Venue

: The Wyncote NW Forum
: 1119 8th Ave (Entrance off Seneca St.)
Seattle, 98101 United States + Google Map

Event Format: In-Person

EVENT NOTES
Doors for this event will open at 6:30 PM. Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

Headshots of Elizabeth Acevedo and Dujie Tahat

Arts & Culture

Elizabeth Acevedo’s new novel, Anger Is Only a Shadow, centers around teenage Lil, who is anything but small. She’s rebellious, she’s loyal; she’s figuring out what kind of good person she wants to be, or if she wants to be a good person at all. But more than anything, Lil wants to be free. When her instinct for freedom leads to another stay in juvenile detention, Lil knows she’s lucky to just be on probation. But judgment, guilt, and an ankle monitor weigh heavily on her. The only person who might understand is her big brother, Aldwin, but he’s a hundred miles away at college. Something’s been off with him, too. As her court hearing ticks closer, a question looms over Lil: Will she follow the rules until her sentencing or put her future freedom on the line?

After receiving the National Book Award for her first YA novel, The Poet X, Acevedo returns to YA, tackling several complex issues such as the youth criminal justice system, mental health struggles, growing up with your family, and learning to find your autonomy.

Elizabeth Acevedo is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Poet X, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie Medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also the author of With the Fire on High—which was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal—and Clap When You Land, which was a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus Prize finalist. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. Acevedo has been a fellow of Cave Canem and Cantomundo, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion and resides in Washington, DC, with her family.

Dujie Tahat is the fifth Seattle Civic poet and author of Shibboleth (Fonograf 2027) as well as three poetry chapbooks: Here I Am O My God, selected for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship; Salat, winner of the Tupelo Press Sunken Garden Chapbook Award and longlisted for the 2020 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection; and Balikbayan, finalist for The New Michigan Press / DIAGRAM chapbook contest and the Center for Book Arts honoree. Along with Lue Hughes and Gabrielle Bates, they cohost The Poet Salon podcast.

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