Mighty Real 2021 Lineup
Encouraging the LGBTQ community to embrace reading and literature as art, ItsQwere presents Mighty Real: Black Voices In Conversation. On Sunday, November 7 at 12 p.m. PST, comedian Sampson McCormick will host the virtual event celebrating writers who expand social narratives through storytelling. Read More >>
Meet the talent below ⤵️
Robert Jones, Jr. is author of The New York Times Instant Bestselling novel, The Prophets, which is a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Essence, and The Paris Review. He is the creator and curator of the social-justice, social-media community Son of Baldwin, which has over 288,000 followers across platforms.
Black, poet, queer-dyke, hip-hop feminist, womanist: Porsha Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas. The author of i shimmer sometimes, too published by Button Poetry, Olayiwola is the current poet laureate for the city of Boston.
Morg has a Shih Tzu named Nico and a cat named Grace that she would love to write into a story one day. She likes pupusas, red wine, and brunch. She’s Catholic and laughing about it. Her debut novel Honey Girl was out February 23, 2021 from Park Row books. She is rep’d by Holly Root of Root Literary.
BRONTEZ PURNELL
Brontez Purnell is a writer, musician, dancer, filmmaker, and performance artist. He is the author of graphic novel 100 Boyfriends, a novella, a children’s book, and the novel Since I Laid My Burden Down. Recipient of a 2018 Whiting Award for Fiction, he was named one of the 32 Black Male Writers for Our Time by T: New York Times Style Magazine in 2018.
Randy received an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco. His work has been published in Westwind, Red Cedar Review, Palette, FEM Newsmagazine and The Rumpus. He is also a co-founder of At the Door, a monthly reading series that uplifts and features Black and Brown voices. James’ debut chapbook, Shifters, is now available on Nomadic Press.
Junauda Petrus-Nasah is a creative activist, writer, playwright, and multi-dimensional performance artist whose work centers around Black wildness, -futurism, ancestral healing, sweetness, spectacle and shimmer. Her debut YA novel, The Stars and The Blackness Between Them, received the 2020 Coretta Scott King Honor Book Award.
Sampson mccormick, HOST
Sampson McCormick is a comedic force of nature and one of the most in-demand voices of diversity in comedy. The award winning queer comedy icon has appeared on BET, VICELAND, FOX Soul, TV One, and Amazon Prime. In 2018, he was the first LGBTQ comedian to perform at a Smithsonian Museum.
Victoria Monet, Kaytranada, Grace Jones, Chappell Roan, plus the fashion, booze, and food inside San Francisco's popular music festival, Outside Lands.