In Conversation: Room Swept Home with Remica Bingham-Risher’s, Lisa D. Cain, and Trapeta B. Mayson

Torch Literary Arts is proud to present this special reading celebrating the launch of Remica Bingham-Risher’s latest poetry collection, Room Swept Home. Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Trapeta B. Mayson will moderate the conversation between Bingham-Risher and Lisa B. Cain, the cover artist of Room Swept Home. 

Click Here to register in advance for this webinar. 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Register for the conversation and purchase a copy of Room Swept Home on Torch's Bookshop page and receive a signed bookplate by the author. Email a copy of your receipt to contact@torchliteraryarts.org with your mailing address to receive a bookplate after the event. 

Click here to purchase your copy of Room Swept Home.  

This event is free and open to the public. Donations are appreciated.

Remica Bingham-Risher, a native of Phoenix, Arizona, is a Cave Canem fellow and Affrilachian Poet. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Writer’s Chronicle, Callaloo, and Essence. She is the author of Conversion (Lotus, 2006) winner of the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award, What We Ask of Flesh (Etruscan, 2013) shortlisted for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Starlight & Error (Diode, 2017) winner of the Diode Editions Book Award and finalist for the Library of Virginia Book Award. Her next book of poems, Room Swept Home, is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in 2024. Her memoir, Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books and Questions That Grew Me Up, was published by Beacon Press. She is the Director of Quality Enhancement Plan Initiatives at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, where she resides with her husband and children.

A native of Liberia who grew up in Philadelphia, Trapeta B. Mayson was the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate and is the founder of the Healing Verse Poetry Line. She is a recipient of an Academy of American Poets Laureate fellow. Mayson is also a Pew and Cave Canem fellow and Leeway Transformation Awardee, among others. A widely published poet, educator, and teaching artist, Mayson facilitates workshops nationally in schools, institutions, and community venues.  A licensed clinical social worker working in the mental health field, Mayson is a member of several local organizations where she uses the arts to mobilize, build community, and help create change.

Lisa D. Cain, Ph.D., is a self-taught artist and a memory painter. Her predominant painting style, traditional

folk art, acrylic paint on canvas, provides a pictorial history of life in the rural South and in Canton, Mississippi. Her upbringing in Canton, Mississippi forms the basic foundations of her life. The vividly colored traditional acrylic folk art paintings depict the joy of growing up in her hometown community. These paintings contain figures of individuals involved in everyday activities reminiscent of traditional folk artists including Bernice Sims, Clementine Hunter, and Grandma Moses.

Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization 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 Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, and retreats.