Gabby Rivera at UCSC: Inspiring Radical Creativity

SAVE THE DATE! Monday, February 12th, 2018 6pm at the Cultural Center at Merrill College @ UC Santa Cruz

We are excited to host the amazing writer, speaker, queer Latinx story teller Gabby Rivera at UC Santa Cruz! Gabby will be speaking about Inspiring Radical Creativity: Empowering Young, Diverse Voices to Tell Their Own Stories. There will be a reception to follow the event.

To Gabby Rivera, it’s vital to encourage people of all backgrounds to create, daydream, and tell their own stories—and in so doing, open a radical space for creativity. Now, in this affecting talk, Rivera unpacks how she navigates the world as a queer, Latinx, millennial woman; how she incorporates her heritage into her writing; how she strives to be a thoughtful ally for others, and how she celebrates the healing power of community. This is a talk about privilege and power, and what we can do to support the ideas of diverse artists working with progressive politics. It asks difficult questions: What if this country made everyone—people of all colors, cultures, orientations, abilities, and genders—feel at home? What if the traumas experienced by marginalized peoples could be reconciled and incorporated into a broader, richer definition of America? What if our non-white ancestors weren’t erased, but represented in pop culture, in our textbooks and classrooms? And what if we could privilege difference as a site of wonder, laughter and celebration, and not as something to fear? With Rivera’s smart, funny talks, we can start imagining these worlds as our reality.

More about Gabby Rivera:

Gabby Rivera is a queer Latinx writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently writing AMERICA, America Chavez’s solo series, for Marvel. America is Marvel’s first Latina lesbian superhero.

She is an outgoing, outspoken creator invested in fostering better dialogue, inspiring radical creativity, and improving our most vulnerable communities. The author of Juliet Takes a Breath, she’s also the writer of the new Marvel series America—featuring the first queer, Latinx teen-girl superhero, ever—that’s catching headlines from The New York Times, CNN, Vogue, and beyond.

Juliet Takes A Breath: http://gabbyrivera.com/juliet-takes-a-breath/

America: http://gabbyrivera.com/america-chavez/

This event is sponsored by the Lionel Cantú Queer Center and the Merrill College Programs Office.

Thank you to our co-sponsors for their contributions: College Ten Senate, Cowell College Senate, Crown College Senate, Oakes College Senate, UCSC Women's Center

Accessibility information:

Please refrain from wearing scented perfume to be considerate of folks who have chemical/fragrance sensitivities (for more information: http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/07/being-scent-free/)

The Cultural Center at Merrill is located at Merrill College behind the Crown/Merrill Dining Hall. There are wheelchair accessible ramps in front of the venue. There is an all gender restroom located on the right side of the venue outside. There is an additional all gender restroom downstairs at the Cantú Queer Center.

For questions or accessibility accommodations please contact [email protected]