In July, Personal Velocity will host writers Chet'la Sebree, Raena Shirali, Olivia Muenz, and Emma Wu.
Organized by Katie Bennett, Personal Velocity is a monthly reading series featuring personal essays by women, nonbinary, and trans writers. The series will run every month from Aug '25 - Aug '26, thanks to a generous grant from Penn Treaty Special Services District.
About this month’s readers:
Chet'la Sebree is the author of the debut essay collection TURN (W)HERE: A Geography of Home as well the poetry collections Blue Opening, longlisted for PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry and a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry; Field Study, winner of the James Laughlin Award; and Mistress, nominated for an NAACP Image Award and selected by Cathy Park Hong as the winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize. Currently, she’s an associate professor at George Washington University.
Raena Shirali is the author of two collections of poetry: GILT (YesYes Books, 2017) and summonings (Black Lawrence Press, 2022). Raena’s accolades include a Yaddo Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and poetry prizes from Gulf Coast, Boston Review, & Cosmonauts Avenue. Her new essays & poems have appeared in Carte Blanche, Phoebe, Reunion, and South Carolina Review. She lives in Philadelphia and is thus contractually obligated to say, “Go birds.”
Olivia Muenz is the author of poetry collection I Feel Fine (Switchback Books, 2023), which won the 2022 Gatewood Prize, and chapbook Where Was I Again (Essay Press, 2022).
Emma Wu (she/they) is a writer and activist originally from Houston, Texas. They hold an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University-Camden. Their writing has been published in the North American Review, Gulf Coast, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. They have participated in residencies, including Stove Works, Wildacres, and Soaring Gardens. They were shortlisted for the DISQUIET 2024 and 2026 Literary Prize in Fiction, and the Philadelphia Stories 2025 Short Fiction Contest. Currently living in Philadelphia, Emma teaches in the English Department at George Washington University at the intersection of digital storytelling and carceral justice.
