MelaNated Writers present: THE LITERARY JOOK JOINT

The following article is from the literary news site, Press Street: Room 220.

The MelaNated Writers Group will present the second installment of its three-part summer reading series this Saturday, July 14, at 4 p.m. at Cafe Treme (1501 St. Philip St., at Villere). Fiction writer Danielle Gilyot, poet Kelly Harris, fiction writer (and photographer) L. Kasimu Harris, poet Ayanna Molina, and poet-playwright Geryll Robinson will each present original work in what I don’t doubt will be a fantastic follow-up to their debut performance at NOMA last month. The afternoon will be hot, the cafe will be cool (and probably packed), and the readers prepared to impress.

As we’ve written previously on Rm220, MelaNated is a group of writers of color founded two years ago by jewel bush and currently comprised of 18 men and women who work in a wide array of genres and hail from as near as New Orleans and as far as Malaysia. Their highly anticipated reading at NOMA, hosted by the venerable Kalamu ya Salaam, filled the museum’s auditorium with spectators and showed with gusto the depth and range of writing represented by this group. Saturday’s event, hosted by author and folklorist Mona Lisa Saloy, will take place in a much more intimate atmosphere (capacity at Cafe Treme is, like, 50)—hence the jook joint reference. The group hopes the reading will go down something like the scene in The Color Purple when Shug Avery sings “Miss Celia’s Blues.” It’s a high bar to reach, but these are soulful folks. Come out to see if they can pull it off.

The original article can be found here.