Write Now! SF Bay presents "Civil Liberties at Risk," a reading by diverse writers of conscience from Lake, Mendocino & Sonoma Counties, Santa Cruz/Watsonville, and the Bay Area. Featuring Adela Najarro, Amanda Cruise, Beulah Vega, Esperanza Cabrales, Georgina, Marie Guardado, MK Chavez, Norma Smith,Peggy Morrison, Shaquam Edwards, Shizue Seigel, and Tehmina Khan.
Adela Najarro serves as a board member of Círculo de Poetas y Writers, working with the nationwide Latinx community to promote creative writing and social justice. Her four poetry collections include Variations in Blue (Letras Latinas/Red Hen, 2025). www.adelanajarro.com.
Amanda Cruise lives in Mendocino on unceded Northern Pomo land. Her poetry and visual art have appeared in the Noyo Review, The Bloom, The Spirit of Place: Mendocino County Women Poets Anthology, and elsewhere. Amandacruise.com
Beulah Vega is a first-generation Latine political poet, horror writer, and theatrical artist living in the North Bay Area. Her poems were most recently published in Writers' Resist and La Raiz and she produces plays through the series Heroines, Harlots, and Harpies: A Woman Speaks.
Brenda Marie Yeager, Poet Laureate of Lake County, co-hosts New Darlings online monthly. A finalist for the 2022 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize, she’s been published in Noyo Review and The Bloom, and is seeking publication for her chapbook,Captain America.
Esperanza Cabrales is a queer Xicana slam poet, performer, teaching artist, zine maker, earring creator, and pun enthusiast who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley and now lives in Oakland.
Georgina Marie Guardado is the Poet Laureate Emerita of Lake County (2020-2024) and Poets Laureate Fellow (Academy of American Poets). She is Board President of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference. She’s been published by Poets.org, Gulf Coast Journal, Yellow Medicine Review, The Muleskinner Journal, and more.
MK Chavez is an Afro-Latinx writer, educator, and founder of Ouroboros Writing Lab, which offers creative coaching, workshops, and community engagement. The author of Dear Animal, Mothermorphosis, and Virgin Eyes, she has been honored with the Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award.
Norma Smith, author of Home Remedy, is a writer, social researcher, editor, writing coach, and organizer. She grew up in Fresno in an Ashkenazi Jewish household and has been active in anti-racist/anti-oppression work since high school.
Peggy Morrison is a European-American poet who raised her daughter in Watsonville while working as a bilingual teacher. She’s been published in multiple journals and anthologies. She co-edited the anthologies Day Without Art (2019) and Colossus:Body (2023).
Shaquam Edwards is an emerging Richmond writer. After a teaching career in early childhood and higher education, she is diving into a memoir about her struggle for belonging as a biracial Black/White female growing up amidst unhealed generational trauma.
Shizue Seigel, director of Write Now! SF Bay, is Japanese American writer, visual artist and community activist based in San Francisco. She was most recently published in Panorama, Journal X, and Porter Gulch Review.
Tehmina Khan, daughter of Indian immigrant scientists, teaches College Writing at UC Berkeley and Poetry for the People at City College of San Francisco. Her work appears in Civil Liberties United, The City is Already Speaking, Muslim American Writers at Home, and more.