Join us on February 23rd for a powerful Sunday Salon where race, identity, and the shifting meaning of home take center stage. This month’s featured writers and poet dive into the complexities of belonging in a world increasingly defined by borders—both political and personal. Through stories of diaspora, migration, and the deep legacies of race, they explore what it means to navigate a landscape that often feels inhospitable, yet where connection and resilience continue to thrive.
Deena ElGenaidi is a writer and editor in Brooklyn. Her debut novel, Dust Settles North, is forthcoming in September 2025. Deena’s writing has been published in Vulture, Insider, Nylon, Salon, Electric Literature, and more. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden and her MA in English from Villanova University.
Roberto Carlos Garcia is a 2023 NJ State Council of the Arts Fellow. He is the author of five books, including four poetry collections—Melancolía (Cervena Barva Press, 2016); black / Maybe: An Afro Lyric (Willow Books, 2018); [Elegies] (FlowerSong Press, 2020); and the recently published What Can I Tell You: The Selected Poems of Roberto Carlos Garcia (Flowersong Press, 2022)—and one essay collection, Traveling Freely, out now from Northwestern University Press. Roberto is the founder of Get Fresh Books Publishing, a literary nonprofit. He writes about the Afro-Latinx and Afro-Diasporic experience. His work has been published widely in places like Poetry Magazine, NACLA, Poets & Writers, The Root, The BreakBeat Poets Vol 4: LatiNEXT, Bettering American Poetry Vol. 3., and others.
Ruben Reyes Jr. is the son of two Salvadoran immigrants and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Harvard College. He is the author of the short story collection There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven and the forthcoming novel Archive of Unknown Universes. His writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Lightspeed Magazine, and other publications. Originally from Southern California, he now lives in Queens.
Irvin Weathersby Jr. is a Brooklyn-based writer and professor from New Orleans. His writing has been featured in Esquire, The Atlantic, The Root, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from The New School, an MA from Morgan State University, a BA from Morehouse College and has received fellowships and awards from the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, the Research Foundation of CUNY, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Mellon Foundation.
