Monday, October 28 at 6:00 PM CDT, the International Writing Program will host the third annual Rasanbleman Literè Kreyòl / World Creole Literature Gathering in collaboration with author, scholar, and 2007 Fall Residency alum Beaudelaine Pierre. 

The reading will stream live on Facebook; to watch the reading as it happens, go to the Facebook event page now and click "going." The reading will be made available as a video after the fact on the IWP's YouTube channel.

This annual event celebrates the International Day of Creole Languages by emphasizing the complexity and richness of the work of our contributors and the influence of their writing on world global literature. The gathering echoes Haitian people’s long history of making the future through art, beyond individual differences and political affiliations and under the most dire circumstances. This coming together of Creole poets, writers, and artists from multiple Creole landscapes will spotlight their work, the intimate struggles that they share with Haiti, and their relationships with various world communities.

Contributors will include Suze Baron, Jeanie Bogart, Pascale Doresca, Karl Foster Candio, Jean Dany Joachim, Dr. Jallicia Jolly, Nekita Lamour, Denize Lauture, Richa Nagar, Michѐle Voltaire Marcelin, Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley, and of course, Beaudelaine Pierre. See their bios below.

Suze Baron fet an Ayiti, men li rantre New York depwi 1955.

Jeanie Bogart fèt Okay an n Ayiti. Apre li fin diplome jounalis, li te travay nan jounal, radyo ak televizyon. Li te kite Ayiti pou l al viv Nouyòk, nan Etazini, kote li travay lontan kòm entèprèt nan tribinal. Jeanie kòmanse ekri pwezi depi l te gen katòzan. An 2006, li pran premye pri Konkou Pwezi nan Lang Kreyòl, « Kalbas Lò Lakarayib », ki fèt an Matinik. Li patisipe nan plizyè antoloji tankou : Revue Littéraire Passerelle lan Kanada an 2008 ; La Poésie Haïtienne Contemporaine yon kolektif Maison de la Poésie nan Bèljik an 2009 ; Plaisir des Mots ak Poésie du Monde, Monde de la Poésie an Frans, Les Dossiers d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux, an 2007 epi an 2008 ; l’Anthologie de poésie haïtienne contemporaine James Noël, Frans, Éditions Points, 2015 ; Voix de femmes : anthologie de poésie féminine contemporaine, Port-au-Prince, Plimay, 2021 ; This Land, My Beloved/Tè mwen renmen an, Boston, Trilingual Press 2023.

Pascale Doresca is a nurse practitioner, blogger, aspiring photographer, and dog lover. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa. She writes about her native Haiti and the immigrant experience. She is the author of several short stories and opinion pieces on the Haitian forums HaitianPolitics, KozeMandechez, and Tout-Haiti. Her focus is on holistic health, resilience, and authenticity.

Coordonnateur d’émission audiovisuelle ou radiophonique, animateur d’émission religieuse, critique acerbe de la scène culturelle haïtienne dans les colonnes de Ticket Magazine, blogueur, Karl Foster Candio est un touche-à-tout dans le domaine des médias. Il a été ancien Rédacteur en Chef de Ticket Magazine, ancien Rédacteur en chef de « Enfòmasyon Nou Dwe Konnen », produit par le réseau international de média, Internews, et ancien directeur de la radio Alléluia FM. Aujourd’hui, il est l’un des responsables de deux médias en ligne, un média d’opinion chrétien, b-atitid.com, et une radio chrétienne, Vik3. Karl et a été officier de communication à la Croix-Rouge canadienne, à SOS Villages d’Enfants, et chargé de communication à FOKAL. Il fait partie des scénaristes du feuilleton radiophonique Zoukoutap, et du feuilleton télévisé Fontizon. Né le 24 septembre 1982, dans une famille chrétienne, Karl Foster est marié, père de deux enfants.

Jean Dany Joachim is a poet, actor, past Cambridge poet populist, poet in residence at First Church in Cambridge, and director of City Night Readings Series, in residence at Little Crêpe Café in Cambridge. He has three published collections of poetry, Crossroads / Chimenkwaze (2013), Avec des Mots (2014), and Quartier (2016). Jean Dany serves on the boards of the New England Poetry Club, and the Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE) dance company. He says life is good!

Dr. Jallicia Jolly is a writer, speaker, and Assistant Professor in American Studies and Black Studies at Amherst College. With 15 years of experience in education equity, health equity, and reproductive justice, she merges research and practice in academic institutions, community-based organizations, and health agencies to create systemic changes and tangible solutions. Dr. Jolly is the founder and director of the Black Feminist Reproductive Justice, Equity, and HIV/AIDS Activism (BREHA) Collective—a new interdisciplinary medical humanities lab that bridges research, advocacy, student collaborations, and high-impact learning experiences on the health and movement-building of Afro-diasporic girls, women, and gender diverse people. An equity practitioner and public scholar invested in research-informed action, she leads with justice and joy as her core intention.

Nekita Lamour is an educator who taught grades K to 8 for 27 years. She taught Haitian children in Creole for 12 of those years in the Cambridge Bilingual program. Nekita is a writer and essayist who has published academic articles in higher institutions in the Boston area. She is a storyteller and author of a children’s folktale book named Clever Bouki. Nekita Lamour obtained a Master’s in Education from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She also holds a Master’s in Theological Studies from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology (merged with Boston College). She is a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) candidate in School Administration at Cambridge College. Ms. Lamour is also enrolled in a master’s degree in theology from the Institute of Black Catholic Studies (IBCS) at Xavier University in New Orleans. She had written extensively in Boston area newspapers, Haitian Apostolate newsletter, and online fora.

Fils d’humbles paysans, Denize Lauture laissa Haiti en 1968. Il travailla comme soudeur à Harlem et suivit des cours d’université, le soir, à City College de New York. Il recut un-B.A. en sociologie, un M.S. en pédagogie bilingue, et un M.A. en litérature Espagnole. Il fait des études additionnelles à Fordham et CUNY’S Graduate Center et fut, pendant 38 ans, Professeur a l’Université de Saint-Thomas Aquinas de Sparkill. Il écrit en Creole, Francais et Anglais. Ses poèmes parurent dans des douzaines de revues littéraires, parmi Lesquelles Présence Africaine, Callaloo, Black American Literature Forum, Artist and Influence, Litoral. Denize Lauture, is the co-editor of This Land, My Beloved/ Tè mwen renmen an/ Cette terre, mon amour (2023) a trilingual anthology celebrating Haiti in Haitian Creole, French, and English.

Richa Nagar is the inaugural Gloria Steinem ’56 Endowed Chair in Women and Gender Studies at Smith College. Her multi-lingual and multi-genre work in transnational feminism and praxis and poetics of collaboration and co-authorship has evolved across the borders of India, Tanzania, & USA. As a scholar, writer, cultural worker, educator, and organizer, Richa refuses the borders of academia-arts-activism, while also re/telling, claiming, and theorizing the emotional, political, and analytical labors of such blurring and offering such critical concepts as situated solidarities, radical vulnerability, & hungry translations. Richa Nagar has published in English and Hindi. Her work has been translated into German, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Marathi, Turkish, and Urdu. She has co-created a multi-sited community theatre project called Parakh and the online journal, Agitate. Her book with Sangtin Writers, Playing with Fire, appears on The Rumpus’s list of ‘What to Read When You Celebrate Women’s History.’

Poète, écrivaine, comédienne et artiste visuelle. Michѐle Voltaire Marcelin vécu en Haïti, au Chili et aux États-Unis. Les enjeux sociaux, la résistance, l'amour et le désir sont des thèmes omniprésents dans ses écrits, son travail de scène et ses œuvres d'art. Elle écrit en 4 langues et a publié 7 recueils de poésie et de prose, et fait partie de nombreuses anthologies publiées en France, au Canada, à Cuba, au Kenya et aux États-Unis. Parmi les oeuvres de Voltaire Marcelin on compte La Désenchantée (roman -CIDIHCA2006); La Desencantada (roman -CIDIHCA, Montréal-2007), Lost and Found (poésie et prose -CIDIHCA 2009), Amours et Bagatelles (poésie et prose -CIDIHCA 2009), Amores y cosas sin importancia (poésie et prose-Editorial ALBA, Havana-2010), Witness Resistance (poésie, art et prose- Blurb, 2020) Shadow Dance (poésie, art et prose-Blurb, California-2021).

Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica and immigrated to the United States at the age of 17. She graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College and subsequently earned an MA in English and a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Currently an Associate Professor of English at Florida International University, Weir-Soley was the Coordinator for the Mellon Foundation’s Hispanic Serving Institution Pathways to the Professoriate Fellowship (FIU 2019-2020). She is the outgoing President of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars and co-organized (with Opal Palmer Adisa) the first ACWWS-IGDS International Virtual Conference in January 2021. Under her leadership the ACWWS held their bi-annual conference in collaboration with the University of Costa Rica in June 2023 (with Carol Bailey and Guillermo Navarro as Conference Co-Chairs). 

A creative writer and Black feminist theorist, Beaudelaine Pierre writes creole, diasporic, and decolonial narratives emerging across the Americas and the Caribbean. Pierre is assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality Studies at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Pierre is the author of You May Have the Suitcase Now (New Rivers Press 2021), L'enfant qui voulait devenir president (L’Harmattan 2012), La Négresse de Saint-Domingue (L’Harmattan 2011), and Testaman (Bon Nouvѐl 2002).