Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 7:30pm

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W. Kamau Bell is a multi-talented, multi-faceted, multi-award-winning storm of sociopolitical comedy. He’s the host and Executive Producer of the Emmy Award-winning CNN docuseries “United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell,” made his Netflix debut with the standup special “Private School Negro,” and published a book with the brief title “The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian.” Bell directs, writes, has three critically acclaimed podcasts, and serves on the board of Hollaback! and Donors Choose, also while being the ACLU Celebrity Ambassador for Racial Justice. The work of W. Kamau Bell is a comedic hurricane we want to be right in the eye of.

Karen Russell’s heightened, vivid, and revelatory writing taps straight into your imagination. Her first book, “Swamplandia!,” was a high-lauded Pulitzer Prize finalist that tracked a family that lived in a gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. Her latest, “Orange World and Other Stories,” weaves eight compelling tales that range from deals with the devil to falling in love with girls made of peat, along with other feral, slippery situations that mirror our inner lives. Russell won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2012 and 2018 and has received MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships. From magical journeys to magically written situations and characters, connect to Russell’s work for a big old dose of creative invigoration.

Franny Choi is all about asking loaded questions. A poet, performer, editor, and playwright, Choi is the author of the poetry collection "Floating, Brilliant, Gone", the chapbook "Death by Sex Machine", and the forthcoming "Soft Science". Her writing examines issues of trauma, identity, memory, and perception while asking questions of the mind and body, making her work feel both cerebral and physical. Choi's poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, and the New England Review, and she is a Kundiman Fellow, cohost of the Poetry Foundation's podcast VS, and member of the Dark Noise Collective.

Kishi Bashi can’t be contained be any one genre of music. The singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter blends pop, rock, electronica and other forms together across his multitude of musical endeavors. A founding member of the New York electronic rock outfit, Jupiter One, he studied film scoring at Berklee College of Music before going on to become a renowned violinist. In 2012, Bashi released his debut album “151a” to immediate fanfare and critical acclaim, with live shows featuring anything from violin to vocal looping to beat boxing. Bashi’s fourth studio album “Omoiyari” will be released in May 2019, and only one thing’s for certain – it will beyond anything you’re expecting.