Writing Between Worlds: Misplacement, Memory, and Meaning
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Lord Baltimore Hotel
Hanover Suite A – Mezzanine
PARKING
Download a map here.
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How do you write about a state of limbo—that liminal space between past and present, here and there? At a time when immigration is, again, under threat in America, four recently published writers with roots in Iran, Costa Rica, Southern Africa, and Nigeria reflect on the ways that words and storytelling can be used to unpack disorientation, alienation, and the duality of having two identities — one from here and one from there. More broadly, the panel will consider how poetry and prose can be a tool to explore those gray areas of transition between place and time and our remembrance of them. Diana Rojas is the author of Litany of Saints: A Triptych. A one-time journalist, she lives, taxed and unrepresented, in Washington, DC. Pantea Tofangchi is an Iranian-American poet, writer, and graphic designer with a deep love for language and visual storytelling. Judith Krummeck is a writer, broadcaster, and immigrant. She’s the evening drive-time host for Maryland’s classical music station, WBJC, and she is the author of The Deceived Ones, a novel; Old New Worlds, a biographical memoir, and Beyond the Baobab, a memoir in essays. Amara Okolo is the author of three books, Black Sparkle Romance, Son of Man, and Daughters of Salt. She lives in Baltimore, where she is finishing up a PhD. Moderator Abby Higgs is a Baltimore-based writer, professor, and publicist. They go by the pseudonym “Stone Cold Jane Austen” online.
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Diana Rojas is the author of Litany of Saints: A Triptych (Arte Publico Press, 2024). “Inventive and engaging, Litany of Saints is a colorful exploration of identity from the shifting, chameleonic perspectives of Costa Ricans both at home and abroad. Diana Rojas paints an unflinching portrait of gender, duality, personal agency and the explosion that happens when cultural conservatism crashes against a changing world.” ~John Manuel Arias, author of Where There Was Fire. A one-time journalist, she grew up in Connecticut and New Jersey and graduated from New York University. Besides journalism, she’s dabbled in fundraising, real estate, and child rearing. She lives, taxed and unrepresented, in Washington, DC.
www.bydianarojas.com
Bluesky: @bydianarojas.bsky.social
Instagram: @bydianarojas
Pantea Amin Tofangchi is an Iranian-American poet, writer, graphic designer, and art director. Her 2023 collection, Glazed with War, chronicles her life through the lens of her childhood experiences during the Iran- Iraq War. Her literary work has been published in Ploughshares, Little Patuxent Review, Welter, Atlanta Review, and other journals. She won the International Merit Award from the Atlanta Review in 2018 and was named a finalist for both The National Poetry Series (2016) and the Georgia Poetry Prize (2018).
Panteatofangchi.com
Instagram: @panpoe, @pdesignmore
Judith Krummeck is a writer, broadcaster, and immigrant. She’s the evening drive-time host for Maryland’s classical music station, WBJC, and she holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts. Her debut novel, The Deceived Ones, a contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” is a “captivating, beautifully written novel about passion and exile, devoted siblings and new lovers, and the unifying enchantment of music. The exquisitely human, big-hearted characters of The Deceived Ones will stay with you long after you read the last page,” says Jane Delury, author of Hedge and The Balcony. Her biographical memoir, Old New Worlds, an intertwining of immigrant stories, was a finalist in the 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and the 2020 National Indie Excellence Awards®. Her first book, Beyond the Baobab, is a memoir in essays about her immigrant experience. Her screenplay, Philida, based on the novel of the same name by André Brink, is in development in South Africa. Judith is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant.
www.judithkrummeck.com
Instagram: @jkrummeck
Amara is a Nigerian writer. She is a Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, City of Asylum Residency, Oxbow, and The Anderson Center. Her works have been supported by Pen America and United States Artists and were recently nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize and the Best American Short Stories Anthology. Her works have been published in Chestnut Review, Joyland, Forge Lit Magazine, A Long House, Hunger Mountain, Catapult, Panorama Journal of Intelligent Travel, Commonwealth Writers, WeTransfer, and have been mentioned on CNN, The Guardian, Aljazeera, and Radio France International. “What Amara Nicole Okoro presents in her short story collection, Son of Man, are objects and ideas so defining of the six protagonists, she imbues them with their humanity. They are the second skins the men inhabit, experiencing their love and pain. They are their third eye, weeping at the human condition. They are the men’s voices, message bearers, speaking the men’s stories with a force, a clarity and an authority the men are denied,” says Olatoun Williams, Book Border Reviews. She has an MFA and is finishing up a PhD in Creative Writing and Multicultural & Gender Studies. Her dissertation theory focuses generally on feminist and women studies, immigration, and transnationalism. She lives in Baltimore.
www.amaraokolo.com
X: @AmaraNOkolo
Instagram: @reina_razor
Abby Higgs is a Baltimore-based writer, professor, and publicist. Their essays can be found in various online and print media, including The Guardian Weekender, Marie Claire South Africa, The Rumpus, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. They go by the pseudonym “Stone Cold Jane Austen” online.
www.slowclapabby.com
Instagram: @stone.cold.jane.austennn
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CityLit Project in partnership with Lord Baltimore Hotel and Red Emma’s present CityLit Festival: Our Stories Give Light To Our Future. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 5, 2025. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.
Download the CityLit Festival: Our Stories Give Light To Our Future flyer.