Quiet Lightning presents the 16th Better Ancestors, featuring readings and performance by Michaela Chairez, Lillian Giles, Cristina S. Méndez, LadiRevolutionary, Nairobi Williese Barnes and special host Sarah O'Neal for an event at the Museum of the African Diaspora celebrating 15 years of Quiet Lightning and the publication of our latest book, featuring writing by all of this year’s Better Ancestors and cover art by Trina Michelle Robinson.

This will be a set of intimate performances, followed by a brief community Q&A. We hope you'll join us!

Doors open at 6pm. All tickets include museum admission – come early to check out the exhibitions (all running Oct 2 - Mar 2) What We Carry to Set Ourselves Free, Unveiling Histories: A Fabricated Archive and Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors & Radical Black Joy, and to meet some other beautiful people. We will probably have some surprises.

Questions? Concerns? Accessibility requests? Write [email protected].

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Michaela Chairez is a Latina poet from the Inland Empire. She now holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her work can be found in California Quarterly, Transfer, The Ana, and Acentos Review.

Lillian Giles is a Black Queer writer and educator living in Detroit with roots in Oakland. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University where she was the hood recipient for the college of liberal arts and a keynote commencement speaker. Lillian has recently finished a novel that is based on her great grandmother’s life as a midwife and defender of the 1940s Black Queer community. It is fiction but all of those stated parts are true. Her work has been published in The Rumpus, The Shenandoah, and in The Washington Square Review. She’s been awarded the Joe Brainard writing fellowship in fiction, was a finalist for the Audre Lorde award in poetry, and won the Nomadic Press Literary Award for Fiction. You can reach or follow her on instagram at Lillian Giles (@bsidereading) • Instagram photos and videos.

Cristina S. Méndez (she/her/ella) is a Chicana poet, educator, and researcher born and raised in the Bay Area (Muwekma Ohlone territory). Her work explores the continuum of how people understand and support each other across lines of difference and in the face of structural violence. Cristina is interested in coalitions, tensions, transformational learning, and healing as she envisions other futurities and possibilities. Cristina was an ARC Fellow at UC Berkeley in Fall & Spring 2023 with the Poetry & the Senses initiative – she was chosen in the Graduate Fellow category.

LadiRevolutionary (LadiRev) is an educator/spoken word artist from Bayview Hunters Point. Her poetry is a reflection of personal growth along with values learned from family and community. LadiRev is passionate about community, education, and healing. She is the host of Talkn Owt Da Side of Da Necc Podcast, which focuses on individual healing practices. “It only takes one person to make a stand but it takes a community to make a change”-LadiRev.

Nairobi Williese Barnes is a nineteen-year-old college student who’s grown up in Oakland, CA her entire life. Her many accomplishments include winning the Superior and Impressive Writing Chops award at her high school, a published op-ed in Teen Vogue, and a published poem in the 2016 book Accomplished, a collection of poems by The American Library of Poetry. Nairobi defines herself as a poet, artist, and activist. She has created educational videos and press releases about topics including voting rights, discrimination against Black women, and Black hair and how it defines her culture. As a woman who leads with her heart, her words have never steered her wrong, and with every new journey she embarks on, a poem follows.

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah O'Neal is a queer Moroccan, Black, and Muslim artist and writer born and raised in the Bay Area. Sarah’s work grapples with the impact of colonial violence on familial memory and the way systems of oppression shape the most intimate detail of our lives.Sarah’s debut collection, Even Two Hands Pressed Together Are Split, brought together poetry, photography, and ephemera to create an immersive experience for readers to explore the way embodied trauma shapes all of our relationships. Her writing has been featured in the Institute for Palestine Studies, The Nation, and Teen Vogue. When she is not writing, you can find her scheming on the end of empire, swimming laps, or on IG and Twitter @atayqueen.

ABOUT THE SERIES

One of Quiet Lightning’s efforts to diversify and move toward racial equity, Better Ancestors is a quarterly showcase of writers of color. Developed in partnership with Michael Warr, the series features 5 authors reading or performing whatever they choose. Each author selects one performer for the following show, so the series – and community – is self-generating. All authors are paid and published in an end of the year anthology.

Why Better Ancestors? As one of our initiatives to diversify from a board that has historically been mostly white, this showcase aims to provide a long-term, forward-thinking goal. As a society, we are suffering the consequences of pervasive systemic injustice against people of color, queer and trans people, the poor, disabled, and otherwise disadvantaged. But we are all ancestors of the future. If the planet is to remain inhabitable; if the function of humanity is not to sort and oppress our descendants based on their skin color, accent, or material property, we must be better ancestors. This begins by listening to one another, and by giving each other space to be heard.

Better Ancestors was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org.

ABOUT QUIET LIGHTNING

Now celebrating 15 years, Quiet Lightning is a literary movement to create and foster community around the written and spoken word. QL aims to democratize public space by offering performances, curation opportunities and programming with no barriers to entry, providing a launchpad for new and emerging artists, a reliable platform for professional writers, and an inclusive, accessible gathering place for the public. QL is committed to care-taking and progressing the rich threads of literary culture that exist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more about Quiet Lightning at https://quietlightning.org/.

MAKE A ONE-TIME DONATION OR SUPPORT US ON PATREON

Every tax deductible donation helps Quiet Lightning invest in a sustainable, ethical arts ecosystem, with the goal of building that culture into the fabric of our lives. You can donate by Venmo or PayPal or pledge a recurring donation by becoming one of our supporters on Patreon, which comes with a few additional perks and helps us expand on the work that we do.

featured images: Above, right: from What We Carry to Set Ourselves Free by Helina Metaferia, via moadsf.org; top, clockwise from top left: Nairobi Williese Barnes, Michaela Chairez, Lillian Giles, Sarah O'Neal, Cristina S. Méndez & LadiRevolutionary by Sharon McKellar– all others courtesy the artists. Background photo of the museum via moadsf.org.