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BIPOC Reading Series – June
***NEW START TIME*** Starting in June, the BIPOC Reading Series will begin at 6:30 PM.
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 June is Diana Oropeza.
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.
Diana Oropeza
Diana Oropeza is a Portland-based writer working across poetry, nonfiction, and spoken word. Born in Lake Tahoe to Mexican immigrant parents, her work explores migration, translation, and layered narrative voice. She holds an MFA from PNCA at Willamette University, where her debut hybrid collection An Incomplete Catalog of Disappearance (Future Tense Books, 2024) won the Thesis Award, and a BA in Media Studies from UC Berkeley. She co-founded The Social Stomach, a spoken word and drums project that reimagines traditional poetry readings. Her writing appears in Willamette Magazine, River Styx, and Not My Style. She is currently researching lab rats and mazes for a new hybrid collection examining systems of control and observation.
