Just Who Do You Think You Are?: Redefining the Narrative

In works that critique toxic traditions, navigate the violence of perception, and explore cultural confusion, AMINA GUATIER (The Best that You Can Do), MYRIAM GURBA (Creep: Accusations and Confessions), and KB BROOKINS (Freedom House & Pretty: A Memoir) weave personal histories and identities into the larger fabric of culture, arguing for a rethinking of who controls how we think about place, gender, race, and societal norms. Each of these writers claims physical, intellectual, and emotional space that has been misappropriated, ill-defined, or abused by culture at large.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

AMINA GAUTIER is the author of four award-winning short story collections: At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy, The Loss of All Lost Things, and The Best That You Can Do. More than one hundred of her stories have been published, appearing in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Boston Review, Callaloo, Greensboro Review, Gulf Coast, Latino Book Review, Los Angeles Review, Southern Review, Southwest Review, and TriQuarterly, among other places. She is the recipient of the Blackwell Prize, the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, the International Latino Book Award, the Mellon-Flamboyan Foundation Letras Boricuas Fellowship, and the PEN/MALAMUD Award for Excellence in the Short Story. LEARN MORE

KB BROOKINS is a writer, cultural worker, and artist from Texas. They are the author of How To Identify Yourself with a Wound, Freedom House; and Pretty. KB is a 2023 National Endowment of the Arts fellow. LEARN MORE

MYRIAM GURBA is a writer, artist, and activist. She is the author of several books including her latest, Creep, an essay collection described by Kirkus as "a masterpiece of wit and vulnerability" is a finalist for a National Book Critics’ Circle award in criticism. Her first book, the short story collection Dahlia Season, won the Edmund White Award for debut fiction. O, The Oprah Magazine, ranked her memoir Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review, Time, and The Los Angeles Times Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review, Time and The Los Angeles Times. She is a co-founder of Dignidad Literaria, a grassroots organization committed to combatting racism in the book world. She is active in the anti-rape movement. LEARN MORE

HOST

ARIA ROSE (she/they) holds a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Masters in English from Western Carolina University, where she studied creative writing with Ron Rash and Jeremy Jones. She currently works as a librarian at Elon University and Guilford Technical Community College with long-term aspirations of becoming an archivist. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, hiking, and spending time with her partner and two dogs.