Aimee Suzara ECCTYC Brunch Speaker

Aimee Suzara: Award Winning Poet/Author/Performer

2011 ECCTYC Conference Brunch Speaker, Saturday, October 22

2011 Brunch Speaker Aimee Suzara

Oakland-based Filipino-American writer/performer, cultural worker, educator Aimee Suzara has been writing and performing spoken word, poetry and theatre incorporating movement since 1999. Her first play, Pagbabalik (Return), was awarded a Zellerbach Community Arts Grant in 2006 and 2007 and selected for Bay Area festivals, and she is working on her second, A History of the Body, also supported by Zellerbach and in residence last Fall with Kularts, Inc. Her poetry collection, the space between, was published by Finishing Line Press (2008) and her writing appears in many journals and anthologies, including Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees, 580 Split, Kartika Review, Lantern Review and Walang Hiya/No Shame. As a performer, she has been featured as a poet throughout California and nationally at colleges and venues and was a recent collaborating performer in Amara Tabor-Smith/Deep Waters Dance Theater’s sold-out premiere of Our Daily Bread, in residency at CounterPULSE. As an educator, Suzara has shared her passion for the intersection of the arts, literacy, and education with Aim High, Art in Action, and schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as her performance workshop series, “Making Soul,” and “Writing to Remember.” Her focus on supporting young women’s voices has been seen in her series “A Woman’s Word” and workshops for women of color. While coaching youth and adults in poetry and performance, she teaches English at two-year colleges including Las Positas, Laney, and San Francisco City as well as Creative Writing at Cal State Monterey Bay. A longtime social and environmental justice activist who co-founded the Filipino/American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, Aimee’s passion for social change also has led her to positions with San Francisco Women Against Rape and the Youth Media Council. Suzara’s mission is to create, and a help others create, work that builds community, fosters healing, and provokes important questions through poetry, movement, and theatre. For more information, visit Aimee Suzara Online.

Suzara will precede her brunch presentation with a special workshop entitled “Conversations with Aimee Suzara.”