Race in America and the Lead-Up to the 2020 Election: A Literary Panel

SPONSORED BY MARINARTS

Moderated by journalist and Book Passage host Paula Farmer, they’ll be tackling this vital topic and how it may impact the next presidential election.

The panelists include:

Brian Copeland
An award-winning actor, comedian, author, playwright, TV and radio talk show host. His bestselling memoir, Not a Genuine Black Man: My Life as an Outsider, reveals a little-known chapter of Bay Area history, and was the 2009 pick for Silicon Valley Reads. Earlier this year, Brian and his fellow actor, Charlie Varon, took on Trump and politics in their play, The Great American S*** Show.

Aya de Leon
The director of the Poetry for the People program, and a teacher of creative writing at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishes her award-winning feminist heist/romance series, Justice Hustlers, including Uptown Thief, The Boss, and Side Chick Nation (2019) which was the first novel published about Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Since 2013 Aya has been consistently blogging on race, class, gender, culture, and social justice politics.

Mimi Lok
The author of the story collection Last of Her Name, published October 2019 by Kaya Press, of which the title story was a finalist for the 2018 Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize. She is currently working on a novel. Mimi is also the executive director, cofounder, and editor of Voice of Witness, an award-winning human rights/oral history nonprofit that amplifies marginalized voices through a book series and a national education program.

Ian Haney Lopez
A law professor and commentator on coded racism in American politics. His most recent book is Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America.

Presented with MarinArts