Reading and Dialogue with Tara Betts and Kristiana Rae Colon

Tara Betts and Kristiana Rae Colon will read and discuss their latest works, Break the Habit and Octagon.

At 57th Street Books

RSVP HERE

About Tara Betts: Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit and Arc & Hue. Her chapbooks include the upcoming Never Been Lois Lane, 7 x 7: kwansabas, and THE GREATEST!: An Homage to Muhammad Ali. Tara holds a MFA from New England College and a Ph.D. from Binghamton University. Her poems, essays, and short stories have appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including Essence, POETRY magazine, NYLON, Octavia's Brood, Bum Rush the Page, Black Nerd Problems, and The Break Beat Poets. Some of her upcoming essays will appear in The Lauryn Hill Reader and Billie 101, a collection of essays on the legacy of Billie Holiday. She also has led workshops with young women for Ms. Foundation and Surviving the Mic. Tara currently teaches at University of Illinois-Chicago.

About Kristiana Rae Colon: Kristiana Rae Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, Cave Canem Fellow, and co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective.  In 2016, her plays good friday had its world premiere at Oracle Productions in Chicago and but i cd only whisper had its American premiere at The Flea in New York. Her play Octagon, winner of Arizona Theater Company's 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award and Polarity Ensemble Theater's Dionysos Festival of New Work, had its world premiere at the Arcola Theater in London in September 2015. Her work was featured in Victory Gardens' 2014 Ignition Festival and in 2013, she toured the UK with her collection of poems promised instruments published by Northwestern University Press. Kristiana was apart of the 2015-16 Goodman Theater's Playwrights Unit, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and one half of the brother/sister hip-hop duo April Fools. She appeared on the fifth season of HBO's Def Poetry Jam.