Lit Fridays with Matt Broaddus & Jessica Lanay

Lit Fridays is a literary-focused, virtual salon presented by the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, featuring conversations and guest performances on the last Friday* of each month at 6:00p EST via Facebook Live and Zoom Webinar. All conversations are moderated by AWAACC Literary Curator, Jessica Lanay.
*November and December dates have been changed to accommodate holiday observance.

Jessica Lanay is an award-winning poet, art writer, and short fiction writer. In 2020, she won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize for her debut collection am•phib•ian. Her poetry can be found in Poet Lore, The Common, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, Poiesis, and [PANK] among others. For BOMB Magazine she has interviewed world-renown artists such as Howardena Pindell, El Anatsui, Mikael Owunna, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Lanay has produced essays for exhibition catalogs at the Andy Warhol Museum, the Washington Project for the Arts, and the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. She is also currently the literary curator at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center where she hosts and curates the digital program LIT Friday. Lanay holds a Bachelor of Art in Art History from Agnes Scott College, a Master of Art in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Fine Art in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh, and is currently pursuing her PhD in Art History at Indiana University.

Matt Broaddus is a Cave Canem fellow and the author of two chapbooks, Space Station (Letter [r] Press, 2018) and Two Bolts (Ugly Duckling Presse, forthcoming December 2021). His poems have appeared in Fence, Foundry, Black Warrior Review, and The Rumpus. He is Associate Poetry Editor at Okay Donkey Press and lives in Englewood, Colorado.