Julian Randall with Ally Ang

Randall weaves pop culture into his pages, exploring grief, family, emotional health, and the American way with a medley of media ranging from Into the Spiderverse and Jordan Peele movies to BoJack Horseman and the music of Odd Future.

Seattle writer Ally Ang joins Randall in conversation for an evening of laughter, tears, and everything in-between.

Julian Randall is a contributor to the #1 New York Times bestseller Black Boy Joy and his middle-grade novel, Pilar Ramirez and the Escape From Zafa, was published by Holt in 2022. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Tin House, and Milkweed Editions. He is the winner of the 2019 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle, the 2019 Frederick Bock Prize, and a Pushcart prize. His poetry has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and POETRY. His first book, Refuse, won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He lives in Chicago.

Ally Ang is a gaysian poet and editor based in Seattle, Washington. Their work has been published in Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology, Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color, Foglifter, Columbia Journal,and elsewhere. They are a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a Tin House workshop alum, and a 2022 Jack Straw Writers Program fellow. Ang holds a BA in sociology and Asian American studies from Wellesley College and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington. They are currently working on their first full-length poetry collection. When not writing, Ang can be found gazing longingly at bodies of water or doting on their cat, Gomez.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle.