An Evening with Remica L. Bingham-Risher, Destiny O. Birdsong, and Natalie Graham

UPDATE: Torch Literary Arts & EcoTheo + LOGOS proudly present Deep In The Heart: An Evening with Remica L. Bingham-Risher, Destiny O. Birdsong, and Natalie Graham. Join us for a reading of their new works, book signing, and reception. 

Due to unavoidable circumstances, Airea D. Matthews will not be able to attend. 

Doors open at 6:30. Reading begins at 7:00. Books will be available for sale.

Remica Bingham-Risher’s work has been published in The New York Times, The Writer’s Chronicle, Callaloo and Essence. She is the author of Conversion (Lotus, 2006), What We Ask of Flesh (Etruscan, 2013) and Starlight & Error (Diode, 2017). Her most recent book, a memoir, Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books and Questions That Grew Me Up, was published by Beacon Press in 2022. She is the Director of Quality Enhancement Plan Initiatives at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, where she resides with her husband and children. 

Destiny O. Birdsong (she/her) is a Louisiana-born poet, essayist, and fiction writer whose debut poetry collection, Negotiations, was published by Tin House Books in October 2020, and was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection. Her debut novel, Nobody’s Magic, was published by Grand Central in February 2022. She earned her BA in English and history from Fisk University, and her MFA and PhD from Vanderbilt. In 2022, she was selected as the Hurston-Wright Foundation’s inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Rutgers University-Newark, and she will serve as an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville from 2022-2023.

Natalie Graham earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Florida and Ph.D. in American Studies at Michigan State University. Her poems have appeared in San Francisco Chronicle, Callaloo, New England Review, and Southern Humanities Review; and her articles have appeared in The Journal of Popular Culture and Transition. She is a Cave Canem fellow and associate professor of African American Studies at California State University, Fullerton. Begin with a Failed Body (U of Georgia P, 2017), her debut collection of poems, won the 2016 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

EcoTheo Collective envisions a world in which care for the places we inhabit, the people we encounter, and the lives we lead makes for lasting beauty in art, nature, and community. In the work we publish online and quarterly print editions of EcoTheo Review, we cultivate conversation and connection with artists and writers to bring original work to a wide audience invested in the relationships between ecology and theology, earth justice and social justice. Our LOGOS gatherings evoke transcendence through poetry, ritual, and conversation, incorporating elements of liturgy into readings that are dynamic and participatory.

Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. TORCH has featured work by Toi Derricotte, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.