he writes predominantly poetry and reflective stories. His writing is a tool for allowing young people to feel like they have a voice. His writing club is only one of many services UAY offers to empower youth via artistic expression.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Today we’re talking with Caleb “The Negro Artist” Rainey, an author, performer, and producer. He’s the author of two books: Look, Black Boy and Heart Notes. In 2020 he was named Best Poet/Spoken Word Performer in Cedar Rapids & Iowa City. He co-founded the literary magazine Black Art; Real Stories, was published in Iowa's Best Emerging Poets - 2019, the Little Village Magazine, and wrote a monthly column for The Real Mainstream.

As a performer he is the winner of the Des Moines Poetry Slam, the Iowa City Poetry Slam, a two-time winner of the Fire & Ice Poetry Slam, and a finalist for the UNESCO City of Literature Global Poetry Slam – Iowa City. When he is not writing and performing he is actively curating a community of spoken word poets in Iowa City through his creation of a high school program, IC Speaks, and producing local events like Poetry & Motion.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

For our first episode, we talked with Akwi Nji. Akwi, a multidisciplinary artist and writer, is a Cameroonian American artist creating in words, performance, and visual art. Her work explores the intersectionality of race, gender, and concepts of geographical and spiritual home.

She is founder of an arts organization called The Hook, a member of the Iowa Arts Council Board, the creator of a nationwide audio and visual storytelling arts initiative called The Remoir Project, a 2016 Iowa Arts Council Fellow, and a champion of the artist and the arts through her role as producer of multi-media arts events in the Midwest.

The music for this podcast is "Ira" by Blake Shaw.

Ongoing support comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council, and from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Phase 1 is an initiative of Arts Midwest and its peer United States Regional Arts Organizations made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Writers of Color Reading Series is produced by the Englert in Iowa City, Iowa, and is supported by Friends of the Englert. Visit www.englert.org/friends to support our programming.

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Host: Jesus “Chuy” Renteria

Line Producer & Audio Engineer: Savannah Lane

Executive Producers: John Schickedanz & Andre Perry

Welcome to a brand new podcast from The Englert Theatre: The Writers of Color Reading Series.

Seeking to create a dedicated space for Iowa-based Black, Indigineous, and other writers of color who were undergraduates, MFAs, or long-term residents, The Englert Theatre is excited to transition the Writers of Color Reading Series to a podcast format. Join us to hear from writers of color who will share a reading of their work and an interview about their personal history and creative process.

Jesus “Chuy” Renteria will host the first season of the podcast. Chuy is a writer and arts worker living in Iowa City. He is currently finishing a book and also serves as the Public Engagement Coordinator at Hancher Auditorium.