Thank you Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and the San Francisco Disability Cultural Center for this amazing experience. Buy Leah’s new book of poems “The Way Disabled People Love Each Other”. [https://brownstargirl.org/news-events/] “It’s a fierce crip reckoning with all the ways disabled people love each other, in all our complexity.”

The evening began with mingling and spending time with the community installation Disability Grief Portal Altar. It’s was place where people can come together to make a sacred space for disabled, mostly BIPOC, grief and loss – there will be candles, flowers, fruit, and folks can write down and leave the names of their ancestors. Jesenia (@NeuroSpicyNetworking) attended the event and connected with community organizers, artist, friends, and future collaborators!

This covid-safer event was hosted in the beautify San Francisco Disability Cultural Center with the bay doors open to fresh air, lots of seating options, covid testing and masks required, and handing out stickers of the book cover at check in. It is a powerful experience to be in a space where access and community care is centered!

See Recap Video – https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWfUETGigmr

The livestream offered ASL and CART captioning supports and introductions with wonderful reading by Stefani Echeverría-Fenn and Tre Vasquez. The Leah read some powerful poems from their newest collection. The piece sampled in the video is from “when your friend dies like jesus on her 33rd birthday.” There was joy and grief, rage and laughter, and raw weirdness and realness from the author that we all appreciated witnessing as they read passages.

The books on site were sold out and we had a chill hang out while Leah signed books and took selfies with those who wanted them. The vibe was connection, community, love, crip art and crip joy! We wish Leah as many restful days as possible as they launch on their book tour and I was honored to have had a chance to share space and story with them.