Lampblack Reading Series
Featuring Jeremy Michael Clark, Christina Cooke, and Aaron Robertson!
This event is free and open to the public.
Doors open at 4 pm. Readings will begin at 4:30 PM.
Featured Readers
Jeremy Michael Clark is the author of The Trouble with Light, selected by Patricia Smith as a finalist for the 2024 Miller Williams Poetry Prize (University of Arkansas Press, 2024). His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Common, Poem-A-Day, The Southern Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. His work has also been anthologized in Soul Sister Revue: A Poetry Compilation and Once A City Said: A Louisville Poets Anthology. He has received support from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Cave Canem, the Community of Writers, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. A former editorial assistant at Callaloo, he received his MFA from Rutgers University-Newark and his MSW from the University of Pennsylvania. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, he lives in Brooklyn.
Christina Cooke is the author of Broughtupsy (Catapult; House of Anansi) — selected as the best book of 2024 by Elle and Debutiful as well as recommended reading by The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Cosmopolitan UK, LitHub, Electric Literature, and more. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner, Epiphany, Apogee, Electric Literature, Split Lip, PRISM International, and elsewhere. A MacDowell fellow and Journey Prize winner, she holds a Master of Arts from the University of New Brunswick, a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and has been named the inaugural Poets & Writers Fellow at Vermont Studio Center. Christina was born in Jamaica and is now a Canadian citizen who lives and writes in New York City.
Aaron Robertson is a writer, translator from Italian, and editor at Spiegel & Grau. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and other publications. His nonfiction debut, The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America, was selected as a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of 2024, one of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, and one of the New York Public Library’s 10 Best Books of 2024. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was shortlisted for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, among others, and in 2021, he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in translation. Aaron previously served on the board of the American Literary Translators Association and is currently an advisory editor for The Paris Review. He was also a judge for the 2024 International Booker Prize.
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About The Lampblack Literary Foundation (Lampblack)
The Lampblack Literary Foundation (Lampblack) is a nonprofit 501©(3) organization created by Black writers to support, promote, and celebrate Black writers. We provide monetary relief through direct aid, connect writers and readers of Black literature through virtual and in-person literary events, and publish a magazine dedicated to voices from the Black diaspora. Lampblack is committed to the advancement of Black literature and strives to expand the reach of this work because critical engagement with Black culture is a necessary and radical act.
To support our mission and help keep the Lampblack Reading Series and other vital programs free, please click here.
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The Lampblack Reading Series is supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council’s Brooklyn Arts Fund (BAF) Grant and Local Arts Support (LAS) Grant.
Brooklyn Arts Fund (BAF) is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Local Arts Support (LAS) is sponsored, in part, by the Statewide Community Regrants (SCR) Program of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm EST
Free!
