Flashback: Writing and Speaking Gigs of Late

Thursday, June 19, 2014

I've finally landed in Seattle, after several high-octane weeks - writing, working, interviewing, and speaking. Spending time with my family has been a nice change of pace; downtime really feels like downtime when in the Pacific Northwest, unlike when I take a few moments to close my eyes every night in NYC.

In celebration of the work that I've been doing, however, I wanted to give thanks for all the spaces I've occupied over the past few weeks, online and off. I have been blessed to be involved with so many passionate people and am honored to work alongside them.

This is me right now.

I've finished at short serial mystery over at SpliceLit, a magazine run by the amazing Veda Kumarjiguda.

I was invited to speak on anti-violence at the Bangla Boi Mela, and presented an interactive workshop about types of violence and how they affect people structurally, interpersonally, and internally.

I have done a very personal StoryCorps interview with the brilliant Purvi Shah, facilitator of the Movement to Power workshop at SAWCC (audio to come!). We discussed the relationship between arts and activism, anti-violence work, and our own relationship as South Asian women to finding different healing modalities. I really enjoyed this talk because it consolidated a lot of things I care about into a brilliant 40 minutes!

I have spoken on zines, zine fests, and feminism for the BCRW podcast, to be released soon. As I say often, I sometimes forget that most of the zinester world is not women and trans people of color - and that a lot of feminism also doesn't represent us either! I delved deep on this podcast into these ideas, with the wonderful Michelle Chen.

As[I]Am is in the process of growing our staff family and bringing on new content creators in the next several weeks, as well as doing a logo and site redesign (it's looking so fancy, y'all - I can't wait to share!).

I'm excited to say that the work I've been doing in the past few months has been exactly what I want to be doing. I'm learning a lot and moving with communities that I want to be a part of. But phew! I am so glad that I get a break for a couple weeks to sit and contemplate my next move. In the meantime, I'll be sending everyone love and postcards from out west.