I’ve been attending the wonderful Crossroads Irish American Festival in San Francisco for a number of years. My mother is Irish and I have happy memories of going to Ireland during the summer when I was a child, to visit my grandmother and other relatives.
After one of the readings at the Crossroads Festival, my friend, poet Pireeni Sundaralingam, introduced me to one of the organizers, Hillary Flynn. When I mentioned that I was a writer of South Asian and Irish heritage and that I knew a number of other writers who were mixed and Irish, an idea formed. Wouldn’t it be great, we thought, to have a panel of writers of mixed/Irish heritage as one of the events at the Festival.
Well, lots of conversations, phone calls and emails later, we are doing exactly that! I approached writers from the Mixed Remixed network (thanks Heidi!) and from the VONA (Voices of Our Nation Arts) Writers network to join me for an event called: “You don’t look Irish!” A Reading And Conversation with Multiracial Writers of Irish Heritage”. It will take place on March 27th in San Francisco at the University of San Francisco – where I’m a candidate for an MFA in Creative Writing.
If you are in the area (or would like to come to the area!) please come and listen to: Dylan Amaro-McIntyre, Caroline Mar, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, and Clare Ramsaran, four very different writers and join in the conversation about what Irish heritage “looks like” in the 21st Century.
Location: Maraschi Room, Fromm Hall, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street @ Parker Street (next to St. Ignatius Church), San Francisco, CA.
Cost: Free. Donations welcome.