Victoria Adukwei Bulley with Christian Paige, Lydia K Valentine, and Christina Vega

Join Literary Arts and McMenamins as we welcome award-winning UK poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley! She’ll be reading from her debut collection Quiet, which explores the importance of ”quiet’ in producing forms of community, resistance, and love. She’ll be joined by Tacoma Poet Laureate Christian Paige, former Laureate Lydia K Valentine, and poet/publisher Christina Vega. Find the audiobook of Quiet here.

Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a poet, writer, and artist. An alumna of the Barbican Young Poets and recipient of an Eric Gregory award, Victoria has held residencies in the US, Brazil, and the V&A Museum in London. Her debut pamphlet, Girl B, was published by the African Poetry Book Fund in 2017. She is a the recipient of a Techne scholarship for doctoral research at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her debut collection, Quiet, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and won the Rathbones Folio Prize for Poetry and the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize.

Christian Paige is an Emmy-nomination spoken word poet, a professional speaker and educator and the current Tacoma Poet Laureate. He has spent his entire career in and around education advocating for historically marginalized populations and working to create equitable environments where young people can thrive. He was born and raised in Tacoma, where he currently lives and teaches. He believes that our voice is our most powerful tool and encourages others to use their voice to advocate, interrupt, empower, and teach.

Lydia K. Valentine is a playwright and poet, director and dramaturg, editor and educator. She was the Tacoma Poet Laureate from 2023-2025. Her proudest accomplishment, though, is being a mom to two caring, creative, and intelligent humans. Through her own writing and the projects to which she contributes under Lyderary Ink, Lydia seeks to amplify the voices of those who are stifled, ignored, and marginalized in what has been the accepted narrative of the United States.

Christina Vega is a nonbinary parent and founder of Blue Cactus Press. They’re queer & Chicana. They believe revolution starts at home. They believe we have the power to reshape communities with principles of emergent strategy, transformative justice, and collective laboring of love. They make and write books through relationship. Their newest book is Vega. Previous work includes their first book, Maps, in 2017; the chapbook How to Overstay Your Welcome in 2019; and co-wrote/co-published the chapbook Decay with Conner Bouchard-Roberts and Winter Texts in 2022.

Details:

• Date & Time: Wednesday, November 1st @ 7pm
• Location: McMenamins Spanish Ballroom (565 Broadway, Tacoma, WA 98402)