After a tour of the “Touch Grass” exhibit at the Steffen Thomas Museum, we will spend the rest of the morning opening our five senses to poetry inspired by art in the gallery, the natural world, and daily life. Participants will learn about and practice ekphrasis a fancy term for writing poems about art. If weather permits, we will also spend some time outdoors. This workshop is open to anyone curious about working across genres, and who wants to bring a deeper sense of connection to art and nature into their work. Josina Guess is a creative collaborator in Vulture Sister Song which will be performed at Steffen Thomas on Sunday, February, 23 at 4 pm.

This is part of the Georgia Writer’s Museum Writer’s Retreat. REGISTER HERE

Pre-screening of Exhibiting Forgiveness, a beautiful film about healing from intergenerational trauma by Titus Kaphar starring Andre Holland, Andra Day, John Earl Jelks, and Aunjanue Ellis Taylor.

I will be moderating a conversation and Q&A with artist and director Titus Kaphar after the film. We'll will talk about forgiveness, healthy boundaries, and the healing power of art.

Space is limited and a ticket is required to attend.

Please secure your free tickets here.

Erica Abrams Locklear’s new book from UGA Press Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People looks at how long-held preconceptions about Appalachian foodways color our perception of the region and its people. Join us as we talk about power, pickles, and dismantling preconceptions. At the Richard B. Russell Special Collections Library at the University of Georgia. This event is co-sponsored by UGA Press, the University of Georgia Libraries, and the Willson Center for Arts and Humanities. This event is free and open to the public.

Learn more and register here.

On Saturday, April 15, at 10 am, 2022 John Lewis Writing Grant Winners Michaeljulius Y. Idani, Josina Guess, and Samantha Williams will read original works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry

Craft Talk “Building a Writing Community 11 am

Editorial Panel 2pm

Book Launch and Reading with Imani Perry 7pm

Read the full schedule here

Roundtable discussion, Georgia Museum of Art auditorium

Panel 1: Reckonings (10:15 – 11:15 a.m.)
Taking the many meanings of “reckoning” to heart, this panel will consider how photography offers a way to reckon with the southern past, but also a means to surmise and imagine visions of the South’s future. The conversation will address Indigenous identity, dispossession and the possibilities of return; kinship, healing and southern memory; and language, folklore and the darker corners of the southern vernacular.

Moderator: Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, curator of American art, Georgia Museum of Art, and curator of “Reckonings and Reconstructions”

Speakers:

• Zig Jackson (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara), photographer and emeritus professor, Savannah College of Art and Design

• Josina Guess, contributor to the Bitter Southerner, MFA student in narrative nonfiction, UGA

• Kristine Potter, photographer (Nashville, Tennessee)

View Full Symposium Schedule

This event is FREE! 4200 Bethany Road, Buckhead, GA 30625

Suggested ages: 8 and up

This family workshop on June 11 will feature poet Josina Guess, who will teach us how to express appreciation, love, and humor in an illustrated poem made for the devoted dad, or father figure, in your life.

All materials are provided! The $10 workshop ticket includes entry to the museum ($10 value) and a guided tour of the Mother Tongue exhibition.

Register Here

2022 AWP Conference at Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA

Sophia Stid, Kathryn Nuernberger, Chet-la Sebree, Jennifer Loyd, Josina Guess

“I do not intend to speak about, just nearby,” Trinh T. Minh-ha says in her film Reassemblage, critiquing the documentary genre. What does it mean to speak nearby, as women writers who practice archival research and make work in conversation with difficult histories? How do we reclaim and remake the act of research itself? How do we speak with, without speaking for? Join us for a conversation on the joys, challenges, ethics, and possibilities of research as creative practice and reparative act.

Justice and Inclusiveness of Vision in the Modern Southern Periodical: Editors' Roundtable Discussion

Avid Bookshop and The Bitter Southerner present writers Cinelle Barnes, Tiana Clark, and Aruni Kashyap in conversation with Bitter Southerner managing editor Josina Guess for A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South. This is a virtual event taking place on Wednesday, October 14, 2020. Watch the recording of the Zoom event here.

I’ll be joining other Georgia writers in a reading of excerpts of original narrative non-fiction at Buvez 585 Barber St., Athens, GA 30601.