Event

In honor of the Afghan Women's Writing Project and Afghan women writers we have invited seven readers including students, faculty, poets and special guests Afghan writers Zahra and Marzia to read from the anthology Washing the Dust From Our Heart: Poetry and Prose from Writers of the Afghan Women's Writing Project, translated by Pari with Ahmad Aria. Since 2009 AWWP has helped hundreds of Afghan women and girls tell their stories. To tell one's story is a human right. Translator Pari writes: “It is time to celebrate our victory out of silence.” Please join us.

DILRUBA AHMED's debut book, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press, 2011), won the Bakeless Prize awarded by the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her poems have appeared (or will soon appear) in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, Memorious, New England Review, and Poetry. Her work has also been anthologized in Literature: The Human Experience (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016), Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (University of Arkansas, 2010), and elsewhere. Ahmed is a lecturer in creative writing at Bryn Mawr College. www.dilrubaahmed.com

NAVYA DASARI is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Health and Societies and minoring in Creative Writing. She enjoys watching terrible movies, but has no guilty pleasures.

BECCA LAMBRIGHT is a sophomore from Cleveland, Ohio studying English and Creative Writing. She was a recipient of the 2015 Norman Maclean Nonfiction Award and was a national finalist in the Norman Mailer Writing Awards. Her work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Cleaver Magazine, Textploit, Polyphany HS, Aerie International, and plain china's Best Undergraduate Writing 2017. In her free time she performs as a member of an all-female comedy troupe.

WAZHMAH OSMAN is filmmaker and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies and Production at Temple University. Her research focuses on the politics of representation and visual culture of "The War On Terror" and "Afghan Women" and how they reverberate globally and locally in her native Afghanistan. Her critically acclaimed documentary, Postcards from Tora Bora, has screened in film festivals nationally and internationally.

YOLANDA WISHER is the 2016-2017 Poet Laureate of the City of Philadelphia. Wisher is the author of Monk Eats an Afro and the co-editor of Peace is a Haiku Song. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Fence, Chain, MELUS, and GOOD Magazine and the anthologies Gathering Ground and The Ringing Ear. Wisher is a 2016 HedgebrookWriter-in-Residence, 2015 Pew Fellow, Center for Performance and Civic Practice Catalyst Initiative grantee (2015), Leeway Art & Change Award recipient (2008), and the inaugural Montgomery County Pennsylvania Poet Laureate (1999). She holds an M.A in English/Creative Writing-Poetry from Temple University and a B.A. in English/Black Studies from Lafayette College. Wisher founded and directed the Germantown Poetry Festival (2006-2010) and served as Director of Art Education for the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program (2010-2015). She currently works as Chief Rhapsodist of Wherewithal for the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture.

ZAHRA W. is an AWWP's Teen Voice's writer. She came to the United States with her parents and two younger sisters as refugees last October. After finishing her education, Zahra wants to work to improve the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan.

MARZIA is currently an advocate for Afghan women and girls and an organizer focused on international students at the Feminist Majority Foundation. She's worked with WomenNC, InterAct, Women's Campaign Fund, and Women for Afghan Women. Marzia has been published by the Afghan Women's Writing Project and Ms. Magazine. Her Research on the Violence Against Immigrant and Refugee Women was featured at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women. She is also pursuing her MA from George Mason University.

listen: to an audio recording of this event