Author Event with Sunu Chandy

A Reading of My Dear Comrades with Sanu Chandy in conversation with Sharita Gruberg

Wednesday, June 28th 7:00-8:30pm at As You Are

ASL Interpreters will be present

Get your free ticket HERE

In this poetry collection, Sunu P. Chandy includes stories about her experiences as a woman, civil rights attorney, parent, partner, daughter of South Asian immigrants, and member of the LGBTQ community. These poems cover themes ranging from immigration, social justice activism, friendship loss, fertility challenges, adoption, caregiving, and life during a pandemic. Sunu's poems provide some resolve, some peace, some community, amidst the competing notions of how we are expected to be in the world, especially when facing a range of barriers. Sunu's poems provide company for many who may be experiencing isolation through any one of these experiences and remind us that we are not, in fact, going it alone. Whether the experience is being disregarded as a woman of color attorney, being rejected for being queer, losing a most treasured friendship, doubting one's romantic partner or any other form of heartbreak, Sunu's poems highlight the human requirement of continually starting anew. These poems remind us that we can, and we will, rebuild.

Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a social justice activist through her work as a poet and a civil rights attorney. Sunu’s collection of poems, My Dear Comrades, was selected for the 2021 Terry J. Cox Prize, for publication by Regal House in Spring 2023. Sunu’s work can also be found in Asian American Literary Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Poets on Adoption, Split this Rock’s online social justice database, The Quarry, and in anthologies including The Penguin Book of Indian Poets, The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood and This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation. Sunu also serves as the legal director for the National Women’s Law Center, and she is on the board of the Transgender Law Center. Sunu was proud to be included as one the 2021 Queer Women of Washington and one of Go Magazine’s 100 Women We Love: Class Of 2019. Sunu is delighted to be in community with friends, old and new, as we connect around our creative work and find solidarity and resonance.

Sharita Gruberg (she/her) is the Vice President of Economic Justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families where she champions policies that promote economic equity throughout women's lives. Prior to joining the National Partnership, Sharita served as the Vice President of the LGBTQI+ Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress. In that role, she led the organization’s work advancing LGBTQI+ equality and combating discrimination. Sharita serves on the board of the Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition and was recognized by the National LGBT Bar Association as one of the 40 Best LGBTQ+ Attorneys Under the Age of 40 in 2019.