The Just Kin Reading Series is a collective healing space intentionally curated by and for members of the LGBTQ+ community held on the second Saturday of the month from 4-7 PM at Semilla Cafe + Studio in Hartford, Connecticut. Each workshop will feature a reading and Q&A with a Queer or Trans writer exploring the themes of love, intimacy, and pleasure, followed by a writing exercise, conversation, and ritual.

• m. mick powell on March 9

• Alejandro Heredia on April 13

• danilo machado on May 11

Light refreshments will be provided via Semilla Cafe, Salty Queer Bakery, and Likkle Patty Shop. Participants are required to wear high quality masks (e.g. KN95 or N95) in the space unless eating or drinking. 

Space is limited and tickets are sliding scale $0-$100.

The Just Kin Reading Series is held in loving memory of Cecilia Gentili (1972-2024), Trans immigrant, sex worker, artist, activist, and mother.

ABOUT JUST KIN

Just Kin is a cultural organizing project of the People’s Saturday School dedicated to creating sanctuaries where Queer and Trans people can feel at home and tell our stories, centering Black and indigenous people, (im)migrants, and survivors. Co-founded by varun khattar sharma and danilo machado, Just Kin launched with an arts festival in August 2023, which featured the Hartford premier of “(Un)Documents”, a play written and performed by Jesús I. Valles which inspired the project’s title.

ABOUT THE PEOPLE’S SATURDAY SCHOOL

The People’s Saturday School (TPSS) is an emerging worker-owned cooperative of facilitators based in Hartford, Connecticut. Guided by the principles and practices of care, accountability, and cooperation, we support individuals and organizations working towards collective liberation. We offer workshops, training programs, arts & culture events, and consulting and peer counseling services. Learn more at our website: www.saturdaycooperative.org

FACILITATOR BIOS

Alejandro Heredia is a queer Afro-Dominican writer from The Bronx. His debut novel LOCA is forthcoming Spring 2025 from Simon and Schuster. 

He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, and the Dominican Studies Institute. In 2019, he was selected by Myriam Gurba as the winner of the Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Contest. His chapbook of short stories, You’re the Only Friend I Need (2021), explores themes of queer transnationalism, friendship, and (un)belonging in the African Diaspora. Heredia’s work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Lambda Literary Review, Tasteful Rude Magazine, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College.

Heredia currently serves as Trinity College’s Ann Plato Post-Doctoral Fellow, where he teaches and writes.

CURATOR BIO

varun khattar sharma (they/he/she)is a Punjabi Queer non-binary facilitator, writer, designer, curator, strategist, uncle, auntie, and survivor living in Hartford, Connecticut. 

They are a Co-Op Navigator Fellow with reSET, a co-founder of the People’s Saturday School, and a facilitator with Co-Creating Effective & Inclusive Organizations and Beyond Diversity 101. They previously co-curated “Homoland Security: Come In Gurl!” (2021), UndocuPoetry Week (2020) and “Breaking Bread & Borders: Conversations about Food, Migration & Home” (2020). 

A former high school teacher and community organizer, they believe deeply in our capacity and responsibility as humans to heal and transform.