Creative Writing

Reclamation Poetry Gathering with Natalie Diaz, Craig Santos Perez, and Beth Piatote

February 15, 2024
Reclamation Poetry Gathering February 15 – 18, 2024 Public Programming: February 16 – 17, 2024

A trans-Indigenous conversation, with juxtapositions that decenter European thought and begin to translate an oceanic-to-desert-to-river-to-forest poetic imaginary

Reclamation gathered 19 fellows chosen to participate in the 2023 Poetry & the Senses program for a weekend of readings, conversations, and workshops. Three readings, hosted at...

Drew Woodson

2025 ARC Indigenous Performing Arts Residency AIR, Playwright
Drew Woodson was a Playwright-in-Residence with ARC through the Indigenous Performing Arts Residency in April 2025.

Drew Woodson is a Western Shoshone playwright based in New York City. He has had his work read in multiple theaters across New York, including Rattlestick Theater where he was asked to open the first annual Northeastern Native Arts Festival with his play “Your Friend, Jay Silverheels.” For this same work, Drew was named Yale's Young Indigenous Playwright of 2021. More recently, Drew completed a two month artists residency on Governors Island for AICH, and...

Blossom Johnson

2024 ARC Indigenous Performing Arts Residency AIR, Diné playwright, Screenwriter and Dramaturg
Blossom Johnson was the ARC Indigenous Performing Arts Residency's first-ever artist-in-residence (2024).

Blossom Johnson is a Diné storyteller, playwright, teaching artist and screenwriter. She is from the Yé’ii Dine’é Táchii’nii (Giant People) clan, and her maternal grandfather is from the Deeshchíí’nii (Start of the Red Streak People) clan.

She was raised by her grandmother on the very top of Dził Yijiin (Black Mesa), AZ and she’s always been surrounded by stories. When she opens the front door of her grandma’s yellow house, she can see a coal mine. Below the...

Caring for Our Ancestors: Weaving ~ Listening ~ Writing

April 30, 2025
Caring for Our Ancestors:
Weaving ~ Listening ~ Writing Co-organized by Dr. Tanya Lukin Linklater & Dr. Beth Piatote April 28 - May 2, 2025
Arts Research Center, Hearst Field Annex D23 (map)

This gathering is part of a five-year project titled “Xóxelhmetset te Syewá:l | Caring for Our Ancestors: Reconnecting Indigenous Songs with Community and Kin” led by co-investigators Dr. Dylan Robinson (University of British Columbia)...

D’mani Thomas

ARC Fellow, Writer and Creative
D'mani Thomas was an ARC Fellow in Fall 2021 & Spring 2022 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative – he was chosen in the Community Fellow category.

D’mani Thomas (he\they) is a writer, and creative from Oakland, California (Ohlone territory). They are currently obsessed with surveillance and intimacy. They have received fellowships from UC Berkeley’s Art & Research Center via The Engaging the Senses Foundation, The Watering Hole, Foglifter and others. In 2023, they became a finalist for the Penrose Poetry Prize and were awarded a California Arts Council grant...

Vincente Perez

2021/22 ARC Fellow – Poetry & the Senses
Vincente Perez was an ARC Fellow in Fall 2021 & Spring 2022 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative – they were chosen in the Graduate Fellow category.

Vincente Perez (He/They) is a Black Mexican-American performance poet, scholar, and writer working at the intersections of Poetry, Hip-Hop, and Digital Black cultural praxis with an interest in the way that artists use narrative to resist dominant stories that attempt to erase, subjugate, or enact violence on marginalized communities. Their work centers Black and Latinx lived experience with a stylistic approach...

Maurya Kerr

2021/22 ARC Fellow – Poetry & the Senses
Maurya Kerr was an ARC Fellow in Fall 2021 & Spring 2022 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative – she was chosen in the Community Fellow category.

Maurya Kerr is a bay area-based writer, educator, and artist. Maurya’s poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart prize and appears or is forthcoming in multiple journals, including Inverted Syntax, Chestnut Review, Tupelo Quarterly, little somethings press, and an anthology, “The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry.” Much of her artistic work, across disciplines, is focused on Black...

Laura Belik

Ph.D. Student at UC Berkeley in Architecture

Laura Belik is a doctoral candidate in architecture at UC Berkeley. She holds an MA in design studies from Parsons- The New School (New York) and a BArch in architecture and urban planning from Escola da Cidade (São Paulo- Brazil). Her current doctoral work delves into the histories and memories of early 20th-century migrant labor camps established for retirantes das secas(drought refugees) in Northeast Brazil, investigating the role of the built environment in shaping the modern Brazilian state. Laura has curated and co-curated exhibitions in Brazil and the U.S...

Andrea Abi-Karam

Poet-Performer Cyborg
Andrea Abi-Karam gave a Visiting Writer Reading at the Arts Research Center in April 2023, part of the Spring 2023 Flash Reading Series.

Andrea Abi-Karamis a trans, SWANA, punk poet-performer cyborg, workshop facilitator, and activist. Their chapbook, THE AFTERMATH(Commune Editions, 2016), queers Fanon’s vision of how poetry fails to inspire revolution. Under the full Community Engagement Scholarship, Andrea received their MFA in Poetry from Mills College. With Drea Marina...

Chapbook Launch & Poetry Reading featuring Maurya Kerr, Vincente G. Perez, & D'mani Thomas

April 3, 2025
Chapbook Launch & Poetry Reading
featuring Maurya Kerr, Vincente G. Perez,
& D'mani Thomas Thursday, April 3, 2025 5:00 - 6:30pm Arts Research Center, Hearst Field Annex D23