Dear Ursa community,
We’re back! It was incredible to see so many friends over the summer at our very first live show at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn with Lawrence Burney and Carrie R. Moore.
We loved it so much that we want to keep doing more — we have two more exciting events coming up in November and December that we’d like to share with you.
We’re calling it Ursa Story Club. We are going to put a spotlight on great storytelling (fiction and nonfiction), plus eventually poetry and music, too. It’s more important than ever that we get together IRL to connect with each other and inspire each other. So that’s what we’re going to do.
November 8: Denne Michele Norris joins Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton in Brooklyn
“Ursa Story Club presents: Ask Us Anything…About Writing and Publishing.” Join Dawnie and Deesha at Gladys Books & Wine in Brooklyn for a live edition of Ursa Short Fiction, with a fun and informative conversation about writing and publishing how-tos. They’ll take your questions –– How can I grow as a writer? Where should I submit my work? How do I land an agent? –– and share their perspectives as writers and editors. Their special guest will be Denne Michele Norris, editor-in-chief of Electric Literature. A book signing with Dawnie, Deesha, and Denne will follow the conversation. Saturday, Nov. 8, 7-9 p.m. Get tickets here.
December 4: Tre Johnson joins Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon in Philly
Join us at the Free Library of Philadelphia for a live edition of Reckon True Stories. Deesha and Kiese welcome Tre Johnson, author of Black Genius: Essays on an American Legacy. Deesha called the book “timely and affirming, this book is a love letter to Black brilliance,” and Kiese said: “This is the book, sadly and thankfully, that these political times call for, and only a Black genius named Tre Johnson could pull it off with odd rancor, counterpunches and utter doses of Black smooth.” Thursday, Dec. 4, 7 p.m., Free Library of Philadelphia (Parkway Central, 1901 Vine St).
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We’ll have more conversations to share soon. Thanks again for all your support of Ursa over the past three years (and counting). If you’d like to help us produce more events and episodes in 2026, you can make a one-time or yearly contribution to support our work.
See you soon,
Deesha, Dawnie, Kiese, and Mark
