My Calendar

Events in June 2023

  • - First Thursdays Arts Walk “Paths to Publishing: Agents and Other Routes”
    First Thursdays Arts Walk “Paths to Publishing: Agents and Other Routes”

    First Thursdays Arts Walk “Paths to Publishing: Agents and Other Routes”


    June 1, 2023

    Thursday, June 1, 2023

    First Thursdays Arts Walk

    “Paths to Publishing: Agents and Other Routes”

    with Jo Scott-Coe, James Luna, and Becca Spence Dobias

    6:30-8:00 PM; doors open at six.

    Free and open to the public. No registration required.

     

    Riverside Main Library

    Community Room & Arcade

    3900 Mission Inn Blvd

    Riverside, CA 92501

    6:30-7:00 – Open mic readings – Community Room

    7:00-8:00 – Author roundtable – Community Room

    Join Inlandia and Riverside Public Library on June 1 for a First Thursdays Arts Walk event for writers, "Paths to Publishing: Agents and Other Routes.” The program will include a roundtable discussion with local authors Jo Scott-Coe, James Luna, and Becca Spence Dobias. Learn about their various paths to publication, including a step-by-step guide to submitting your work to a literary agent – and other means to a publishing end. The conversation will begin at 7:00, but come early if you can! A writers’ open mic is planned from 6:30-7:00.

    For the open mic, you are welcome to read poetry, flash fiction, or an excerpt from a work in progress. And while you’re there, explore the month’s topic of books available for checkout in the Community Room. Don’t have a library card? Apply for one at the event!

    Jo Scott-Coe’s essays and stories have been published widely, for literary as well as academic audiences. Her third book, Unheard Witness: The Life and Death of Kathy Leissner Whitman, is forthcoming in Fall 2023 from the University of Texas Press.

    James Luna is the author of three books, all published by Arte Publico Press/Pinata Books: The Runaway Piggy/El Cochinito Fugitivo, A Mummy in Her Backpack/Una momia en su mochila and The Place Where You Live/El lugar donde vives. His fourth book published by Arte Público, Growing Up on the Playground, was released in 2018. Piggy was awarded the 2012 Tejas Star Award as chosen by the students of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

    Becca Spence Dobias is a 2022 KissPitch mentee, working under the guidance of Jen Deluca, author of the Well Met series. She is the author of On Home (Inkshares, 2021) and has a book under contract with WVU Press about the North Central WV punk scene of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Her work also appears in Inlandia: A Literary Journey, two Writing Bloc anthologies, https://lgbtqreads.com/, and https://diymfa.com/ among other places. She reviews books for Southern Literary Review and co-hosts Writing Bloc’s Indie Writer Podcast. She grew up in West Virginia and now lives in Southern California with her husband and two children.

  • - 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.