8/22: Social Justice Poetry Reading and Disussion at Booksweet

8/22: Social Justice Poetry Reading and Disussion at Booksweet

Booksweet is thriled to welcome authors Sunu P. Chandy, Minal Hajratwala, Dr. LeConté Dill, & Isabella Morena to read from their works and discuss their writing in celebration of the launch of Sunu P. Chandy's My Dear Comrades. We will also have audience Q&A, book signings, and light refreshments!

About the Book

In this poetry collection, Sunu P. Chandy includes stories about her experiences as a woman, civil rights attorney, parent, partner, daughter of South Asian immigrants, and member of the LGBTQ community. These poems cover themes ranging from immigration, social justice activism, friendship loss, fertility challenges, adoption, caregiving, and life during a pandemic. Sunu’s poems provide some resolve, some peace, some community, amidst the competing notions of how we are expected to be in the world, especially when facing a range of barriers. Sunu’s poems provide company for many who may be experiencing isolation through any one of these experiences and remind us that we are not, in fact, going it alone. Whether the experience is being disregarded as a woman of color attorney, being rejected for being queer, losing a most treasured friendship, doubting one’s romantic partner or any other form of heartbreak, Sunu’s poems highlight the human requirement of continually starting anew. These poems remind us that we can, and we will, rebuild.

About the Authors

Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a social justice activist including through her work as a poet and a civil rights attorney. She’s the daughter of immigrants from Kerala, India, a queer woman of color, and lives in Washington, D.C. with her family. Her award-winning collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was published by Regal House. Sunu’s creative work can also be found in , , , Split this Rock’s online social justice database, , and in anthologies including , and . Sunu is currently a Senior Advisor with Democracy Forward. Sunu has worked for many years as a civil rights attorney, including as a litigator with EEOC for 15 years. Sunu was also the Legal Director of the National Women’s Law Center for six years until August 2023. Sunu earned her B.A. in Peace and Global Studies/Women’s Studies from Earlham College, her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law and her MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Queens College/The City University of New York in 2013. Sunu is on the board of the Transgender Law Center, and was included as one the Washington Blade’s Queer Women of Washington and one of Go Magazine’s 100 Women We Love. Sunu is delighted to celebrate her collection of poetry, My Dear Comrades, alongside the book's fabulous cover artist, Ragni Agarwal.

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Minal Hajratwala (they/she) founded the Unicorn Authors Club to guide authors of color (and allies who really mean it!) to finish books. She is currently at work on a book about creative practice, The Chakra Playbook: For Artists, Creatives, and People with Spines, under contract with Hachette (Spring 2026). Her first book, Leaving India: My Family’s Journey From Five Villages to Five Continents, was called “incomparable” by Alice Walker and “searingly honest” by the Washington Post. It won a Pen USA Award, an Asian American Writers Workshop Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and a California Book Award. Minal is the author of poetry collection, Bountiful Instructions for Enlightenment, and a travel guidebook, Moon Fiji. As a journalist, they were an editor-at-large at Zócalo Public Square, ran the Sunday Perspective section of the San Jose Mercury News, and was a National Arts Journalism Program fellow at Columbia University. In 2010-11 she was a Fulbright senior fellow in Mumbai, where she edited a groundbreaking anthology, Out! Stories from the New Queer India. She is board vice chair of the Hedgebrook residency for women+ writers. www.unicornauthors.club

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Dr. LeConté Dill was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles, California. She is a poet, playwright, educator, and scholar in and out of classroom and community spaces. She holds degrees from Spelman College, UCLA, and UC Berkeley, was a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop Fellow and a Hurston/Wright Writers Workshop Fellow and has participated in VONA Voices and Cave Canem writing workshops. Currently, she is the Director of Graduate Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University. She is also a Certified Mindfulness Instructor. In Dr. Dill's art, research, and activism, she listens to and shows up for urban Black girls, in particular, and works to rigorously document their experiences and strategies of safety, resilience, resistance, and wellness. Her work is critically informed by years of working in partnership with youth and community organizers, policy advocates, and health educators at community-based organizations and public health departments across the U.S. and South Africa. Her work has been published in a diverse array of spaces, such as Poetry Magazine, Mom Egg Review, Journal of Poetry Therapy, the Du Bois Review, and The Feminist Wire.

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Isabella Moreno (Nonfiction) is a Nuyorican proudly hailing from the Bronx; writing, gardening and blossoming in Cleveland, Ohio. Her personal writing explores, and gives testament to, memories, recollections and anecdotes influenced by her multi-generational (multi-hyphenated) familial experiences with an ever-changing historical background. She has 30 years of experience in education from K-12 classrooms to non-profit and college administration. For 15+ years she has created workshops for creatives of color. She is the founder of Illuminating Our Voices. She believes joy can always be found in collective spaces of shared creation. Her two adult children add the magical rhythm to her heart.

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