#ArtLitPhx: Am I American Yet? with Abdi Nor Iftin

Date: Sunday, May 5, 2019

Time: 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM

Location: Changing Hands Phoenix, 300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013

Cost: Free

Event Details:

Join author Abdi Nor Iftin in partnership with Snell and Wilmer and The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing for a community reading and book signing Sunday, May 5, 2019 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Changing Hands Phoenix (300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013).

While encouraged, RSVPs are purely for the purposes of monitoring attendance, gauging interest, and communicating information about parking, directions, and other aspects of the event. You do not have to register or RSVP to attend this event. This event is open to the public and free.

About the Book

Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. Marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies.

Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around Mogadishu as Abdi American, but when the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab rose to power in 2006, it became dangerous to celebrate Western culture. Desperate to make a living, Abdi used his language skills to post secret dispatches, which found an audience of worldwide listeners. Eventually, though, Abdi was forced to flee to Kenya.

In an amazing stroke of luck, Abdi won entrance to the U.S. in the annual visa lottery, though his route to America did not come easily. Parts of his story were first heard on the BBC World Service and This American Life. Now a proud resident of Maine, on the path to citizenship, Abdi Nor Iftin’s dramatic, deeply stirring memoir is truly a story for our time: a vivid reminder of why America still beckons to those looking to make a better life. (Penguin Random House)

About the Author
Abdi Nor Iftin

When the civil war in Somalia began, Abdi Nor Iftin was five; he and his brother became the sole providers for the family while they also attended a madrassa. Amidst the daily shelling and the famine, Abdi had one escape: American movies and music. At neighborhood showings of RamboCommando, and The Terminator, Abdi learned of America, and taught himself English, and began to dream of a life in the United States.  

In Call Me American, Iftin recounts his harrowing, extraordinary, and uplifting story. His love of western culture and music earned him the name “Abdi American.” This became a liability when Islamic extremism took hold of Somalia. Evading conscription by al-Shabaab while secretly filing stories for NPR under penalty of death, he stayed in Somalia until he had no choice but to flee. He smuggled himself into Kenya, where a different but grinding life of hopelessness awaited. He spent days hiding silently in an apartment from raids by Kenyan police, once passing time reading The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump. And then, a stroke of incredible luck: he won the Diversity Visa Lottery.  

Now a proud and legal resident of Maine and on the path to citizenship this year, Abdi is attending a university in Maine, and working on a film about his book. He volunteers with his immigrant community in Maine, he translates for people with limited English.

Today’s America and the travel/immigration ban worry Abdi, a Muslim; as he writes, his brother, still in Kenya, is now often the one comforting him. Abdi’s dramatic, deeply stirring memoir is truly a story for our time: a vivid portrait of the desperation refugees seek to escape and a reminder of why western democracies still beckon to those looking to make a better life.

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#ArtLitPhx: A Reading with Yi Shun Lai

Time: Friday, April 26, 2019

Date: 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Location: Changing Hands Tempe, 6428 South McClintock Drive, Tempe, AZ 85283

Cost: Free

Event Details:

Join author Yi Shun Lai for a community reading from her novel, “Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu,” on Friday, April 26, 2019 at Tempe Changing Hands (6428 S McClintock Dr, Tempe, AZ 85283) at 6:30 p.m.

While encouraged, RSVPs are purely for the purposes of monitoring attendance, gauging interest, and communicating information about parking, directions, and other aspects of the event. You do not have to register or RSVP to attend this event. This event is open to the public and free.

Yi Shun will be teaching a class, “From Query Letter to Publication: Navigating the Publishing Eco-system” on Saturday, April 27, 2019 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Piper Writers House (450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287). For more information about Yi Shun’s class, visit our website at http://piper.asu.edu/classes.

About the Book

Marty hopes to someday open a boutique costume shop, but it’s hard to keep focused on her dream. First comes a spectacular career meltdown that sends her ricocheting between the stress of New York and the warmth of supportive relatives in Taiwan. Then she faces one domestic drama after another, with a formidable mother who’s impossible to please, an annoyingly successful and well- adjusted brother, and surprising family secrets that pop up just when she doesn’t want to deal with them.

Mining the comedic potential of the 1.5-generation American experience, NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK is an insightful and witty portrait of a young woman scrambling to balance familial expectations and her own creative dreams. Copies will be for sale at Changing Hands Bookstore or online at www.spdbooks.org.

About the Author

Yi Shun Lai is the co-publisher and fiction editor for the Tahoma Literary Review, a thrice-annual literary magazine that promotes literary citizenship, transparency, and sustainable literature. She teaches workshops and classes on creative writing and publishing at the Claremont Colleges, the University of La Verne, and other educational institutions, and in Southern New Hampshire University’s online MFA program. Her debut novel, Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu, is in its fourth printing. It was a semi-finalist for the 2017 Thurber Prize in American Humor. She writes regularly for The Writer magazine on the art of publishing and the craft of writing. Find her online @gooddirt on Twitter and on the web at http://www.thegooddirt.org.

#ArtLitPhx: Borderlands Poetry Presents Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

Date: Friday, April 12, 2019

Time: 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Location: Palabras Bilingual Bookstore, 1738 E McDowell Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85006

Cost: Free

Event Details:

The Borderlands Poetry series and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University present a community reading with Beast Meridian author Vanessa Angélica Villarreal on Friday, April 12, 2019 from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Palabras Bilingual Bookstore (1738 E McDowell Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85006).

While encouraged, RSVPs are purely for the purposes of monitoring attendance, gauging interest, and communicating information about parking, directions, and other aspects of the event. You do not have to register or RSVP to attend this event. This event is free and open to the public.

About the Book

Narrated by a speaker in mourning marked as an at-risk juvenile, Beast Meridian follows a first-generation Mexican-American girl in crisis surviving the painful experiences of a racialized girlhood, cultural displacement, generational trauma, familial loss, economic struggle, and violence. In turn, this collection radically dreams and imagines a surreal state in which these damages may be recovered, and in which the fragmented self may be remembered and re-membered.

About the Author

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal was born in the Rio Grande Valley borderlands to formerly undocumented Mexican immigrants. She is the author of the collection Beast Meridian (Noemi Press, Akrilica Series, 2017), winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters and a Kate Tufts Discovery Award finalist. Her work has been featured in BuzzFeed, the Academy of American Poets, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, The Los Angeles Times, NBC News, and elsewhere. She is a CantoMundo Fellow, and is currently pursuing her doctorate in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she is raising her son with the help of a loyal dog.

For more information or to RSVP, please visit the website.