Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation
Nurturing Writers of Color Since 1999
VONA reading at the New York City Poetry Festival!
Saturday, July 13 Brinkley Stage, 4pm
Our readers:
Quincy Scott Jones
Quincy Scott Jones is a New York educator, Cave Canem fellow, and the author of two books of poetry - The T-Bone Series (Whirlwind Press, 2009) and How to Kill Yourself Instead of Your Children (C&R Press, 2021) – and a VONA alum. With Nina Sharma he co-curates Blackshop, a column that thinks about allyship between BIPOC artists. His graphic narrative, >BlackNerd<, is in the works.
Leslieann Hobayan
Leslieann Hobayan is a Filipina-American poet, essayist, activist mom, and host of Spiritual Grit, a podcast at the intersection of spirituality and activism. She is the author of the chapbook, Divorce Papers: A Slow Burn (Finishing Line Press, 2023) Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Aster(ix) Journal, The Grief Diaries, The Lantern Review, The Mom Egg Review, The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit, and elsewhere. Her work aims to break the silences of generational trauma and believes that writing our stories are key to collective healing and ultimate liberation.
Daemond Arrindell
Daemond Arrindell is a multi-genre writer, performer and educator. He has taught at Seattle University, been a faculty member of TAT Lab, the Washington State Teaching Artist Training Lab, and Freehold Theatre, leading poetry & theatre residencies at Washington State’s Monroe Correctional Complex. His work has appeared in City Arts, Specter, Crosscut, Poetry NorthWest, Seattle Review of Books and The Pitkin Review. In 2019, he performed his one-man show, “Frozen Borders,” an exploration in imagery, poetry and emotion regarding the United States’ southern border. In 2022, Daemond earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. He lives, writes, and teaches in New York City.
Anisa Rahim
Anisa Rahim is a writer and civil rights lawyer. Her hybrid memoir, American Meo: A Tale of Remembering and Forgetting (Sputyen Duyvil Press) about family history and ancestry was longlisted for the 2019 [PANK] Big Book Contest and published last July. Her poetry has been published widely, including in the anthology New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims (Red Hen Press) edited by Kazim Ali. You can find more of her work on her website at anisarahim.com or follow her on Instagram at anisa_rahim.
Robert DeBerry
Robert DeBerry has written poems to channel his view of life for 50 years. A "science guy" by training, he sees poetry as the intersection of nature, faith, science, and society. His effort to weave these elements into different poetic forms ranges from simple to lost and complex. Born in Harlem as a 4th generation Harlemite, His Native, European, and African heritage have enriched his world view.
Vincent Toro
Vincent Toro is a Puerto Rican poet, playwright, and performer. He is the author of three poetry collections: Hivestruck (Penguin Random House, 2024), Tertulia (Penguin Random House, 2020), and Stereo.Island.Mosaic. (Ahsahta, 2016), which won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. Vincent is a recipient of the Caribbean Writer’s Cecile De Jongh Poetry Prize, the Spanish Repertory Theater’s Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award, a Poet’s House Emerging Poets Fellowship, a New York Council for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a New Jersey State Council for the Arts Writers Fellowship. He has performed throughout the United States and internationally. His poetry and prose have been published in dozens of magazines and journals and has been anthologized in Puerto Rico En Mi Corazon, Best American Experimental Writing 2015, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT, and in the forthcoming Latino Poetry from the Library of America. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Rider University, is a Dodge Foundation Poet, and is a contributing editor for Kweli Literary Journal.
Summer 2024
Virtual Workshops
The premier multi-genre workshop for BIPOC Writers, VONA is a Home where writers of color come to hone their craft and be in community.
Each summer we gather esteemed faculty to work with emerging writers of color to explore elements of craft, issues of culture, works of social justice and practices of literary production.
We just completed a beautiful week of writing and community-building. The talent, energy, passion, and love in this summer session were gorgeous and empowering.
Culture. Craft. Community. Change.
The premier multi-genre workshop for BIPOC Writers, VONA is a Home where writers of color come to hone their craft and be in community. VONA honors its writers' unique histories, traditions and aesthetics and provides a protected mentoring space for learning and fellowship. VONA fosters the development of personal and political writing and engages in the work of social justice as we build our global community of writers.
VONA alumni & faculty
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“Just existing as a writer of color is an act of resistance.”
— Tonesa Jones, VONA alumni
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“That’s what I love about my work at VONA, helping younger writers of color dig more deeply into the truth of their own lives and their experiences and their communities.”
— David Mura, VONA Faculty & Board Member
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“VONA helped to quiet the narrative that has told me my whole life that my stories don’t matter, that my ideas are trendy and temporary, that my being is an exotic dressing to the white standard. VONA helped me gain confidence in my writing, helped me understand and fight to tell the stories of this moment, and that dedicating myself to the craft is worth it—that my voice is worth it.”
— Vida James, VONA alumni
BIPOC Voices Must
Lead the Way
Stacie Evans, board member and four-time VONA alum, reflects on the value of VONA as the US moves from one administration to another and – she hopes – from one worldview to another.
Black Lives Matter:
VONA Writers Speak
VONA faculty and alumni support the movement for Black lives by sharing works they’ve written and wisdom from literary elders on issues of race, justice, and social change.
The reading features Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Wendy Angulo, Samiya Bashir, Nívea Castro, Tara Dorabji, Tananarive Due, Stacie Evans, M. Evelina Galang, Natalie Handal, Christian Howard, Kiese Laymon, David Mura, Willie Perdomo, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Lis Sipin, Marcus Smalls.