Forging Journal at 1: A year of Native writing online

Celebrate the first anniversary of , Forge Project’s online journal, with writers and contributors on making spaces for Indigenous voices at Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, New York, Thursday, August 8, 2024, from 6 to 8 PM.

Join Forging contributors Autumn Fourkiller, Anthony Romero, and Sháńdíín Brown, along with managing editor Frances Cathryn, for a special conversation on mainstream journalism and publishing, writing from Native worldviews, and how best to support Indigenous writers and editors in industries that have rarely valued their perspectives.

Forge Project will also share its past and upcoming initiatives specifically for writers, including its art-criticism residencies and writers-in-residence programs, as well as what’s next for Forging journal.

Please stay after the event for the opportunity to enjoy light refreshments, support independent bookstores by purchasing a drink, and meet other writers, editors, and locals working in the journalism and publishing industries.

Forge Project charges a sliding scale fee for events and recommends direct donations in the amount of your choosing to the Cultural Affairs Department at the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. For more information on our fee structure, please see our Eventbrite page.

Space is limited and seating is first-come, first-served. Reservations are not required to attend this conversation, and reserving a ticket on Eventbrite does not guarantee a seat. Reservations are still appreciated, however; they help us stay in touch and communicate changes if needed, and they give us an idea of how many people to expect.

This event will be live-streamed and recorded to Forge Project's Vimeo page.

About Forging

is a digital-first journal for critically imagining Native futures. Its editors and contributors are deeply committed to changing the way we study and interpret Indigenous survivance in the face of settler colonialism, with a focus on engaging, highlighting, and learning from Native voices.

About the participants

Autumn Fourkiller (Cherokee) is from rural Oklahoma. She is currently at work on a novel about ghosts, grief, and Indigeneity. A 2022 Ann Friedman Weekly Fellow, Fourkiller's work can be found in Scalawag, Atlas Obscura, Catapult, and elsewhere. You can follow her newsletter, Dream Interpretation for Dummies, on Substack.

Anthony Romero is a founding member of the artistic research collective Sonic Insurgency Research Group and the housing justice collective The East Boston Spatial Justice Lab. His most recent book, Lastgaspism: Art and Survival in the Age of Pandemic, was published by Soberscove Press in 2022.

Sháńdíín Brown (Diné) is a curator, creative, and citizen of the Navajo Nation. Joining the RISD Museum in 2021, she was the first Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow for Native American Art and was recently promoted to the Assistant Curator of Native American Art. This fall, Brown is starting a PhD in the History of Art at Yale University, with a focus on multitemporal Native American art.

Through her role as editorial projects manager, Frances Cathryn authors Forge Project's monthly newsletter and manages its social media and digital-first journal, Forging. Outside of her work at Forge, Frances writes cultural criticism on topics from the myth of American exceptionalism to marginalized historical landscapes for Frieze and the Brooklyn Rail, among others.

About Forge Project

Forge Project is a Native-led non-profit organization whose mandate is to cultivate and advance Indigenous leadership in arts and culture. A change-making model for Native cultural self-determination and leadership, Forge Project fuses traditional and contemporary knowledge and practices to build community, public education, and collective action.

Under the leadership of Executive Director & Chief Curator Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation) and Director of Indigenous Programs & Relationality Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yaktitʸutitʸu yaktiłhini [Northern Chumash]), Forge has directly supported nearly 300 Indigenous artists, hosted dozens of cultural practitioners and knowledge keepers, and built new audiences and platforms for their work.

About Rough Draft Bar & Books

Rough Draft is a community bar and bookstore located in uptown Kingston, New York, the ancestral homelands of the Esopus band of the Lenape tribe, who were forcibly displaced from the region through years of Anglo-European settlement. Rough Draft is a place for people from Kingston and beyond to come together for reading, drinking, conversation, and nightly events.

Host or Publisher Forge Project