L.A. Book Launch: Piecework by Amy Shimshon-Santo

Join us for a celebration of Amy Shimshon-Santo's newest collection, Piecework: Ethnographies of Place (Unsolicited Press). The afternoon will feature readings and perfomances by Amy Shimshon-Santo, Avila Santo and Reva Santo, followed by a moderated discussion with Betty Avila.

Piecework is a lively collection of intergenerational essays on how people create possibility and place through the arts, culture, and heritage. Women and children play central roles in these ethnographies and autoethnographies. Their stories and struggles, ideas and breakthroughs, affirm the exponential power of families, schools, and communities to shape their own destinies through creative action. We learn that change is a collective endeavor, shaped on the ground, with the people we know and the communities we cherish. The book is structured into three themes: classrooms, communities, and migrations. The essays on schooling include hard-to-find ethnographies from artivist classrooms serving children and teens.

The essays about community focus on youth activists, adult leaders, and path breaking women ancestors. Teens alchemize pain into power as storytellers and advocates. Curators and artists rewrite history to honor a musical matriarch. Community arts leaders gather across neighborhoods to share strategies for spatial justice in the context of gentrification. The essays on migration take a historical turn as the author digs into ancestral archives for clues about her family’s activism, migration stories, and refugee experiences. She unearth’s stories of community organizing, art making, and resilience. The book includes provocative interviews about writing, freedom, and women’s authorship with cultural promoters in Nigeria and Brazil. Piecework concludes with a pep talk for future culture makers.

About the authors

is a writer and interdisciplinary artist born on Tovaangar land (present-day Los Angeles), with family roots spanning the Americas and the Middle East. Her work—woven through poetry, essays, and community-centered art—moves at the intersections of memory, place, and change — tending to the fragile, luminous threads between personal history and collective healing. She is the author of three poetry collections, a limited edition chapbook, and an essay collection. Her most recent works are Piecework: Ethnographies of Place (Unsolicited Press) and Random Experiments in Bioluminescence (Flowersong Press). Amy’s poetry appears in Prairie Schooner, Tikkun, ArtPlace America, ASAP/J, Zocalo Public Square, and more. Her essays live in academic and public spaces alike: GeoHumanities, UC Press, Urban Education, SUNY Press, Public!, Journal of Writers’ Project Ghana and more. Amy edited anthologies and special issues for UC Press, Los Angeles Public Library, Braille Institute of America, Illinois Open Publishing Network, Libretto Magazine in Nigeria, and Revista de Crítica Cultural in Brazil. A dedicated mentor and cultural weaver, she has been a guest artist with UNESCO (Mexico), Pa Gya Lit Fest (Ghana), Lagos Int'l Poetry Festival (Nigeria); university communities including York University (Canada), University of California Santa Cruz, University of Maryland, University of Boulder Colorado, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), Universidade do Estado da Bahia (Brazil), and Universidad de las Regiones Autónomas de la Costa Caribe Nicaragüense (Nicaragua), and art spaces including the Autry Museum, Metro LA Arts, Self Help Graphics and Art. She catalyzes global conversations on the Inheritance of Peace podcast. Nominated for an Emmy Award, a Rainbow Reads Award, Pushcart Prizes, and Best of the Net, she was a finalist for NightBoat Poetry Prize. She has been a Writing Fellow at the Idyllwild Writer’s Week (2025), and received scholarships from the Community of Writers (2020, 2024). Throughout her life in art making and teaching, she’s returned to the belief that arts and culture can cultivate awareness and sustenance across generations.

is a multi-disciplinary artist specializing in music and sound. He uses rhythm as the foundation and guiding philosophy for his music compositions, writing, image making and performance work. He is interested in the ways that drumming deepens our relationship to the natural world, diasporic movement and to non-linear time. Avila has had his music commissioned for projects with A24, LACMA, HBO, Sony Music, Ghetto Film School and Creative Capital amongst others. He has collaborated with other artists such as Khalil Joseph, Terence Nance and Allison Saar. He has also been a recipient of multiple grants, fellowships and awards including the Pioneer Works Artist Residency, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs Artist Residency, Sony Music Emerging Composers Fellowship and was a semifinalist for the Sundance Composer’s Lab. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Fine Art at USC, and graduated with honors from Berklee College of Music with a B.A in Professional Music and Latin Percussion.

is an LA-born filmmaker and artist of Afro-Brazilian and Jewish descent. Reva’s storytelling is defined by her ability to uncover the emotional pulse of her inquiries, translating them into transformative, nuanced stories. Reva’s work is grounded in earth wisdom, eco-feminism, and explores the complexities of diaspora. Her visionary work has been recognized by the NALIP Diverse Women in Media Scholarship, the Vibrant Cities Arts Grant, and Panavision’s New Filmmaker Program Grant. Most recently, she directed and edited a Lyric Video for esperanza spalding’s song, Não Ao Marco Temporal, in support of Brazilian Indigenous land rights. Reva’s films have been showcased at film festivals and art fairs across the country—including PRIZM Art fair, LA Municipal Art Gallery, PAFF, SQFF, and more. She graduated in Film Studies from Columbia University, where she was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts for her script Ash(é), and the Henry Evans Travel Fellowship. Reva is also the co-creator of Honey & Smoke, a community arts practice creating intentional dialogue and community spaces around the most pressing themes of our time.

Betty Avila (Panel Moderator) is an arts and social justice leader with a career spanning community building, youth empowerment, and cultural activation. She has held positions at cultural organizations ranging from grassroots to institutional spaces, including the Getty Research Institute and The Music Center. Betty previously led Self Help Graphics & Art, an organization with a 50-year legacy of empowering Chicana/o and Latinx communities through art. Currently, she serves as Program Officer at the Perenchio Foundation, continuing to support Los Angeles County's cultural sector through grantmaking. Betty serves on the boards of Little Tokyo Service Center and LA Más, and has been a guest speaker for prominent organizations including the Ford Foundation, Getty Foundation, and the Smithsonian. She holds a B.A. in Literature from Pitzer College, an M.A. in Arts Management from Claremont Graduate University, and was a 2008 Fulbright Fellow to South Korea.

About Beyond Baroque

is one of the United States' leading independent Literary | Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to expanding the public's knowledge of poetry, literature and art through cultural events and community interaction. Founded in 1968 as an experimental literary magazine, Beyond Baroque is based out of the original City Hall building in Venice, California. The Center offers a diverse variety of literary and arts programming including readings and workshops. The building also houses a bookstore with a large collection of new poetry books for sale.

Ticket purchase is required. Tickets will be available at the Beyond Baroque bookstore on the day of the event, but we recommend registering in advance through Eventbrite. Masks are encouraged while inside our center. Please arrive early.

Event attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our events, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, staff, fellow attendees, or performers.

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