Join us for our Authors & Writers Out Loud Event Series! Bronx Poet Laureate Kay Bell will be opening the series with a brief poetry reading! We’ll be hosting authors to engage in a panel discussion and sign copies of their books provided by our pop-up bookstore, Lair of Dreams. Check out the featured authors for October 14th below:
Kay Bell – Bronx Poet Laureate 2023-25 (Opening Author)
Kay Bell is an Educator, Storyteller and music enthusiast. Her poetry aims to weave the language of activism with the voice of the marginalized to confront and interrogate literary spaces of oppression. For her, writing works as a birthing floor for healing, invention, and reimagination— where the poetic voice is responsible for both blessing and bruising the inquiring reader. Through writings such as “Work Sonnet,” & “Watching You Sleep” Kay continues to give rise to poetics that challenge societal norms, promote empathy, and inspires change. Currently, she works as an Academic Advisor and Adjunct Professor at the City College of New York and can be found nurturing her plants and her two sons, in the heart of the South Bronx. IG: @poetesskay. Facebook: I Am Kay Bell. Website: iamkaybell.com
Zakiya N. Jamal was born in Queens, raised in Long Island, and currently resides in Brooklyn. In other words, she’s a New Yorker through and through. She holds a BA in English from Georgetown University and a MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Writing for Children and Young Adults from The New School. Her debut novel IF WE WERE A MOVIE will be published in 2025 by HarperTeen.
Cristina Arreola has written about books for Bustle, Elle, Latina Magazine, and more. She now works in publishing. Originally from El Paso, Texas, she lives on the Upper West Side with her partner, two cats, and piles and piles of books.
Janel Martinez is a writer and the founder of award-winning blog, Ain't I Latina?, an online destination celebrating Afro-Latinx womanhood. The Bronx, NY native is a frequent public speaker discussing media, culture and identity at conferences and events for Bloomberg, NBCU, New York University, SXSW, Harvard University and more. She’s appeared as a featured guest on national shows and outlets, such as MSNBC's The Culture Is: Latina, BuzzFeed, ESSENCE, NPR and Sirius XM, and her work has appeared in Adweek, Univision Communications, Oprah Daily, Refinery29, Remezcla and The New York Times, among others. The Honduran-American has been nominated for the 20th Annual Rosoff Award in the 20-Something Category and won the Afro-Latino Festival of New York's Digital Empowerment Award and, in 2018, was recognized at City Hall by the New York City Council, the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and the Bronx Delegation to the NYC Council for her contributions as a woman of Garifuna descent. She penned "Abuela's Greatest Gift" in the YA anthology, Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed, published by Flatiron Books.
Natasha Díaz is an award winning author and screenwriter currently residing in Brooklyn, NY. Natasha's scripts have placed as a quarterfinalist in the Austin Film Festival and a finalist for both the NALIP Diverse Women in Media Fellowship and the Sundance Episodic Story Lab. Her essays can be found in The Establishment and Huffington Post. Her debut novel, Color Me In came out in 2019. She is a contributor to the Wild Tongues Can't be Tamed anthology and coauthored two novels told in stories, The Grimoire of Grave Fates and House Party.
Kahlil Haywood is writer and editor from Brooklyn, NY whose family hails from Panama on both sides. Much of his work centers around the Black experience as it pertains to culture and entertainment. He has previously worked with publications such as Madame Noire, The Daily Mail, and EBONY. He currently functions as a Sports and Culture Columnist at Blavity.