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  • Support the 2023

    Garden House Writing Residency!

    Every $20 you contribute = 1 raffle ticket

    Winners will be announced mid-September

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    Click on images, to make larger.

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    A 100% ringspun cotton 'holy.' tee from Black Transendence

    www.blacktranscend.com

     

     

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    A signed 11x17 print of Encuentro by Jade Cruz

    IG@JadeXBone

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    A perfume or aromatherapy package from Elspeths Airs

    www.elspethsairs.com

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    An 11x14 print of THE EVENT HORIZON

    by Jasira

    IG@HauseOfGemini

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    A gift card to Early to Bed

    www.early2bed.com

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    A signed Abdul Aziz print from the 2020 Uprising

    IG@PhotoAziz

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    An autographed copy of 'bull-jean & dem/dey back' by Sharon Bridgforth

    www.sharonbridgforth.com

     

     

  • My name is Shana Turner and Community Solstice is where my work as a writer, facilitator, and grassroots instructor of literary arts come together.

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    Born on the summer solstice, I am a working-class, queer femme of Irish and Jewish descent from Boston who has lived in New Orleans for sixteen years.

     

    I was raised in a tradition of radical feminism, most influenced by single mothers–white, Black, and brown–whose activism is rooted in relationship-building, cultural work, 'each one, teach one' kitchen table organizing, and solidarity across struggles.

     

    I bring twenty-five years of experience with justice organizing, infrastructure development, participatory planning, creative writing projects, and collective learning through a popular education praxis. My insights about how power functions are also informed by my experiences sustaining myself throughout most of my life with jobs in food service, house cleaning, and childcare.

    Through my work, I seek to treat wounds as sites for transformation, to complicate the false binary between victim and offender in intra-community conflict, and engage rituals of ceremony in the ordinary movements of everyday life. My work assesses equity and disparities of power within groups, and interrogates the construction and perpetuation of violent domination and supremacy, including exploring crossroads between division or solidarity within the histories of my lineages.  

     

    Front porches, racial tensions, stretch marks, kitchen tables, coming of age, queerness, lives interrupted by violence, natural human magic and intricacies of working-class culture are threads in my writing. I am currently working to complete my first novel, 'Claiming Caidin.'

     

    Contact: info@communitysolstice.com

  • Current Community Writing Projects

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    YESTERDAY'S FUTURE

    I am serving as

    Editing Team Coordinator & Logistics Manager

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    THE GARDEN HOUSE WRITING RESIDENCY

    I am serving as

    Organizer

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    DIFFERENT THREADS OF THE SAME FABRIC

    I am serving as

    Steward of the Process

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    PAST COMMUNITY WRITING PROJECTS

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