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BIPOC Reading Series – April
This monthly reading series is intended to prioritize the safety, creativity, and stories of Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color.
Come listen to our featured readers, or sign up to share your work in our open mic. Readings will be followed by a short community discussion. Hosted by Kyle Yoshioka and Jessica Meza-Torres. The featured reader for April is Paul Susi.
This event is open to everyone, but only people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color will be invited to read. If you have any questions, please contact Jessica Meza-Torres at jmezatorres24@gmail.com or Kyle Yoshioka at kyle.yoshioka@gmail.com.
Jessica Meza-Torres
Jessica Meza-Torres is from San Jose, CA. She is a co-host at the BIPOC Reading Series, sometimes writer, sometimes designer, and always Mexican. She writes about the light at the end of the tunnel.
Kyle Yoshioka
Kyle Yoshioka thinks and writes a lot about belonging. He is the founder and editorial director of Provecho, a publication about the intersection of food and identity, and co-hosts the BIPOC Reading Series at Literary Arts. His writing projects have been supported by the Independent Publishing Resource Center, the McCormack Writing Center Workshop (formerly the Tin House Workshop), and the Andy Warhol Foundation's Precipice Fund. Kyle is working on his debut novel about a multigenerational Japanese American family that explores whether inheritance is destiny.
Paul Susi
Paul Susi (he/him) is a theater artist, a writer, a social services professional, an educator and an activist, born and raised in Portland, Oregon. As an actor, he has appeared onstage with Salt and Sage, NW Classical Theatre Collaborative, Anon It Moves / String House, Shaking the Tree Studios, Push Leg, The Forgery, Island Stage Left in the San Juans, WA, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Vermont Stage Company, Teatro Solo/Boom Arts, as well as in self-produced, original work. In 2018-2024, Paul toured “An Iliad” to over 30 prisons, community centers, places of worship, and theaters throughout Oregon with NW Classical Theatre Collaborative and cellist / composer Anna Fritz.
Paul has been honored to receive a Creative Heights Fellowship from the Oregon Community Foundation, as well as several Project-Based Grants from the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, and an Artist’s Residency at Caldera Arts. In 2018, the Regional Arts and Culture Council honored Paul for outstanding contributions to local theater and culture.
For five years, Paul specialized in managing new emergency homeless shelters for Transition Projects, with experience in opening and / or closing 6 different shelter programs during that time. Paul currently serves as a Conversation Project Facilitator for Oregon Humanities, as a Peer Resource Navigator for Portland Street Medicine, and as the Director of the Vendor Program at Street Roots. The proud son of Filipino immigrants, Paul never went to college. His first book, Character Work, was published in October 2025.
