Please Join Us for a Special Event:
Inclusion, Confusion and Authenticity in Writing
A Panel Discussion
Hosted for FREE by CWC SF Peninsula & Shuffle Collective
Moderated by Lyzette Wanzer
Wednesday, February 24
6:00 – 7:30 PM Pacific Time
ONLINE
How do you write characters and stories that are outside – sometimes far outside – your lived experience?
A diverse panel of distinguished authors from across literary styles and genres will address how to write characters and stories that are not from your own lived experience in terms of ethnicity, economic status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
We will dive deeply into how to do these stories justice, and how to avoid common pitfalls such as white-washing and cultural appropriation.

Lyzette Wanzer is an award-winning author, writing coach, and writing workshop instructor. Her work appears in over twenty-five literary journals and books. Lyzette is a member of the National Writers’ Union, where she serves on the Northern California Chapter’s Steering Committee, The Authors Guild, and The Writers’ Grotto nonprofit organization.
Panelists
Mathangi Subramanian is an award winning writer, author, and educator. A former public school teacher, senior policy analyst for the New York City Council, and assistant vice president at Sesame Workshop, Mathangi Subramanian’s work has appeared in The Washington Post.com, Ms. Magazine Digital, Zora Magazine, Al Jazeera America, Quartz, The Hindu, The Wire, The Indian Express, and the Seal Press anthology Click! When We Knew We Were Feminists, among others.
David Bowles is an award-winning and prolific Mexican-American author and translator from south Texas, where he teaches at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley. In 2017, David was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. He now serves on its governing council. In 2019, he co-founded the hashtag and activist movement #DignidadLiteraria, which has negotiated greater Latinx representation in publishing.
Karla Brundage is a Bay Area based poet, activist, and educator with a passion for social justice. She is the founder of West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange.
Miah is a writer, visual artist, dancer, curator and educator. A military brat, Miah traveled for much of their childhood, but regards the South as their home—high school years in Baltimore, college in Atlanta, with deep ties to Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama. Miah later studied in the MFA Writing Program in Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts and the MA program in English at San Francisco State University. Jeffra teaches Writing, Drama, Anti-Racist and Cultural Studies at Santa Clara University, and is Founding Editor and Production Designer for queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press.