H&H has received a grant from the Penn Treaty Special Services District (PTSSD) to produce a unique exhibition and publishing pilot we have dubbed The Riverwards Arts & Letters (RA&L) Salon Series.
What is the RA&L Salon Series, exactly? Over the past few months, H&H has formed a committee of mentors responsible for nominating Riverwards-based/ -connected artists and writers to showcase their work at a series of three Salon-style exhibitions at H&H Books leading to the publication of three original chapbooks in spring/summer 2024. The goal: a neighborhood hub where writers read and artists exhibit with an aim towards sparking collaborations and ultimately creating a published works together. In essence, the RA&L Series is a creative cross-pollination experiment.
When is the RA&L Salon Series? H&H Books is flinging wide its doors to host Salons on September 8, November 17, and January 26, 2024. Each Salon will be free to the public and will feature the work of three artists and three writers on display. Come one and all to witness the visual-verbal alchemy!
September 8th Line-up:
Camellia-Berry Grass
Camellia-Berry Grass is trying to live. Presently in Philadelphia, she is the author of the lyric nonfiction collection, Hall of Waters (2019, The Operating System). A 2019 nominee for the Krause Essay Prize, her essays and poems have been widely published in places such as DIAGRAM, The Texas Review, Barrelhouse, and Waxwing, among others. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Alabama, and has taught most recently at University of the Arts, and in the MFA program for creative writing at Rosemont College.
Justin Coffin
Justin Coffin lives in Philadelphia and has written a good deal about the city, the Riverwards specifically. His books El Bunny, created with painter Terrence Laragione, and Fishtown Forget Me Not take these neighborhoods and the people who live there as their subjects.
Nora Einbender Luks
Nora Einbender Luks is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. She is currently in graduate school to become an art therapist and creates prints, illustration, comics, and sculpture.
Kathryn Kennedy
My name is Kathryn Kennedy.
I am a traditional and digital collage artist.
I am a freelance illustrator and artist currently residing in the NYC area. I received my BFA in Illustration, and a Minor in Sculpture, from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
I make illustration and design-based work, focusing on shape and color as my main form of imagery. Besides illustration, I have interests in sculpture and crafts, as well as writing. I enjoy creating works based around poetry, nature, and the body.
Gabriel Ramirez
Gabriel Ramirez is a Queer Afro-Latinx writer, performer and educator. A 2023 Gregory Djanikian Scholar in Poetry at Adroit Journal, Gabriel has also received fellowships from Palm Beach Poetry Festival, The Conversation Literary Arts Festival, CantoMundo, Miami Book Fair, is a graduate fellow at The Watering Hole, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. Gabriel has performed on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre, United Nations, Lincoln Center, Apollo Theatre, The National Museum of Romanian Literature, and other venues & universities around the nation. Gabriel was featured in Huffington Post, VIBE Magazine, Blavity, Upworthy, The Flama, and Remezcla. You can find his work in various spaces, including Youtube, and in publications such as POETRY Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, Adroit Journal, The Volta, Split This Rock, BOMB, Acentos Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly and others, as well as Bettering American Poetry Anthology (Bettering Books 2017), What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (Northwestern University Press 2019), and The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT (Haymarket Press 2020). Follow Gabriel on social media @RamirezPoet and RamirezPoet.com.
Sam Sankey
Sam Sankey is a Philadelphia-based painter and illustrator working primarily in gouache and acrylics. Their vibrant vignettes are inspired by their teenage years growing up in New Jersey and focus on otherness, specifically queerness. Sam Sankey is a graduate from Tyler School of Art and has been featured in Very Magazine, South Street Art Mart, and in the Hamilton Street Gallery. Sankey is also a handpoke tattooer, a cat dad, and an avid lover of just hanging out.