LIVE PROSE: Shade Ashani and Kristina Robinson to read as part of the New Orleans Loving Festival

Room 220 is pleased to present writers Kristina Robinson and Shade Ashani for an evening of live prose as part of the New Orleans Loving Festival at 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 9, at the New Orleans Healing Center (2372 St. Claude Ave.). The reading will coincide with the opening of Mixed Messages.2, a showcase of visual art presented by the Antenna Gallery collective as part of the Loving Fest.

The New Orleans Loving Festival is modeled after “Loving Day,” a series of multicultural celebrations across the country that organize people to fight racial prejudice through education and build multicultural communities. Loving Day also honors the legacy of Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple whose 1967 landmark civil rights lawsuit, Loving v. Virginia, ended all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

The evening’s readers will read original pieces on themes related to the spirit of the Loving Festival.

Kristina Robinson is a New Orleans native, MFA candidate at the University of New Orleans, and a member of the MelaNated Writers group. You can find examples of her soulful prose on her blog, Life in High Times, as well as One Drop, Racialicious, Room 220, and elsewhere.

Shade Ashani is the author of In Search of My Father, a memoir. She is a graduate of Columbia University and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Health at Tulane. She has worked in HIV/AIDS prevention, is a Goodwill Ambassador to Gambia, and founded the nonprofit foundation Kids International.

As usual, this Room 220 event is free and complimentary libations will be on hand.