SpokenWord Paris

Chiara Maxia is an actress and writer originally from Sardinia. She has lived in different places including England, Moscow and Paris, where she graduated in Film Acting. She now lives between France and Italy. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including The Opiate, The Journal, The Argyle, Paris Lit Up, OpenDoor and Our Verse. In September 2024 her debut poetry collection The Fire Within was published by The Opiate Books.

Luca Spanu Desogus is a Sardinian musician and composer. He became interested in music at the age of 11, starting with guitar studies. After playing in various ensembles, he discovered the world of theater, where he realized his main interest: composing music and exploring its relationship with words, images, and people, while also delving into sound design. This led him to work professionally in composition, arrangement, and sound design for drama theater. His multi-instrumentalism stems from the need to find the desired sound and, above all, from a constant drive to explore new ways of thinking through music. He studied at the Conservatory of Cagliari, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in classical guitar. He currently lives in Sardinia where he focuses on composing music for theater, radio, and film.

Rethabile Masilo, born in Lesotho, is a poet whose work explores themes of identity, exile, and cultural heritage. Forced into exile by political turmoil, he has lived in various countries, eventually settling in France. His poetry reflects his connection to his homeland, blending imagery, oral traditions, politics and contemporary themes. His award-winning collection, Waslap, earned the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. He has authored several other books, including Things That Are Silent, Letter to Country, Qoaling and Mbera. His poems have also appeared in international anthologies. As a curator and editor, Masilo strives to promote African literature and encourage the young to read and write. An advocate for poetry, he participates in readings and workshops in France, where he lives, and elsewhere, and has notably been invited to The Medellin International Poetry Festival, The World Poetry Festival in Caracas, and Poetry Africa in Durban. Masilo writes a monthly poetry column for the South African newspaper The Daily Maverick.

Alison Grace Koehler is a poet who uses broken shards and text to create stained glass windows and performances in diverse spaces. Her first book ‘Stained Glass Poetry’ bridges these two worlds, as does her spoken word album ‘Stained Glass Arrangements,’ both produced by Paris Heretics. Alison has performed in international festivals including the Edinburgh Arts Festival, the Bloomsday Festival, Upwentelling, and Iruzzioni. Her work has been exhibited at galleries and art centers including la Cité Internationale des Arts, Vilniaus Dailės Academija, Espace Christiane Peugeot, and Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre. She has just released her second book and spoken word album ‘Secret Space,’ in collaboration with Benjamin Dwyer, produced by Farpoint Recordings, and released at the James Joyce Center, Dublin in June 2024.  Born in Chicago, Alison currently lives and works in Paris, France.

Andrej Kapor (b. Sarajevo, 1989) is an artist, writer, and creative producer working across disciplines. As an author, Andrej’s work is driven by rebellion, sensuality and the divine, underpinned by dark humour and informed by his multicultural background. As a curator, publisher and broadcaster, he is focused on community-building and the platforming of marginalized voices as a means for affecting social and cultural change. He is currently based in Utrecht, Netherlands. His work has been published, exhibited, and toured internationally.

Genna Rivieccio is the editor-in-chief of The Opiate, a literary quarterly specializing in fiction and poetry. She is also the author of Corona(tion) Year, Vols. 1 and 2 (2021) and Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life: A Tate Carmichael Novel (2023). Her work, in fiction and essay form, has appeared in/on From Nowhere to Somewhere: The End of the American Dream, Wrongdoing magazine, Sensitive Skin magazine, PopMatters and, most frequently, Culled Culture.

Jo Morrigan Black is a Paris-born writer and visual artist. Their poetry has been featured in journals such as Poetry Ireland Review, The Ethel Zine and Abridged. Jo has worked with indigenous leaders in Colombia, left stray feathers in Berlin and now stalks the streets of Dublin as a vampire. Their drag poetry show Carpet Muncher, inspired by the Mothman,premiered at the Dublin Fringe Festival 2024, blending Spoken Word, physical theatre and surrealist costuming in order to celebrate the queer and the unknowable in each of us.

Bruce Edward Sherfield is (in my own words) a brilliant writer, director, actor, voice-over artist, painter, singer and good guy. He just released his first blues album under his alias: Happyalone, called Saigon Señorita Blues. He also heads AWOL WRITERS workshop in this very room Sundays at 17h15, where his team professionally guides, instructs and inspires. He identifies himself as an Unidentified Flying Artist. We are honored and very pleased to invite Bruce to perform work from his latest collection: the hand/shakes of the hit/man: magnesium&calligraphy

Helen Cusack O’Keeffe is a writer and social worker based in Paris for many foggy years. Publications can be found in the Bastille, Tightrope Press (Canada), Stoneskin Press (London), and Le Farming Times. Plays include Holey Tuscany, an absurdist maritime tragedy,  Napoleon, Femme, Rhinocéros, a bilingual Surrealist extravaganza, and The Terrible Mystery of Ophelia Dupont-Cassé co-authored with poetic genius Vincent Chabany.  She has been on the Paris Lit Up magazine editing team since issue #1. Her costume-maker alter ego, PomPom de la Tour Awfful, dresses actors and models for her own events and for ones hosted by her unfortunate victims.

Born in 1952 in Brockton, Massachusetts, Richard Krawiec became known in 1986 with Dandy ( Time Sharing in English), which was critically acclaimed. In 1996, he wrote a second novel, Faith in What? and has since devoted himself to poetry, theater, his columns in various East Coast magazines and teaching. His third novel Vulnérables, was published in France by Tusitala in 2017, and was a great critical success. Also in France, the rights to  Dandy  were purchased for the cinema. Paria , his third novel to be published in France, was released in January 2020. This was followed by Les Paralyses in 2022 and  Croire en quoi ? in September 2024, which saw Richard invited back to France for a tour. Richard Krawiec is also an editor in the Jacar Press collective ( www.jacarpress.com ), a community active poetry publishing house that defends local social initiatives. He was one of the first to give writing classes and lead workshops in homeless shelters, prisons or deprived cities, guided by the concern, as in his novels, to give a voice to those who no longer have one. His own poetry has been published in dozens of journals internationally. He has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and elsewhere.– Live performance in English of Croire en Quoi?
with bassist/percussionist Vattel Cherry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnkkTv-_1yA&t=2s Check out my bilingual(French and English) website! http://rkwriter.com/

Ali Sudani is a poet and activist based in Paris. He was born in Baghdad, Iraq, where he worked as a reporter, videographer, and humanitarian aid worker before arriving in France as a refugee in 2019. His work explores themes of war, exile, and migration, blurring the boundaries between personal and collective narratives. Ali started writing poetry in Arabic at the age of eleven. In 2009, he won the Ministry of Education’s Regional Award for Theatre, and in 2011, he received the Ministry’s Young Talent Prize for poetry. His work has been published in several magazines and newspapers in Iraq, and he currently writes in Arabic, English, and French. He holds a BA in Public Policy and a Master’s in International Relations and Middle-Eastern Studies. You can find him online on Instagram @sudani.0.