Prize-winning theater artist Sharon Bridgforth will pull cards from her dat Black Mermaid Man Lady Oracle Deck and dem Blessings Deck. Based on the cards, she and moderator Shamain McAllister will offer questions and conversation for our journey. You are invited to engage, connect, celebrate, and be witnessed. “I always ask, what does Infinite Love want us to Know?”

Sharon Bridgforth talks with Beinecke curator Melissa Barton about their mutual love of Langston Hughes, sharing reactions to selections from Hughes’s papers at Beinecke.

A collaboration between Portuguese vocalist-composer Sara Serpa and Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma, drawing inspiration from Iduma’s book, A Stranger’s Pose, a unique blend of travelogue, musings and poetry. In a combination of music, text, image, and field recordings collected by Iduma during his travels, Intimate Strangers explores such themes as of movement, home, grief, absence, and desire in what Iduma calls “an atlas of a borderless world.”

Start your festival day with free coffee and treats, book and tote bag giveaways, and a short reading by poet Ishion Hutchinson.

After receiving the Windham-Campbell Prize for drama, Kia Corthron published two novels; Abbie Spallen is currently working on her first book. Professor of English, Theater, and Performance Studies, and American Studies, Marc Robinson talks with both writers about leaving their comfort zone to tell stories in a different form.