Under 35 Writers Panel & Q&A

Event Description

How do you build a writing life in your 20s and early 30s while balancing time for creativity with jobs to pay the bills, your social life, and everything else? Join us for a lively evening featuring Boston-area writers under 35 as they share what it’s really like to write, publish, and find community today.

From navigating first drafts to finding literary opportunities, this candid conversation offers real-world insight and inspiration for anyone building their creative path. After the panel, stick around for a reception with free food and drinks, meet other local writers, explore GrubStreet’s creative writing center, and learn about the ArtsCard Boston app for under-35 arts lovers. The program for the evening is as follows:

• 6-7pm: Panel
• 7-7:30pm: Free food and drinks

About the Panelists:

Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah is a Ghanaian American poet, editor, and educator living out the diaspora in Boston, Massachusetts. They are both Black & alive. Born in 1993, Emmanuel is Boston’s newly appointed poet laureate, and the school librarian at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester. In the past, Emmanuel has served as a high school English teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and as a teaching artist at organizations such as the Massachusetts Literary Education and Performance Collective, the Cambridge Arts Council, Northeastern University, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The pursuit of joy, and that which sustains life, is essential to Emmanuel’s creative practice, and to their practice of living. Emmanuel’s chapbook “not without small joys” (published by Game Over Books Press) explores the centrality of joy as an animating force, especially in the face of human suffering. In his free time, Emmanuel enjoys hot carbs, brightly colored chapbooks, and the long sigh at the end of a good book.

Myles Taylor (they/he) is a Boston-based transmasculine writer, organizer, educator, food service worker, and glitter enthusiast. They are the current director and board president of the historic Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge and former President of the Emerson Poetry Project. They have been performing and representing Boston at slam tournaments and festivals internationally for nearly a decade. Their debut collection, Masculinity Parable (Game Over Books, 2023) was shortlisted for the Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize. Their publications can be found at myles-taylor.com, and their neuroses can be found @mylesdoespoems.

Charlinda Adream Banks is a writer based in Boston, MA. She graduated from Brown University in 2024, and she currently works in education programming at Coolidge Corner Theatre. Charlinda writes poetry, fiction, and occasional creative essays that explore family, gender, and ghosts. Black American and Afro-Cuban culture are at the crux of the narratives and characters she creates. Her work has appeared in Ebony Tomatoes Collective, AC|DC, and elsewhere. She is a current GrubStreet Emerging Artist Fellow.

Frankie Concepcion (she/her) has served as a 2024-2025 Tin House Reading Fellow, Managing Editor for literary magazine Hayden's Ferry Review, Instructor at Arizona State University, and Development Coordinator for Boston nonprofit theatre, SpeakEasy Stage Company. A long time Grubbie, she is a member of the Boston Writers of Color, a graduate of the 2019 Short Story Incubator, a presenter at the 2024 Muse & the Marketplace Conference and currently GrubStreet's Development Coordinator. In 2019, she founded the Boston Immigrant Writers Salon: a community to empower and inspire immigrant voices, and in 2024 she completed her MFA in Fiction from Arizona State University. Frankie has also received additional fellowships from Tin House, Sibling Rivalry Press and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and her writing has been published in The Good Life Review, Barzakh, StoryQuarterly, Joyland, HYPHEN, and more. She was born and raised in the Philippines.

Crystal Valentine is a nationally and internationally acclaimed poet who has traveled across seas performing on platforms in Paris, Brazil, Botswana, South Africa and elsewhere. A former New York City Youth Poet Laureate and two-time winner of the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, Crystal has been offered fellowships from Callaloo, Tin House, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, The Boston Foundation and Cave Canem. She is the winner of Palette Poetry’s 2021 Emerging Poet Prize, selected by Kelli Russell Agodon and her work has appeared in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Muzzle Magazine, TriQuarterly Magazine, MSNBC, BET, CNN, The New York Daily News and elsewhere. She received an MFA from New York University. Crystal is a generator and fierce protector of Black joy, and strongly believes that intersectionality is a key factor in liberation. Originally hailing from the Bronx, Crystal now resides in Boston where she serves as the Director of Programming for Mass Poetry and co-host for “Just Be(loved): Your Neighborhood Poetry Slam & Open Mic.” When she isn’t writing or agonizing over line breaks, you can find her watching anime and dreaming.

About the Moderator:

Lauren Artiles (she/they) is the Director of Operations and Partnerships at GrubStreet. In this role, she oversees the management of the Center for Creative Writing, both creatively and operationally; supervises GrubStreet's events, membership program, and partner initiatives; and works to cultivate a warm, welcoming third place where every writer feels at home and empowered at each stage of their artistic journey. Lauren teaches and writes short fiction. She received an MFA in Writing from CalArts and is an alum of GrubStreet's Short Story Incubator program. Lauren's writing has been supported by a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. Outside of work, her greatest pleasures include reading freaky little novellas, cooking elaborate meals for loved ones, watching horror movies, and tending to both her real garden and her garden of carefully curated playlists.