Reading Series 

Reading assembles. 

I host, lead, and facilitate reading series that move across public and private formations. Since 2018, these gatherings have taken place both physically in the DC area (the National Capital Region) and digitally via Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Skype, and related platforms.

These convenings attend to the ephemeral, the textual, and the relational -- treating reading not as a solitary act, but as a structured encounter. Series include: Book Chat, pɹoʍ ʞɔɐq, Book Talk, E3, Echoes, Encounters, Errands, Errant, reads, Salmon Salon, textuality, WAMCATS, WOMANDATORY, and Woojums (with Natalie Salive), among others.

The Ephemeral

These gatherings are not primarily oriented toward permanence or record. What matters is the event of coming together: the timing, the presence, the exchange that unfolds and then disperses. While traces may remain (notes, references, future collaborations), the emphasis is on what can only happen in the moment of collective attention.

The Textual

Texts anchor the encounters, but they do not fix it. A book, article, poem, performance, or fragment becomes a shared object that participants move around, return to, and reinterpret. Reading here is not extraction. And it is not summary. It is a practice of staying with language long enough for it to shift, echo, and accumulate meaning across voices.

The Relational

These series are structured as small-scale convenings where relationships are not incidental but central. Participants come into contact through texts, but also through one another’s ways of reading, responding, and situating ideas. Over time, these encounters build networks of thought and affinity that extend beyond any single event.

Why This Work

These reading series are part of a broader investment in how knowledge is produced in small, semi-bounded gatherings. Rather than treating public discourse as something that only emerges at scale, this work focuses on the intimate formations where ideas are tested, revised, and carried forward.