About the author:
\nHafizah Augustus Geter \;is a Nigerian American writer\, poe t\, and literary agent born in Zaria\, Nigeria\, and raised in Akron\, Ohi o\, and Columbia\, South Carolina. She is the author of the poetry collect ion \;Un-American\, \;an NAACP Image Award and PEN Open Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in \;The New Yorker\, Bomb\, The Believer\, The Paris Review\, \;amo ng many others. The poetry committee co-chair of the Brooklyn Literary Cou ncil\, she is a Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless nonfiction fellow\, a Cave C anem poetry fellow\, and a 92Y Women inPower Fellow and holds an MFA in no nfiction from New York University\, where she was an Axinn Fellow. Hafizah lives in Brooklyn\, New York.
\nIn her new memoir\, The Black Period\, \;Hafizah creates a space for the beauty of Blackness\, Islam\, disability\, and queerness to flourish\, celebrati ng the many layers of her existence that America has time and again sought to erase.
\nAt nineteen\, she lost her mother to a sudden stroke. W eeks later\, her father became so heartsick that he needed a triple bypass . By her thirties\, she was constantly in pain\, pinballing between physic al therapy appointments\, her grief\, and the grind that is the American D ream. Hafizah realized she&rsquo\;d spent years internalizing the narrativ es that white supremacy had fed her about herself. \;Suddenly\, \; she says\, \;I was standing at the cliff of my own life\, remembering.
\nRecalling her parents&rsquo\; lessons on the art of Black revisio n\, and mixing history\, political analysis\, and cultural criticism\, alo ngside stunning original artwork created by her father\, renowned artist T yrone Geter\, Hafizah maps out her own narrative\, weaving between a child hood populated with Southern and Nigerian relatives\; her days in a small Catholic school\; a loving but tragically short relationship with her moth er\; and the feelings of joy and community that the Black Lives Matter pro tests engendered in her as an adult. All throughout\, she forms a new pers onal and collective history\, addressing the systems of inequity that make life difficult for non-able-bodied persons\, queer people\, and communiti es of color while capturing a world brimming with potential\, art\, music\ , hope\, and love.
\nHafizah Augustus Geter will be in conversation with A.E. Osworth\, \;a transgender novelist and a Visiting Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University. Their debut\, We are Watching Eliza Bright\, was a finalist for t he Oregon Book Award and long listed for The Center for Fiction&rsquo\;s F irst Novel Prize\, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize\, and The To urnament of Books. They also have a decade-long career writing nonfiction on the internet\, which includes a stint as Geekery Editor for \;A utostraddle \;and as a columnist for \;Catapult. You can also find their work on \;Guernica\, \;Electric Literature \;and \;Quartz\, among others.
\n&n bsp\;
\nBooks will be available for purchase and signing
courtesy of Mac's Backs - Books on Coventry.
\;\n
\;
\;
\;
\;