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SOREN LIT

SOREN LIT

By Melodie J. Rodgers


SOREN LIT
A Southern Renaissance literary journal...
for storytellers with connections to the south. We showcase writers and artists who are women, femme-identifying, and/or non-binary creatives.
The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists.
The podcast is hosted by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers.
SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com
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SOREN LIT 2023- Dr. Emily Bilman

SOREN LITFeb 05, 2023

00:00
12:53
InnaRae- SOREN LIT 2023

InnaRae- SOREN LIT 2023


SOREN LIT provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from creatives with connections to the lingering South.

Produced by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. 

SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com


Episode: InnaRae- SOREN LIT. December. 2023


InnaRae’s work as a singer/songwriter, poet, and teacher exemplifies an appreciation of the human spirit, knowledge of purpose, and love of beauty. In veneration to and with assistance from her maternal and paternal ancestresses who, throughout time and space, have moved in their spiritual giftings with full acceptance and authorization from Spirit, InnaRae walks in the energy of balance and the divine feminine. Her beloved ancestors also assist her while traveling through this earthly realm on a frequency of love that, despite hardships, has held onto its spiritual dignity throughout many generations in her bloodline.

 

Through her art, she encourages readers and listeners to return “home”, transform, and discover that absolutely no circumstance can diminish the life and light that shines within each soul. Her music fuses her poetry with a Neo-Soul sound in celebration of an African concept Sankofa, which defines the process of going back to our roots, searching out, and acquiring what would be helpful to move forward in life. To date, InnaRae has recorded albums, Rena’s Moan (2008) and most recently, The Brooding of Emaline Oliver (2018). Both works are enjoyed by listeners who seek a healing path and opportunity to face their spiritual truths.

 

InnaRae has also worked with NYC motion picture director Rosalyn Williams of Red Wall Productions to produce a short documentary, titled The Journey to Rena’s Moan (2011), which compels women who struggle with sexual shame and generational wounds to start the healing journey and allow their authentic gifts shine.  This powerful work serves to bring art to healing centers and now homes, where art is often overlooked as a viable contributor to the healing process. Currently, InnaRae writes reflective articles, essays, and poetry to scribe her experiences on the ancestral healing path.  She also teaches, trains onboarding professors at an online University, facilitates workshops, and performs upon request. Recorded in 2022, her latest poetic offerings, Growth Mates and The Nile River, can be viewed on YouTube. To learn more, please visit www.innarae.com

Dec 26, 202322:21
Cynthia Manick. SOREN LIT. Fall 2023.

Cynthia Manick. SOREN LIT. Fall 2023.

The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists. The podcast is produced by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com


Cynthia Manick. SOREN LIT. Fall 2023.


Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad, 2023) which received 5 stars from Roxane Gay, editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell Colony, and Château de la Napoule among other foundations. For 10 years she curated Soul Sister Revue, a quarterly reading series that promoted poetry as storytelling and featured emerging poets, poet laureates, and Pulitzer prize winners. Manick’s poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems and debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. A storyteller at literary festivals, libraries, and museums, her work has also featured in VOICES, an audio play by Aja Monet and Eve Ensler’s V-Day, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Brooklyn Rail, the Rumpus and other outlets. She currently serves on the editorial board of Alice James Books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York but travels widely for poetry.

Cynthia Manick's Social Media

Website: http://www.cynthiamanick.com/nswb

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/cmanickpoet

Twitter

https://twitter.com/cmanick


Sep 25, 202307:35
SOREN LIT. 2023. Lilli Lewis

SOREN LIT. 2023. Lilli Lewis

SOREN LIT: A Southern Renaissance literary journal... for storytellers with connections to the south. We showcase writers and artists who are women, femme-identifying, and/or non-binary creatives. The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists. The podcast is hosted by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com


SOREN LIT. 2023. Lilli Lewis


As the story goes, Lilli Lewis should never have been. Before she was born, Lewis’ mother was told her baby probably wouldn’t survive due to lung trouble, so the fact that Lewis now makes a living singing with those same lungs is a gift she never takes for granted. Lewis uses her voice to bring what she calls sacred songs into profane spaces, and though she’s abandoned trying to define her sound, she hopes her audiences leave shows knowing two things: that they are brilliant as they are, and that they have the ability to use that brilliance to make a better world.

Trained as an opera singer and classical pianist, Georgia native Lewis has been a composer, producer and performer for over two decades. After carving out space as an African American queer woman of size, Lewis’ career has culminated in her album Americana being a top pick everywhere from NPR’s All Songs Considered to Rolling Stone

The FolkRockDiva is a musical polyglot who glides easily between folk, roots, country soul, gospel, and jazz, and has integrated New Orleans traditions by singing lead for Dirty Dozen Brass Band founding member Kirk Joseph’s Backyard Groove. Lewis’ Louisiana Red Hot Records releases include The Henderson SessionsWe Belong, and Americana.



SOREN LIT...A Southern Renaissance of women, femmes, and/or non-binary creatives exploring the lingering South...

www.sorenlit.com


SOREN LIT Editor & Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sorenlit

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorenlit/


Jul 31, 202315:32
SOREN LIT. 2023. YANI DAVIS

SOREN LIT. 2023. YANI DAVIS

SOREN LIT: A Southern Renaissance literary journal... for storytellers with connections to the south. We showcase writers and artists who are women, femme-identifying, and/or non-binary creatives. The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists. The podcast is hosted by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website:

www.sorenlit.com


SOREN LIT. 2023. YANI DAVIS


Iyana “YaNi” Davis, is a graduate of Claremont School of Theology with her Masters of Divinity. Rev. YaNi received her B.A. from Spelman College, with an English degree. YaNi has always been passionate about the impact of words, storytelling, truth-telling  and the therapeutic nature of writing one’s words and sharing one’s story.YaNi believes firmly in our power as storytellers and sets this example everyday of her life as a coach, creative and community leader.Rev. YaNi, is a minister with The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has been a featured speaker, poet and teaching-artist around the United States, throughoutEurope and across Asia. YaNi uses her words wisely as a Hip Hop artist, an inspiring speaker, an effective educator, a profound poet, a modern day prophet and griot. She has shared the stage with top performers, theologians, creatives, and healers around the world, an honor that she does not take lightly. YaNi is the founder of, My SupaNatural Life, an organization that provides education and wholistic care for people living with disabilities and their caregivers.YaNi has founded several spiritual communities/churches around the country, is the author of, Love Poems for Peace, is a kidney transplant survivor and near completion of a second masters (Professional Studies-Business of Art and Design) via MarylandInstitute College of Art. YaNi is the essence of peace personified!


SOREN LIT...A Southern Renaissance of women, femmes, and/or non-binary creatives exploring the lingering South...

www.sorenlit.com


SOREN LIT Editor & Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sorenlit

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorenlit/


Jul 31, 202314:10
SOREN LIT. 2023. Fiona Zedde
Jul 23, 202306:44
SORENLIT. 2023. Lori Thomasson
May 18, 202310:52
SOREN LIT. 2023. Christy Petterson
May 18, 202311:16
SOREN LIT. 2023. Raquel Battaglia.

SOREN LIT. 2023. Raquel Battaglia.

SOREN LIT. 2023. Raquel Battaglia.

www.sorenlit.com


Raquel Battaglia is an American southerner living ‘across the pond’ in the UK. She is a social psychologist by education and a hospice and palliative care researcher by job who uses writing to explore the qualitative nature of the human experience. Her poetry and flash fiction can be read in Fellowship & Fairydust, The Tower, and 50 Give or Take.


SOREN LIT

www.sorenlit.com

Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA


SOREN LIT

A Southern Renaissance literary journal... for storytellers with connections to the south. We showcase writers and artists who are women, femme-identifying, and/or non-binary creatives. The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists. The podcast is hosted by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com


SOREN LIT's on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorenlit/



Apr 25, 202316:44
SOREN LIT. 2023. Anjali Enjeti

SOREN LIT. 2023. Anjali Enjeti

SOREN LIT. 2023. Anjali Enjeti


Anjali Enjeti is a former attorney, organizer, journalist, and MFA instructor based near Atlanta. She is the author of Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change, and The Parted Earth. Her other writing has appeared in the Los Angeles TimesBoston GlobeHarper’s BazaarOxford American, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing in the MFA programs at Antioch University in Los Angeles and Reinhardt University in Waleska, Georgia.

 

Anjali is the recipient of the 2022 Georgia Author of the Year Award for First Novela gold medal for Best Regional Nonfiction from the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and is a finalist for the 2023 Townsend Prize for Fiction.


SOREN LIT

www.sorenlit.com

Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA


SOREN LIT

A Southern Renaissance literary journal... for storytellers with connections to the south. We showcase writers and artists who are women, femme-identifying, and/or non-binary creatives. The SOREN LIT podcast provides interviews, readings, and art reviews from our latest writers and artists. The podcast is hosted by SOREN LIT Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers. SOREN LIT's published work and podcast episodes are also available on the official website: www.sorenlit.com


SOREN LIT's on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorenlit/


Apr 25, 202314:28
SOREN LIT. 2023. Karin Pendley Koser

SOREN LIT. 2023. Karin Pendley Koser


SOREN LIT...A Southern Renaissance of women, femmes, and/or non-binary creatives exploring the lingering South...

www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT. 2023. Karin Pendley Koser

Karin Pendley Koser has been a writer the majority of her life since penning poetry for contests as a child to writing everything from journalistic TV features and articles to every form of public relations and marketing material as an adult. From speech backgrounders for two US presidents and several Georgia governors and travel writing for tourism departments, the diversity of her work means she’s rarely been bored. She and her small marketing/digital content company and its employees and contractors have been recipients of regional and national awards for videos, films, social media and marketing campaigns and more. 

Despite the seesawing ups and downs since the pandemic began, Karin feels fortunate to have had a variety of teaching, writing, and video production projects.

She is a graduate of the UGA Grady College of Journalism and in 2019 received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction & Screenwriting from Queens University of Charlotte. A photographer since she was young, she also enjoys applying creative, literary writing techniques to client work as well as to her personal work on a memoir, essays, poems, and screenplay. She volunteers any leftover time to political campaigns, voting rights equity, and arts nonprofit fundraising.


Producer and Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA

www.sorenlit.com


Mar 26, 202311:33
Sonia Leigh- SOREN LIT 2023
Feb 14, 202316:18
SOREN LIT. 2023. Verlena Johnson, MFA

SOREN LIT. 2023. Verlena Johnson, MFA

SOREN LIT...A Southern Renaissance of women, femmes, and/or non-binary creatives exploring the lingering South...

SOREN LIT. 2023: Verlena Johnson, MFA

www.sorenlit.com

Producer & Founding Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA


Verlena L. Johnson was born in Chicago and grew up in Madison and Beloit Wisconsin.  She earned a B.A. in Sculpture and a M.A. in Afro-American Studies with an emphasis in Art History from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a M.F.A. in Sculpture from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  Verlena has also studied wood carving with Ghanaian Master Wood-carvers, as well as, at the Haystack Mountain School of Craft and Penland School of Craft.

She has exhibited her artwork in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland, amongst other places.  Her artwork has appeared on the cover of the book Approaches to Teaching the Novels of Toni Morrison and the journal Sinister Wisdom.  She has taught studio art and art history to children and adults in community centers and colleges.

Her children’s book, The Adventures of Kai and the Magical Machines was published in 2018.  Verlena’s current book project is a children’s picture book about a little boy named Jimmie in rural Mississippi in the 1940s.

Feb 05, 202316:04
SOREN LIT 2023- Dr. Emily Bilman

SOREN LIT 2023- Dr. Emily Bilman

Emily Bilman, PhD is a poet-scholar who lives and writes Geneva, Switzerland. Her dissertation, The Psychodynamics of Poetry: Poetic Virtuality and Oedipal Sublimation in the Poetry of T.S. Eliot and Paul Valéry, with her poetry translations, was published by Lambert Academic in 2010 and Modern Ekphrasis in 2013 by Peter Lang, CH. Her poetry books, A Woman By A Well (2015), Resilience (2015), The Threshold of Broken Waters (2018), and Apperception (2020) were published by Troubador, UK. “The Tear-Catcher” won the first prize in depth poetry by The New York Literary Magazine. Poems were published in Deronda Review, The London Magazine, San Antonio Review, The Wisconsin Review, Expanded Field, Poetics Research, The Blue Nib, Tipton Poetry Journal, North of Oxford Journal, Otherwise Engaged Magazine, Literary Heist, The High Window, Wild Court, Remington Review, Book of Matches, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Poets Live Anthology 4, OxMag, San Diego Poetry Anthology, Contemporary Poetry 2022, Ballast Journal, Soren Lit, Southern Arizona Press Anthologies, Poetry Salzburg Review. She blogs on her website. http://www.emiliebilman.wix.com/emily-bilman

SOREN LIT...A Southern Renaissance of women, femmes, and/or non-binary creatives
exploring the lingering South...

www.sorenlit.com

Producer & Founding Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA

Feb 05, 202312:53
SOREN LIT 2023- Sharon Daugherty
Jan 01, 202313:22
SOREN LIT 2022- Ilina Singh and Asha Leong (Mother & Daughter)

SOREN LIT 2022- Ilina Singh and Asha Leong (Mother & Daughter)

SOREN LIT 2022- Ilina Singh and Asha Leong (Mother & Daughter)

Ilina Singh has already lived several lifetimes.  Ilina was born in Mathrua, India lived in Wellington, Aotearoa and currently lives in Wendell, MA.  Ilina is a poet, lifelong journaler and has a MFA in Poetry from Bennington College.  Ilina identifies as a feminist, lesbian and student of the Earth.  Her poetry is a song that melds the reality of Indian women's lives with the complexity of immigration and queer identity.  In her spare time Ilina feeds birds, dotes upon her grandchildren and watches mushrooms grow.


Asha Leong is healer, coach and trainer focused on helping queer, trans, people of color thrive.  Asha has a deep passion for helping people heal, understand, create, and manifest their personal vision of sexual liberation.  Asha is an ordained earth based healer with over a decade of training in her craft.  Asha specializes in horoscope readings, spiritual coaching, and chakra energy healings. Asha founded the Sexual Liberation Collective which is an intentional collective of people who are passionate about healing and sexual liberation in 2012.  Through her practice Dreaming Desires Asha help’s queer, trans, people of color heal from trauma, create relationships, name their desires, build queer family and manifest their personal vision of sexual liberation into the world. https://www.dreamingdesires.com/


SOREN LIT 2022- Ilina Singh and Asha Leong (Mother & Daughter)

www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT Editor: Melodie J Rodgers, MFA

Dec 24, 202218:04
SOREN LIT 2022- Glenis Redmond

SOREN LIT 2022- Glenis Redmond

SOREN LIT 2022- Glenis Redmond

www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA


Glenis Redmond is a performance poet, a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, and a Cave Canem alumni. In October of this year, Glenis was selected to be the City of Greenville’s first poet laureate. She has authored six books of poetry: Backbone (Underground Epics,2000), Under the Sun (Main Street Rag, 2002), and What My Hand Say (Press 53, 2016), Listening Skin (Four Way Books), Three Harriets & Others (Finishing Line Press), and Praise Songs for Dave the Potter, Art by Jonathan Green, and Poetry by Glenis Redmond (University of Georgia Press). She is presently working on a seventh collection, Port Cities: Portals of the Second (Domestic) Middle Passage. In 2020 Glenis received the highest arts award in South Carolina, the Governor’s Award and in 2022 she was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. Glenis was born on Shaw AFB in Sumter, South Carolina. She presently resides in Greenville, South Carolina. She was the founder of the Greenville Poetry Slam in the early 90’s. She confesses she is Bi-Carolinian as she lived in Asheville, North Carolina for seventeen years and was a vital leader in the poetry scene in the 90’s. During that time, she was a Southern Fried Slam champion of the individuals twice and ranked twice in the top ten at the National Slam. Glenis was awarded the WNC Best Poet through the Mountain Xpress so many times, she was placed in the Hall of Fame. Glenis is a North Carolina Literary Fellowship recipient and helped to create the first Writer-in-Residence program at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina. She received her MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College while touring full-time as a poet and mother-of-twins, Amber, and Celeste Sherer. She is now a Gaga to three grandchildren Julian, age 7 and Paisley age 1 and newborn, Quinn. Glenis has spent almost three decades touring the country as a poet and teaching artist. She served as the Poet-in-Resident for the Peace Center in Greenville and the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ. As a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, for seventeen years, Glenis has created and facilitated poetry workshops for school districts across the country. Since 2014, she has served as the mentor poet for the National Student Poets Program through Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In the past she has prepared these exceptional youth poets to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House. Her poetry has been showcased on NPR and PBS and has been most recently published in Orion Magazine, storySouth and The New York Times, as well as numerous literary journals nationally and internationally. Glenis believes poetry is the mouth that speaks when all other mouths are silent. 

Website: www.glenisredmond.com

Instagram: glenismakingpoetryreign

Twitter: glenisredmond

TikTok: RedwomanGlenis

Dec 24, 202217:33
SOREN LIT 2022-Dr. Dionne Bates

SOREN LIT 2022-Dr. Dionne Bates

Dr. Dionne Bates-SOREN LIT 2022

SOREN LIT: www.sorenlit.com


D. Dionne Bates, PhD, LPC, CPCS is a licensed professional counselor in private

practice who holds a B.A. in Sociology (with emphasis in deviant behavior), an M.A. in

Counseling Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. In clinical practice almost 20 years,

Dr. Bates has observed that the root of many individuals’ emotional and psychological distress is

their inability to integrate their “true” selves into various realms of their lives. The author of the

Self-SOULstice Model of Affirmation, Dr. Bates works with her clients to help them reach

optimal mental health by affirming self, affirming others, and living authentically.

From 2010-2015 Dr. Bates was an Educational Psychologist at Georgia Southern

University’s (GSU) Counseling Center where she had responsibility for the students’ mental

health needs as well as providing education and support to faculty and staff. She also served as

SAFE SPACE Coordinator and represented the Counseling Center on the university’s

Professional Development Council. Dr. Bates taught graduate studies, serving as adjunct

professor in GSU’s College of Education and Alabama A&M University’s Department of

Psychology and Counseling. The owner of Self-SOULstice, LLC in Marietta, Georgia, she

provides a range of psychotherapeutic, supervision, and consultative services, including serving

as Senior Mental Health Advisor for the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective

(BEAM). Dr. Bates has participated in discussions on human sexuality and sexual health with

first year Emory University medical students. Her research has included identity development,

LGBT issues, and a stage model of affirming self and others. Her writings have been featured in

the Atlanta Tribune, Blavity.com, Your Tango, Dailyworth and numerous in regional, national,

and international newspapers and academic journals.


SOREN LIT: www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT editor and producer: Melodie J. Rodgers, MFA

Dec 24, 202221:33
L. Marie Wood- SOREN LIT FALL 2022
Nov 01, 202224:60
Pauletta Hansel- SOREN LIT 2022
Jan 20, 202213:44
Mary O’Brien- SOREN LIT Fall/Winter 2022

Mary O’Brien- SOREN LIT Fall/Winter 2022

Mary O’Brien Fall/Winter 2022

Mary O’Brien is an artist, writer and poet. Her writing evolves out of her engagement with place. and community, and the research she develops for land art installations. Her non-fiction works delve into ecological loss and community resilience. She writes about political landscapes and our anthropocentric relationships with them—the ways in which wars, capital, and infrastructure have molded lands and communities. O’Brien’s public art installations can be found across the US and are documented atwatershedsculpture.com . Her essays and poems have been published in Field to Palette , StanfordUniversity’s MAHB Journal ; The Solutions Journal ; Women’s Eco Artist Dialogue journal, Silver Birch Press, and Soren Lit.

SOREN LIT Founding Editor & Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Jan 05, 202207:47
Ami Mattison- SOREN LIT Fall 2021 ISSUE

Ami Mattison- SOREN LIT Fall 2021 ISSUE

Ami Mattison- SOREN LIT Fall 2021 ISSUE

Touring and performing professionally since 2002, Ami Mattison has been featured at various art venues, festivals, conferences, colleges, and universities across the US and Canada. In 2013, s/he was the recipient of the Fellowship of Southern Writers' Spoken Word Award. Acclaimed novelist, Dorothy Allison writes: “Always [Mattison] speaks for the despised in verse that hallows grief and embodies joy. The world is larger, wider, fuller for the people [s/he] brings alive in words.” Mattison taught poetry and creative expression in Detroit public schools while serving as a writer-in-residence at Inside Out Literary Arts Program. S/he's also taught at Emory University, Georgia State University, and Antioch College in Ohio. S/he currently resides in Alabama.

SOREN LIT Producer and Founding Editor- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Dec 23, 202110:44
Karma Bennett= SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021
Dec 18, 202113:10
Rosa Ponton- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Rosa Ponton- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Rosa Ponton- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Rosa Ponton is a Louisiana born Spanish Instructor for Grambling State and Southern Universities. She holds Bachelors' degrees in English and Spanish from Howard University, a Masters' degree in Spanish from Virginia Tech, a MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University, and is completing the last year of her Ed.D in Education Leadership from Virginia Commonwealth University. She now resides in Tulum, Mexico where she is building her creative businesses and living in her purpose.

SOREN LIT Producer and Founding Editor: MELODIE J. RODGERS

www.sorenlit.com


Dec 15, 202109:28
Karen Southall Watts- SOREN LIT 2021

Karen Southall Watts- SOREN LIT 2021

Karen Southall Watts- SOREN LIT 2021. FALL ISSUE

Karen Southall Watts currently writes and works in the Pacific Northwest, where she lives with a chronic case of homesickness for friends and family in the South. Her flash fiction and poetry have been featured at Fairfield Scribes, Free Flash Fiction, The Drabble, Sledgehammer Lit, and 101Words. She is also the author of several business books and articles. Reach her at @askkaren on Twitter

SOREN LIT Producer and Founding Editor- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Dec 13, 202109:07
Debra Bowling- SOREN LIT FALL Issue 2021

Debra Bowling- SOREN LIT FALL Issue 2021

Debra Bowling- SOREN LIT FALL Issue 2021

Debra Bowling is the author of The Memory of Flight. She grew up in Northeast Alabama with a love of books and writing.                                 After graduating from The University of Alabama with degrees in social work and criminal justice, she worked with issues such as domestic violence, runway teens, child abuse, and other areas while also writing articles and stories, taking photographs, and producing video documentaries.

SOREN LIT Producer and Founding Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Dec 11, 202122:48
Elliott Udoh- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Elliott Udoh- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Elliott Udoh- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE  2021 Elliott Udoh, 14, attends The Webb School in Bell Buckle Tennessee. Elliott is a driven individual with a passion for social justice who strives to change the world through a combination of compassion and curiosity through the lens of their most authentic self. Elliott has been named an Atlanta Youth Poet Laureate ambassador for 2021 and hopes to publish a chapbook in the near future.

SOREN LIT Founding Editor and Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Dec 03, 202114:30
Denise Berry- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Denise Berry- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Denise Berry-SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021

Denise Berry currently has 20 years in public health administration and international humanitarian relief fundraising.  She has also worked with CARE USA,  Carter Presidential Center, and the Centers for Disease Control in International Health.  Denise and her family has lived and worked in the US, Germany, and The Netherlands. She loves learning.  Her current focus is deconstructing American history to discover TRUTH: researching WWII and international history. Denise loves writing and languages. She is planning to write a book from the manuscripts her father left.  Most importantly, Denise is working on the legacy she will leave for her granddaughter Amelia and her daughter Sydney; one that incorporates truth, faith, and justice.

SOREN LIT Founding Editor and Producer: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Nov 26, 202118:47
Carla Sameth- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021
Nov 11, 202112:42
Laila Sokera Henderson- SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021

Laila Sokera Henderson- SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021

Laila Sokera Henderson- SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021

Laila Sokera Henderson is an American poet, writer and actor of Nigerian descent. She is currently a university student, also working as a teaching artist in Atlanta, GA. She has served as one of Atlanta’s Youth Poet Laureate Ambassadors since 2017, and has competed in the international poetry slam competition Brave New Voices. She is currently working on releasing a collection of poems. Stay up to date with her @LailaSokera

www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT Founding Editor an podcast host: Melodie J. Rodgers

SOREN LIT Southern Renaissance of women, femmes, and/or non-binary writers exploring the lingering South...




Nov 04, 202118:13
Kimberly Casey- SOREN LIT FALL ISSUE 2021
Oct 30, 202114:22
Malika Hadley Freydberg- SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021

Malika Hadley Freydberg- SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021

Malika Hadley Freydberg- SOREN LIT Fall Issue 2021

Malika Hadley Freydberg is a multi-medium performance and visual artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She’s a four time national slam poet, and has graced the final stage in two of those four competitions. She’s had a fascination with magick and Conjure Women since she read “Mama Day” by Gloria Naylor at age 9, and became determined to become a woman of magick from that day forward. She works as a tour guide, sharing the history and folklore of Southern Louisiana, which has informed most of her work since 2016.Malika is a Sode in Ifa, an Olorisa of Oya upon completion of initiation at Temple Yemoja in Ibadan, Nigeria in 2019, and Priestess of Osun and Obatala in Louisiana Plantation Vodou as of July 2021. She’s been an eclectic Conjurer since she began praying to the moon at 14. She’s read tarot cards for 22 years, and cowries for 8.  She is also a proud member of the choir at First Grace United Methodist Church in Midcity New Orleans; she sees this as the honoring of as many branches of her ancestry as possible.Malika holds a B.A. in Arts Management-Music from Bennett College in Greensboro, NC (HBCU PRIDE!), and a Masters in Music Education, focus in Choral Conducting and Ethnomusicology from Georgia State. She lives in a house with a purple door with her wife and three cats~ the culmination of every love-obsessed queer witch, in her opinion.

SOREN LIT FOUNDING EDITOR & PODCAST HOST: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Oct 27, 202115:25
Soniah Kamal- Fall Issue 2021, SOREN LIT

Soniah Kamal- Fall Issue 2021, SOREN LIT

Soniah Kamal- Fall Issue 2021, SOREN LIT

Soniah Kamal is an award winning novelist, essayist and public speaker. Her most recent novel, Unmarriageable: Pride & Prejudice in Pakistan (Penguin Random House USA), a post colonial parallel retelling of Jane Austen’s classic, is a Financial Times Readers’ Best Book of 2019, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, is a New York Public Library and an NPR Code Switch Summer Read Pick, a Library Reads and People’s Magazine pick, a 2019 ‘Books All Georgians Should Read,’ a 2020 Georgia Author of the Year for Literary Fiction nominee, is shortlisted for the 2020 Townsend Award for Fiction, and hailed as a novel that writes back to Empire, and more.

SOREN LIT Founding editor and podcast host: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Oct 16, 202117:48
Danyelle Briggs- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Danyelle Briggs- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Danyelle Briggs is a junior studying Public Relations and Politics at Oglethorpe University. This summer she is prepping for the publication for her first novel A Darker Hue of You. On campus, she is apart of ten organizations ranging from the cheerleading team to the robotics club. When she’s not writing, you can catch her reading novels and using Pinterest for writing motivation. After graduation next spring, Danyelle plans to attend law school and become a criminal defense lawyer while continuing her dreams of becoming a New York Times bestselling author.

SOREN LIT podcast host and Founding Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Jul 24, 202113:54
Shi Evans- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Shi Evans- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Shi Evans is a research/project assistant for the Sports and Race Initiative at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  She started writing after leaving the FBI to live in South Korea on military orders with her spouse. Shi draws on years of travel experience and meeting interesting people to write captivating stories. She wrote Whiskey Road and will release her second novel this fall. Her publishing company, Georgetown Literary, has also published  the novel Faith for Ava. Shi writes academic articles for publication with the museum as well.                   Shi is an alumna of Savannah State University and has a master of public administration.

SOREN LIT podcast host and Founding Editor: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Jul 24, 202108:31
Ellen Birkett Morris- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Ellen Birkett Morris- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Lost Girls, a collection of short stories called "a varied set of tales from a skilled practitioner of the short form" by Kirkus Reviews. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, South Carolina Review, and Santa Fe Literary Review, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction. Morris is a recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.

SOREN LIT Editor and Podcast Host: Melodie J Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Jul 12, 202119:18
Tia King- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Tia King- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Tia King (she/they) is a 20 year old musician, creative writer, and teaching artist hailing from Atlanta, Georgia. She is an Atlanta Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador an well as Youth Speaks’ 2018 MC Olympian, as awarded to her by Brave New Voices International Festival and Poetry Slam. Her work has been published by VOX Teen Communications and in Oglethorpe University’s “The Tower.” In her Hometown, Tia continues to amplify inner city youth voices as Atlanta Word Works’ lead facilitator and collective coach.

Guest: Tia King

SORENLIT Podcast Host and Founding Editor- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Jul 05, 202122:43
Arden Eli Hill- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Arden Eli Hill- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Arden Eli Hill is a genderqueer (he or they) white writer from Louisiana.  To preorder a copy of Bloodwater Parish (an exploration of gender, sexuality, race, and adoption in poems) forthcoming from Seven Kitchen's press, please email Arden at Arden@ardenelihill.com.  Arden's recent and forthcoming publications include Hip Mama, Trans Bodies Trans Selves, Strange Horizons, and The Wellesley Review. is a genderqueer (he or they) white writer from Louisiana.  To preorder a copy of Bloodwater Parish (an exploration of gender, sexuality, race, and adoption in poems) forthcoming from Seven Kitchen's press, please email Arden at Arden@ardenelihill.com.  Arden's recent and forthcoming publications include Hip Mama, Trans Bodies Trans Selves, Strange Horizons, and The Wellesley Review.

Guest:Arden Eli Hill 

SOREN LIT Podcast Host and Founding Editor- Meloddie J. Rodgers

WWW.sorenlit.com

Jul 05, 202115:45
Ariana Francesca Thomas- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Ariana Francesca Thomas- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Ariana Francesca Thomas- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Ariana Francesca is a Black, mother poet of the Deep South, born and raised in Jonesboro, Georgia. Her work explores the positions, reflections, and interconnectedness of Black motherhood, womanhood, spirit and epic memory. 

With roots as a performance poet, Ariana’s work has been featured at The Kennedy Center, The Verizon Center, The National Black Arts Festival, on America's Next Top Model, The HistoryMakers, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other international stages, recordings and compilations. Ariana is also a Queens University of Charlotte MFA, Poetry candidate and Watering Hole Poetry Fellow. Her work is featured or forthcoming in/on Netflix’s Strong Black Lead, Burrow Press, Jelly Bucket Magazine, and elsewhere.

SOREN LIT podcast host- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com

Jun 27, 202117:50
Courtney LeBlanc- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Courtney LeBlanc- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Courtney LeBlanc- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full length collections Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart (Riot in Your Throat, July 2021),  Beautiful & Full of Monsters (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, March 2020)The Violence Within (Flutter Press, 2018, currently out of print), and All in the Family (Bottlecap Press, 2016, currently out of print) , and a Pushcart Prize  and Best of the Net nominee. She has an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning.

SOREN LIT podcast host & Editor- Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Jun 27, 202117:27
Khalisa Rae- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021
Jun 27, 202112:59
Brooke Dupree- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Brooke Dupree- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Brooke Dupree is a future memoirist and an English instructor at Greenville Technical College in

Greenville, South Carolina where her passion is teaching entry level reading and composition.

Brooke has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of South Carolina, a Masters in

Writing from Coastal Carolina University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens

University in Charlotte. She enjoys spending time with her family and drinking wine with her

friends. Brooke lives in Easley, South Carolina with her husband and daughter.


Guest: Brooke Dupree- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

SOREN LIT podcast host: Melodie J. Rodgers

www.sorenlit.com


Jun 27, 202130:07
Leslie Peterson- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

Leslie Peterson- SOREN LIT Summer issue 2021

SOREN LIT Podcast- Summer issue 2021. www.sorenlit.com

Podcast Host and Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers


Leslie Peterson

Leslie Peterson grew up in rural middle Georgia, and lives there still, working for a local non-profit and trifling occasionally with poetry and stories. When she's not working or writing, she can be found wrangling a plethora of creatures from cats to quail or coaxing her hazard garden to grow...

i, too, collect bones

by Leslie Peterson

if it doesn't fit,

force it into the joint.

but I digress—first,

you must excavate.

golden relics,

samite,

red mud, hydria,

hercules beetle horns,

shrike wings,

harvestmen fangs and legs

that still writhe after death.

sweep it all away

and dig up the bones

of your mothers.

the teeth of a woman

who stood before the mastodon,

spear in hand,

screaming hoarse triumphs.

the humerus of she

who stood with sword of iron

between intruder and heir,

trembling in fear.

the ossicles that listened

on the edge of the bluff

to the wild ocean roar

and dove into the roiling foam

like a bird of prey

and came up for salty air—

despite

despite

despite

—and did it with a laugh,

for spite.

do not let them rest.

build yourself from their spines and

skint-bare knuckles, and,

let them haunt you.


Jun 20, 202115:50
Aanika Eragam - Summer Issue 2021

Aanika Eragam - Summer Issue 2021

SOREN LIT Podcast- Episode #3

Podcast Host & Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers


Aanika Eragam - Summer Issue 2021


Aanika Eragam is a rising senior at Milton High School in Milton, Georgia. She is the 2021 Atlanta Youth Poet Laureate, and her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Bennington College, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has been published in Teen Vogue and Atlanta Magazine, among others. Outside of writing, she is passionate about history and politics.


ON HOME (OR THE LACK THEREOF) by Aanika Eragam


Here,

I do not know who I am.

An American, I proclaim,

In the dry, carpet fiber syllables

Falling like maple leaves from

My accentless tongue.

It’s scary carrying culture in this country.

I remember the time I wore a kurta

To school and got teased mercilessly

By incarnadine children who bottled

Venom in their veins and ice in their eyes.

Last month, another set of snake tongues yelled

“Fuck Indians!” while my mother and I

crossed the street. To them, our fear was funny.

To them, our fear is always funny. I think it’s funny

how quickly this melting pot reached its boiling point.

I think it’s funny how quickly I learned to hide my dal rice

and starve silently at lunch instead. Mother would hold up my

Untouched lunchbox with shaking hands, fury

Rolling off her in heat waves, ask me if

We should leave, go back, her eyes pooling

Over like the village well, fists grasping

At my arms like chipped rocks.

No, I would say,

This is home.

But the words still felt

Stale on my tongue.

There,

Everyone tells me who to be.

Grandmother balks at my hairy knees

and potato-skin arms,

Tells me to cover up, gives me a long-sleeved

kurta and leggings suited for hibernation,

As if the raging heat only applies to the boys,

Who choke on dust and smog

Untangling the village labyrinth.

Girls in two braids even like rice crops

invite me to play.

They ask me what it's like in America.

They laugh each time I attempt to speak in our mother tongue,

and I realize to them, our language is more sacred

than the air we breathe.

I feel ashamed. I feel like a butcher

flattening each syllable to make it palatable.

I feel that there, too, I am a spectacle.

There too, I only fit in when my mouth is shut.

But these girls, they smile like me,

and I want them to want me.

The next day, Mother

Packs up the tattered suitcase

Smelling of jalebi and jaggery.

I tell her I want to see the girls again and she

says no, we are leaving soon anyway.

I don’t want to leave, I tell her,

This is home.

But the crows chuckle from

The telephone line and the

Thunder cracks out a roar.

In the end,

America tells me I’m Indian

And India tells me I’m American

And when I try to be both I

Find out that I am neither,

Too foreign to be native so I

Must only be alive in the ocean-clad

Expanse between two countries,

My mother’s womb

My only home.

Jun 20, 202116:51
Dr Shanna Greene Benjamin- SOREN LIT Summer Issue 2021

Dr Shanna Greene Benjamin- SOREN LIT Summer Issue 2021

SOREN LIT Summer Issue 2021: www.sorenlit.com

SOREN LIT Podcast Host and Founding Editor, Melodie J. Rodgers

Episode#1- Shanna Greene Benjamin 

Shanna Greene Benjamin is a biographer and scholar who studies the literature, lives, and archives of Black women. Dr. Benjamin earned her Ph.D. in English and M.A. in Afro-American Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; she received a B.A. in English from Johnson C. Smith University—a historically Black college in Charlotte, North Carolina—where she was class valedictorian. A one-time professor and associate dean at Grinnell College and the former director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program there, Dr. Benjamin is a member of the 2015-2016 HERS class—a program administered by the Higher Education Resource Service that develops women leaders in higher education—and a 2018 graduate of the Council of Independent Colleges' Senior Leadership Academy.

Dr. Benjamin has published on African American literature and Black women's intellectual history in African American ReviewMELUSa/b: Auto/BiographyStudies in American Fiction, and PMLA. Her book, Half in Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Nellie Y. McKay, is forthcoming from UNC Press (April 12). Through her coaching and consulting firm, FireStarter, and her First Book at Mid-Career Institute, Dr. Benjamin lives out her passion for giving post-tenure faculty the strategies and support they need to achieve professional goals that reflect personal, not institutional, priorities. A Mellon Mays undergraduate fellow who now facilitates Social Science Research Council writing retreats for MMUF dissertators and serves on the UNCF/Mellon Board of Advisors, Dr. Benjamin is an independent scholar who lives with her family in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Jun 20, 202125:50
GREETINGS! Welcome to the SOREN LIT Podcast!
Apr 20, 202114:05