Oakland-based writer, MK Chavez, is a Black-Latinx champion for public health and social justice. She is the author of several chapbooks, one of which is Mothermorphosis (Nomadic Press, 2016). Her first full-length collection of poetry, Dear Animal (Nomadic Press), is sensual, urgent, and fierce.

Chavez is co-founder and co-curator of the reading series Lyrics & Dirges, curator of the Fruitvale Friday readings at Nomadic Press, co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival, and recipient of a 2016 Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. She believes in literary confrontation and its capacity to challenge all forms of oppression.

She is a recipient of a 2017 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award and her poem “The New Whitehouse, Finding Myself Among the Ruins” was selected by Eileen Myles for the Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Poetry Award. Chavez is co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival, a fellow with CantoMundo, and guest curator of the reading series at UC Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive, Fall 2018.

Come with us as Gabriela Iniguez, poet, nonfiction writer, and creative writing MFA student at SJSU, kicks off the discussion and does a deep dive into our guest’s very cogent and sometimes uncomfortable topics.

Don’t miss out! Click to see more DPWC author/poet events scheduled this school year, 2021-22.