My Calendar

Events in June 2023

  • - Inlandia: A Literary Journey TEEN Issue Launch
    Inlandia: A Literary Journey TEEN Issue Launch

    Inlandia: A Literary Journey TEEN Issue Launch


    June 8, 2023

    Thursday, June 8, 2023

    Inlandia: A Literary Journey TEEN Issue Launch

    7:00-8:30 PM on Zoom

    To register: https://tinyurl.com/TEENJourney2023

    The Spring 2023 Teen Issue of Inlandia Institute’s online literary journal, Inlandia: A Literary Journey, launches Thursday, June 8th. Come join the Zoom party from 7:00 to 8:30 pm PT, where teens 13–19 will share their art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry selected for inclusion in the issue by teen editors. Inlandia is proud to feature homegrown creatives from inland Southern California cities including Alta Loma, Corona, Fullerton, Moreno Valley, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, and Riverside. We are also pleased to have teen contributors from far and wide: Florida and South Carolina, Wisconsin and Kansas, as well as Canada and India.

    Erin Michaela Sweeney writes, speaks, and teaches about the healing potential of mindful creative self-expression. For twenty years, Sweeney was an editor on the east coast but returned to inland Southern California in 2011 to hang out at City of Hope for spa days (aka life-saving blood cancer treatments). Yes, there’s a memoir. She supports other creatives' adventures as managing editor of the Inlandia Institute’s online literary journal, loves her child unconditionally, and forever humbly serves Rexi the cat queen.

  • - Juneteenth Celebration and Blacklandia Anthology Launch
    Juneteenth Celebration and Blacklandia Anthology Launch

    Juneteenth Celebration and Blacklandia Anthology Launch


    June 17, 2023

    Saturday, June 17, 2023

    Juneteenth Celebration and Blacklandia Anthology Launch

    at Fairmount Park near the Bandshell

    2601 Fairmount Blvd, Riverside 92501

     

    Please join Inlandia Institute and Blacklandia on Saturday, June 17, for the 2023 Juneteenth Celebration at Fairmount Park! The event runs from 1:00-6:00 PM with vendors, food, booths, and more – including the Blacklandia Anthology launch! Anthology contributors are scheduled to read at 3:00 on the bandstand. You won’t want to miss this special time of sharing stories from the Black Experience – from everyday experiences to activism, from change agents to excellence. Books will be available for sale and signing.

     

    Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day. The Emancipation Proclamation became effective on January 1, 1863 – but it wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that freedom came to enslaved people in the Confederate state of Texas. It was then that 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay and announced that more than 250,000 enslaved Black people were free by executive decree. The day became known as “Juneteenth.” Long celebrated in the African American community, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law – thanks to the hard work of Opal Lee, Lula Briggs Galloway, and others.

     

    Blacklandia anthology submissions opened on May 8, 2022, in honor of Ahmaud Arbery's birthday, and closed on October 7, 2022, in honor of Opal Lee's birthday. Ms. Lee is known as the "Grandmother of Juneteenth."

     

    This is a free community event and all are invited to attend. Join us!

     

    Anthology editor Romaine Washington, M. Ed., is the author of “Purgatory Has an Address” (Bamboo Dart Press), available April 15th, and “Sirens in Her Belly” (Jamii Publications). She has been published in a wide variety of anthologies and periodicals, including Inlandia Institute’s “San Bernardino Singing” anthology and “Cholla Needles 32, 36 and 39.”

     

    Ms. Washington is a fellow of The Watering Hole, South Carolina, and the Inland Area Writing Project at the University of California, Riverside. She has been a public school educator for over twenty years, and has developed a social justice curriculum available for free on her website: https://www.romainewashington.com/. The proud mother of two sons, Romaine Washington is a native Californian from San Bernardino who currently resides in the Inland Empire.