AWP Kansas City Panel: Neurodiverse Sounds Like Universe
Room 2504AB, Kansas City Convention Center, Level 2
Thursday, February 8, 2024
12:10 pm to 1:25 pm
Combating stigmas and shame culture surrounding mental health, writers share poetry, nonfiction, and cross-genre work that embraces autism spectrum disorder, Anxiety, ADHD, OCD, Bipolar, and depression. These writers refuse to hide from or mask within an ableist society and through content and form, call attention to the creative powers of neurodiversity. They will share their work and discuss how their craft choices transform neurotypical language into a neurodiverse universe.
Participants
Moderator: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, PhD, writes poetry and nonfiction. She is the author of The Many Names for Mother (Wick Poetry Prize, KSU Press, 2019), Don't Touch the Bones(Lost Horse Press, 2020), and 40 WEEKS (YesYes Books, 2023). She is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Denison University.
Oliver de la Paz is the author of six books of poetry and the poet laureate of Worcester, Massachusetts. His most recent book The Diaspora Sonnets was published in 2023 with Liveright Press. He is a founding member of Kundiman and teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in theLow Res MFA Program at PLU.
Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American author of two books of poetry. Poems from her new collection, Bianca, were awarded Poetry's Bess Hokin Prize and have appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. A Kundiman fellow, Eugenia serves as a poetry editor at Adroit Journal.
Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator, born and raised in Massachusetts. Her debut collection Ugly Music was the winner of the Pamet River Prize and a 2020 Whiting Award. Her second collection Good Monster is forthcoming from Copper Canyon. She received her MFA from NYU.
Allison Blevins, a queer disabled writer, is the author of Cataloguing Pain, Handbook for the Newly Disabled, Slowly/Suddenly, and five chapbooks. Her next collection is forthcoming from Persea Books. She is the director of Small Harbor Publishing and the executive editor at the museum of americana.
