Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e with Busboys and Poets
Date and Time
Oct 24, 2018 6:30 pm
Location
450K
450 K St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001
Oct 24, 2018 6:30 pm
450K
Join us for an evening of poetry and prose as author Jasminne Méndez reads from and discusses her latest book, NIGHT-BLOOMING JASMIN(N)E: PERSONAL ESSAYS & POETRY
This stirring collection of personal essays and poetry charts Me?ndez's struggles to break free from barriers imposed by family and society. The daughter of Dominican immigrants, Méndez marshals pathos and outrage to depict the ironic circumstances of her life as tragic illness and unexpected twists of fate drive her to transform pain and disappointment into art. Diagnosed with scleroderma at 22 and lupus just six years later, Méndez shares her story, writing about encounters with the medical establishment, experiences as an Afro Latina and longing for the life she expected but that eludes her.
Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Co-Sponsor:
Scleroderma Foundation Greater Washington, DC Chapter is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to serving the needs of the scleroderma community.
Our mission is three-fold:
Support - To help patients and families cope with scleroderma through mutual support programs, peer counseling, physician referrals and educational information.
Education - To promote public awareness and education through patient and health professionals seminars, literature and publicity campaigns.
Research - To stimulate and support research to improve treatment and ultimately find a cure for scleroderma and related disease. www.scleroderma.org/DC
Author Bio:
Jasminne Mendez is an award winning author, performance poet and educator. She received her B.A. in English Literature and her M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Houston. Mendez has had poetry and memoir published both nationally and internationally and her first multi-genre memoir Island of Dreamspublished by Floricanto Press was awarded Best Young Adult Latino Focused Book by the International Latino Book Awards in 2015. Recently, her personal essay El Corte received honorable mention in the Barry Lopez Creative Non-Fiction Prize in CutThroat, A Journal of the Arts. She is the co-founder of Tintero Projects: A Reading & Writing Workshop Series, an organization that seeks to build and promote emerging and established Latinx writers in Houston. She is a 2016 VONA/Voices Alumni and a Macondo Fellow and she is in a MFA candidate in the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
