Bel Canto Books is honored to host the I'D RATHER BE LIGHTNING Book Launch featuring Nancy Lynée Woo. Nancy will be joined by guest poets Julayne Lee (NOT MY WHITE SAVIOR), Arminé Iknadossian (ALL THAT WASTED FRUIT), and Susannah Lodge-Rigal (WHERE THE LIGHT FEEDS).
RSVP required; please select the ticket option that best fits your group. Attendees will be required to follow all current COVID-19 restrictions.
This is an indoor event at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA 90807).
EVENT SCHEDULE
3:45pm - Check-in begins
4:00pm - Event starts (welcome, poetry reading, audience Q&A)
5:00pm - Book signing & private shopping
6:00pm - Event ends
ABOUT THE BOOK
I’d Rather Be Lightning is a love song to the earth, celebrating what we stand to lose. These poems are “throwing a tantrum” about the climate crisis, written by a “child / of imperialism whining about freedom / from the bondage of stuff.” What do you get when you combine capitalism, environmentalism, ecology, globalization, fascism, economic crisis, and global pandemic? Nancy Lynée Woo transmutes anxiety into dynamic and playful poems, writing into the absurdity of the global crises facing humanity with a soft wit, enduring hope, and deep love for the more-than-human world. Eco-feminism moving at lightspeed, I’d Rather Be Lightning captures a Millennial’s despair over environmental destruction with bolts of humor, compassion, and formal experimentation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nancy Lynée Woo is a poet, writer, arts organizer, and climate activist who harbors a wild love for the natural world. Her debut poetry collection is called I’d Rather Be Lightning (GASHER Press, March 2023). Nancy has received fellowships from Artists at Work, PEN America, Arts Council for Long Beach, and Idyllwild Writers Week. Nancy has an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University and a BA in sociology from UC Santa Cruz. Find her cavorting around Long Beach (Tongva land) in California, and online at nancylyneewoo.com or @fancifulnance on social.
ABOUT THE GUEST POETS
Julayne Lee is an adopted Korean poet & artivist. Her debut collection of poems Not My White Savior was on Bitch Media's Bitchreads: 15 Books Feminists Should Read in March and Entropy's Best of 2018: Best Poetry Books & Poetry Collections. Not My White Savior has been taught in Freshman Lit, Race & Ethnicity & other courses. Julayne has read and spoken on adoption at universities & symposiums in the U.S. & Korea. You can find her words in The Washington Post, The Nervous Breakdown & elsewhere @julayneelle.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Arminé Iknadossian immigrated to the United States in 1978 to escape the civil war. She is the author of All That Wasted Fruit (Main Street Rag Press). She earned an MFA from Antioch University where she was awarded a fellowship from Summer Poetry in Idyllwild. During her tenure as a teacher, The Los Angeles Writing Project awarded Iknadossian a fellowship for their summer residency. Armine serves on the Advisory Board of IALA (International Armenian Literary Association) and currently lives close to the sea with Henry the Cat. Find out more at armineiknadossian.com.
Susannah Lodge-Rigal is a writer and educator based in Berkeley, California. Raised in Bloomington, Indiana, she received a B.A. from Knox College and M.F.A. from Colorado State University, where she was awarded the 2019 Academy of American Poets Prize. Susannah is the author of WHERE THE LIGHT FEEDS (Gasher Press, 2023), and her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Black Warrior Review, Seneca Review, Colorado Review, Missouri Review - Poem of the Week, Puerto del Sol, DIAGRAM, The Journal, Ruminate, and elsewhere.
I'D RATHER BE LIGHTNING Book Launch featuring Nancy Lynée Woo, with special guests Julayne Lee, Arminé Iknadossian, and Susannah Lodge-Rigal, hosted by Bel Canto Books in Long Beach, California