We are so excited to announce that the second episode of #TheBodyConversation webinar will be held virtually on Zoom, on June 27.

You can register for the episode by sending an email to thebodyconvo@gmail.com to get a Zoom invite.

Meet our panelists:

Cate Dicharry graduated from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR with a BA in Political Science in 2003. Cate moved to China to teach English at Dalian Nationalities University and discovered a love for creative writing. Cate went on to earn an MFA in Creative Writing from the Low Residency Program at the University of California, Riverside. Cate is the Director of the Writing and Humanities Program at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.

Cate lives in Iowa City with her husband and two small sons.

Aisha Sarkin-Pawa hails from Gusau, Zamfara State, and studied Biochemistry at the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Kaduna State. Aisha is an entrepreneur and a wardrobe consultant.

Aisha is a mother of one.

Samantha Kolber has received a Ruth Stone Poetry Prize and a Vermont Poetry Society prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Mom Egg Review, Poems2Go, Tiny Seed Journal, Rise Up Review, Hummingbird, Hunger Mountain, Minerva Rising, The Meadow, and other journals and anthologies. Her poem “Year in Review Haiku” was featured on Vermont Public Radio’s Vermont Edition in 2019. She received her MFA from Goddard College, and completed post-grad studies at Pine Manor College’s Solstice MFA Program. Originally from New Jersey, she lives in Montpelier, Vermont, where she coordinates author events and marketing for Bear Pond Books and is the Poetry Series Editor at Rootstock Publishing. Her chapbook, “Birth of a Daughter,” is forthcoming from Kelsay Books (Sept. 1, 2020). Read and listen to her poems at her website, samanthakolber.com.

Charity Ngabirano is a writer, and an Advocate of the High Court of Uganda with a passion for social justice. She holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree from Makerere University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Centre. Most notably though, Charity is a full time wife and mama of two beautiful girls. When she is not cooking and baby sitting, Charity loves to read African literature.

M. K. Martin is a Minnesota born and raised author and editor. Her novel Survivors’ Club was published in 2017. Her short stories appear in 0-Dark-Thirty, Wanderlust Literary Journal, Barnstorm Literary Journal, Hunger Mountain Literary Journal, and in several anthologies. Currently, she is an MFA candidate in the Writing & Publishing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Between Minnesota and Vermont, Martin was an exchange student in Paraguay, joined the Army, got deployed to Afghanistan and to Iraq, got a BA in Linguistics from the University of Oregon, and developed a deep love of tea. Find out more at https://mkmartinwriter.com/

Hawa Jande Golakai was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and spent her childhood in her homeland of Liberia, later living in several African countries when her family fled the civil war. Her crime debut The Lazarus Effect was nominated for three literary awards, and was published by Cassava Republic Press. Hawa was listed by the Hay Festival as one of the thirty-nine most promising African writers under the age of forty, and her work was included in the Africa39 anthology published by Bloomsbury.

Hawa’s photo was taken by Victor Ehikhamenor.

Featured image by Alvin Balemesa/Unsplash