Lyzette Wanzer, MFA

Join Lyzette in conversation with Emalohi Iruobe, for a Juneteenth author event at The Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeeshop in Santa Fe, NM! At 6pm Mountain time I'll discuss and read from TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press). There will also be a book-signing. Not in Santa Fe? No worries; this event is both an in-person and live stream event! I hope to see many of you there in one form or another. Thank you to my residency, SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE, for coordinating this event. Learn more information at https://www.collectedworksbookstore.com/events-1/lyzette-wanzer-trauma-tresses-truth-untangling-our-hair-through-personal-narratives

Thank you, Pegasus Books Downtown, for hosting our Trauma, Tresses, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair through Personal Narrative panel. This was my first visit to Pegasus' Shattuck Avenue location. Two speakers from my TT&T virtual conference, Kathryn Seabron and Barbara Ruth Saunders, joined me on a fearful storm-ravaged day to speak about our experiences as Black women wearing natural hair in professional and educational settings. I was delighted to read several passages from my first essay, Towards Decolonizing Our Roots.

Join me and an incredible slate of panelists for a discussion about TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press) and the politics of hashtag#naturalhair at 5:30pm Pacific time! This hybrid event occurs at The Radical Cat bookshop in Reno, Nevada and online. RSVP for the Zoom link, or if you're local, show up to the store and pick up a copy and attend at the store! Local scholars and researchers Prisca Gayles, Ph.D., Claudia Cruz, and Vadricka Etienne will be at the store, while author Lyzette Wanzer and three of her speakers from the TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH Natural Hair Conference--Dr. Tammy Jolivette, Patricia G. Davis, and Wendy Randall will attend via Zoom.

https://theradicalcat.square.site/product/april-23-trauma-tresses-truth-a-conversation-on-hair-history-and-community/5612?cs=true&cst=custom

Lyzette enjoyed speaking with the Africana Studies class, Writers; House students, and the community during her return to F&M College! Though the campus has changed and grown a lot since her undergraduate years there, she visited many places on campus that evoked a sense of nostalgia and fond memories. She thanks Dr. Douglas Anthony, Chair of the Africana Studies Program, for teaching Trauma, Tresses, & Truth in his course and hosting her classroom visit; and Dr. Gretchel Hathaway, Vice President of Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, for being such an incredible and fun hostess!

Lyzette will be in conversation with Raquel Howard and Jennifer Bolanos on Madness Cafe on June 30th at 4pm Eastern time. She will speak about Black women's ongoing struggle vis-a-vis natural hair in American society, her book Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press), and her upcoming conference of the same name. Madness Cafe is a feminist current events and social commentary podcast where about politics, health and wellness, and women's rights issues.

https://www.podash.com/podcast/4050339

Lyzette will be in conversation with journalist and social justice advocate Paula Farmer on Instagram Live on March 22nd at 5pm Pacific. The Diversity Project's mission is to use various media platforms and promotional pieces to elevate unique BIPOC and female issues and stories.

SUNY Albany has invited Lyzette to their university for an afternoon discussion with students, who are reading the book as an assignment. Then in the evening, Lyzette will lead a discussion with the community where books will be available for sale. The choice of TRAUMA,TRESSES, & TRUTH grew out of the university's conversations with Professor Kyra Gaunt and Chief Diversity Officer Samuel Caldwell, as well as conversations in previous years with an on-campus Latina student group, Embrace Thy Curls, which celebrates hair diversity. If you are in the Albany area, join us!

At Nook & Cranny bookstore, Lyzette will read her contributor essay from the forthcoming Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2023). 324 15th Ave E., Seattle, WA 98112

If you are running over from the Ada's Books & Cafe reading for this event, know that it's a two-minute walk between the stores,

Are you attending the AWP Conference? Join a host of authors for a large reading event, Audible Browsing Experience, at Ada's Technical Books & Cafe at 425 15th Ave E in Seattle on AWP's opening day, March 9th, 6pm. Join the crowd of a crowd of literary lovers and book buyers to hear authors read from their books. Purchase books and have them signed on the spot! Lyzette will read from her new book, Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press 2022).

Join Lyzette for an author meet-and-greet on Thursday, February 16th at 6pm at the Bayview Opera House. She will give a reading from TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Your Hair Through Personal Narratives, and sign your newly purchased books.  Then, on Friday the 17th, take Lyzette's Writing Our Hair Workshop, a safe, nurturing, intentional space to write and share your hair stories. We're not after writing perfection in this workshop; we're after exploration and reconciliation. Poems, essays, short stories, hybrid pieces, are all welcome. Bring your writing materials, be that a literal notebook, journal, sketchbook, or a screen and keyboard. If emotions come up, be they anger, sadness, outrage, or tears, those emotions are welcome. Contact Ashley, Program Manager, to register.

Lyzette will be in conversation with award-winning journalist, author, and executive producer Jenée Darden on her arts show Sights & Sounds. This show is your weekly guide to the Bay Area arts scene through the eyes and ears of local artists. The live interview begins at 11am Pacific time on KALW 91.7 FM!

Author Lyzette Wanzer will give an author talk and reading at SJSU. Sponsored and hosted by the Diasporic People's Writing Collective.

Lyzette will be in conversation with radio show host, lawyer, and activist Lurie Daniel Favors on SiriusXM's Urban View Channel 126!

Hear Lyzette read from her book TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives, at the SHC Conference in Austin, TX.

More information to follow.

Hear Lyzette and two of her contributors, Judy Juanita and Dr. Adrienne Oliver, engage in readings and discussion about Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at 7pm. Book signing will follow. Contact (415) 742-5833 or BOTP@GreenAppleBooks.com for more information.

1231 9th Ave. (@ Lincoln Way)
San Francisco, CA 94122

Lyzette will be in coversation with Dr. Iqra Cheema, discussing Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press).

As part of the Meet the Author Holiday Marathon at AAMLO, Lyzette will give an interview, reading, and book signing at 2pm on December 17th. Due to limited seating, registration is required. Reserve your seat at https://oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/637bc7d438acf0c46ae02c3e.

Lyzette will be in coversation with Dr. Anna Nguyen on her Critical Literary Consumption podcast.

Lyzette Wanzer, along with contributors Margalynne Armstrong, Jewelle Gomez, Judy Juanita, Adrienne Oliver, and Kelechi Ubozoh will give readings and do a book signing on December 4th at 1pm. Join us at the store to purchase a book and have it signed!

3900 Martin L King Jr Way
OAKLAND, CA 94609

Lyzette Wanzer will be in coversation with Melody Ann Owens on December 1st, 2022 at noon.

In addition to YouTube, you may also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Lyzette Wanzer explores the policing of Afro-Latina and African-American women's natural hair on this New Arrivals segment. Airing during Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

Trauma, Tresses, & Truth II

From schools to boardrooms to military squadrons, Black and Afro-Latina natural hair continues to transfix, confound, and enrage members of White society. Why is this still the case? The perception, policing, and persecution of our hair is an incontrovertible form of structural oppression. Four contributors read essays from the upcoming book of the same name (Chicago Review Press 2022). Their work interrogates a systemic bias that is cognizable, legible, and in need of course correction.

10 Tips for Grant, Fellowship, & Residency Applications

For BIPOC Writers: Get Invited to Read at Literary Conferences

This workshop offers information, guidance, and support to underserved Indigenous writers and writers of color who are applying to have their work—poetry, fiction, essays, and creative nonfiction—accepted at a writers' conference or convention, whether virtual or in-person. You've heard the alphabet soup of these events: ACA, AWP, CEA, MLA, PCA, and so many others. In a safe and supportive environment, we will explore how to choose the right writers' conference for you, prepare a polished submission, make a professional impression, create a conference plan, get financial support to attend, approach concerns that arise for us as attendees of color, and avoid common and costly mistakes in your CV and bio that mark you as an amateur. This workshop is intended for writers of color of all levels who feel prepared to present their work at a professional writers' conference.

1) Education, Teaching, History & Popular Culture Education IX:Thinking about the Theory and Practice of Parenting and Teaching

Finding A Way In:Teaching the Lyric Essay

2) African-American Culture I

Signatures

Writing Our Hair workshop

For over four hundred years, Black natural hair has been the target of erasure efforts, demarginalizing us both as African Americans and as women. The various institutional modalities of policing Black women's (and men's) hair is a form of racist politics. Despite structural denials to the contrary, the fact is that our natural hair remains a heretical war zone. Policing of both Black bodies and our natural hair is a form of structural oppression.

I realize that White American society hasn't had to live as racialized beings. The White standard is implicitly the baseline against which all other standards are measured-- precisely the type of lens which problematizes our natural hair. Trauma, Tresses, & Truth—both the upcoming book and the related virtual conference that I produced last August--is my way of encouraging course correction.

This session is intended to be a safe, nurturing, intentional space to write and share your hair stories. We're not after writing perfection in this workshop; we're after exploration and reconciliation. Poems, essays, short stories, hybrid pieces, all welcome. So get out your writing materials, be that a literal notebook, journal, sketchbook, or a screen and keyboard. If emotions come up, be it anger, sadness, outrage, or tears, those emotions are welcome.

Platform Building 101

In the competitive job market, employers look for people with experience. Literary agents and publishers are no different, and the experience they are looking for is called a "platform." This platform, however, is not just the list of your publications; it's the sum of your total footprint [or reach] in the publishing world. This panel will help you design your platform and propel you to the next level of your writing and publishing journey.

Literary agents want authors who have an author platform, a ready-made audience that sees you as a talented writer or a topical expert. The writers, editors, and literary nonprofit leaders on this panel will explore how to build that audience and your profile in the publishing world. Strategies include developing an online presence, networking with writers in your genre, connecting with alumni and community organizations and libraries, and reviewing/interviewing more well-known authors in your genre.

Panel members will first introduce themselves and describe their experiences and strategies for building an effective platform. They will then engage with a panel moderator, who will take them through a set of practical questions on how to build an author platform. Then, the panel will open up to questions from the audience in a fruitful exploration of techniques and stories that will be useful for writers seeking to expand their publishing power.

Presented by San Francisco Public Library's African American Center and the Museum of the African Diaspora

Contributors to Trauma, Tresses, & Truth, relate their true, often shocking encounters while wearing natural hair. Featuring Dr. Adrienne Danyelle Oliver, Barbara Ruth Saunders, Kathryn Seabron and Lyzette Wanzer.

Particularly relevant during this time of emboldened white supremacy, racism and oppressive othering, their work explores how writing about one of the still-remaining systemic biases in academic and corporate America might lead to greater understanding and respect.

In her essay "Is Your Hair Still Political?" writer and civil rights activist Audre Lorde explains how she nearly missed a Caribbean vacation because an immigration officer objected to her dreadlocks. Black women's natural hair remains political and persecuted even now.

What do identity and self-representation mean in the context of writing? In the importance of people getting to tell their own stories? Tune into this 90-minute discussion as a panel of diverse authors from across literary styles and genres tackle how to write characters and stories that are not from your own lived experience in terms of ethnicity, economic status, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Lyzette Wanzer moderates. Hosted by California Writers Club and Shuffle Collective.

As a Teaching Fellow, presented my workshop, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Writers

Want to be taken seriously as an author, even though you have yet to publish the Great American Novel or place an article in The Atlantic? You need to learn to treat your writing—poetry, fiction, nonfiction—as a business. Believe it or not, one of the best ways of getting the literary world to notice you is to manage the less sexy aspects of your practice. That means realizing that writing is a business, not just an art. Marketing is a critical, often overlooked aspect of our craft. In this session, you will learn seven habits that will enable you to boost your writing career.

An interactive workshop supporting career growth for creative writers of color. An empowering, vital immersion boot camp. Invest in your professional development! Register at https://dpwc2020.com/contact

The lyric essay is a subversive genre that ignores cardinal rules of "good" writing—linear structure, clear chronology, plot—in favor of embracing liminality and uncertainty, spaces many marginalized writers inhabit. Despite the focus on (white) women, the lyric essay has long been a form of expression for underrepresented voices in creative nonfiction. Join our diverse group of panelists as we discuss the lyric essay's untapped potential for representation and resistance in 2020 and beyond.Presented at AWP 2020.

I reconvened and reprised our March 2020 AWP Panel for Shuffle Literary Collective's Weekend of Words event.

Black women's natural hair remains political and persecuted even now. Panelists are African American and Latina authors relating their real-life encounters through personal essays. Particularly relevant during this time of emboldened white supremacy, racism, and oppressive othering, panelists' work explores how writing about one of the still-remaining systemic biases in academic and corporate America might lead to greater understanding and respect.