Celebrate the first anniversary of Forging, Forge Project’s online journal, with writers and contributors on making spaces for Indigenous voices at Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, New York, Thursday, August 8, 2024, from 6 to 8 PM.

Join Forging contributors Autumn Fourkiller, Anthony Romero, and Sháńdíín Brown, along with managing editor Frances Cathryn, for a special conversation on mainstream journalism and publishing, writing from Native worldviews, and how best to support Indigenous writers and editors in industries that have rarely valued their perspectives.

Forge Project will also share its past and upcoming initiatives specifically for writers, including its art-criticism residencies and writers-in-residence programs, as well as what’s next for Forging journal.

Please stay after the event for the opportunity to enjoy light refreshments, support independent bookstores by purchasing a drink, and meet other writers, editors, and locals working in the journalism and publishing industries.

Forge Project charges a sliding scale fee for events and recommends direct donations in the amount of your choosing to the Cultural Affairs Department at the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. For more information on our fee structure, please see our Eventbrite page.

Space is limited and seating is first-come, first-served. Reservations are not required to attend this conversation, and reserving a ticket on Eventbrite does not guarantee a seat. Reservations are still appreciated, however; they help us stay in touch and communicate changes if needed, and they give us an idea of how many people to expect.

This event will be live-streamed and recorded to Forge Project's Vimeo page.

About Forging

Forging is a digital-first journal for critically imagining Native futures. Its editors and contributors are deeply committed to changing the way we study and interpret Indigenous survivance in the face of settler colonialism, with a focus on engaging, highlighting, and learning from Native voices.

About the participants

Autumn Fourkiller is a writer from the “Early Death Capital of the World.” The child of two teachers, Autumn is currently at work on a novel and a variety of essays. She is the Tin House Workshop’s Communications Coordinator and her work and interpretations can be found in New York Magazine’s The Cut, Longreads, Electric Lit, and elsewhere.

Anthony Romero is a Boston-based artist, writer, and organizer committed to documenting and supporting Black, Brown, and Indigenous Communities. He is a founding member of the artistic research collective, Sonic Insurgency Research Group. His work was most recently included in the exhibition, Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art at the Vincent Price Art Museum. Romero's recent book, Lastgaspism: Art and Survival in the Age of Pandemic (co-edited with Daniel Tucker and Dan S. Wang) was published by Soberscove press. His most recent articles include, La Vivienda es La Cura: Latinx Art, Politics, and Housing Justice in East Boston (Routledge), Sonic Legal Spaces: An Essay of Overdubs (OpenWorks), and Asking for Permission/Listening for Consent (Forging).

Sháńdíín Brown is curator, creative and citizen of the Navajo Nation from Arizona. Sháńdíín Brown éí Kinyaa'áanii niloó bi'dizhchį́. Bilagáana yáshchíín, Tł'ízílání dabicheii dóó Bilagáana dabinalí. Béésh Haagéédéé’ naaghá. Ndi Kanédikiʼ Hahoodzodi éí kééhat’į́ k’ad. Sháńdíín Brown was born into the Towering House clan, for the white man. Her maternal grandfather’s clan is the Many Goats clan and her paternal grandfather was white. She is from Coppermine, Arizona, and currently lives in Connecticut.

As a PhD student, she studies multitemporal Native American art and fashion at Yale University in the History of Art department. Her research interests include Indigenous feminism and futurism. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where she earned her BA in Anthropology and Native American Studies and minored in Environmental Studies. Previously she held positions at the Heard Museum, Penn Museum, Hood Museum of Art, Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), School for Advanced Research (SAR) Indian Arts Research Center (IARC), and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum. While at the RISD Museum, she was the first Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow for Native American Art and was eventually promoted to the first Assistant Curator of Native American Art. 

Her writing has been published by First American Art Magazine, Forge Project, and Fashion Studies. She is the 2023-2025 secretary for the Native American Art Studies Association (NAASA) and a curatorial consultant for the Gochman Family Collection. Her jewelry practice can be viewed on Instagram @T.Begay.Designs

Through her role as editorial projects manager, Frances Cathryn authors Forge Project's monthly newsletter and manages its social media and digital-first journal, Forging. Outside of her work at Forge, Frances writes cultural criticism on topics from the myth of American exceptionalism to marginalized historical landscapes for Frieze and the Brooklyn Rail, among others.

About Forge Project

Forge Project is a Native-led non-profit organization whose mandate is to cultivate and advance Indigenous leadership in arts and culture. A change-making model for Native cultural self-determination and leadership, Forge Project fuses traditional and contemporary knowledge and practices to build community, public education, and collective action.

Under the leadership of Executive Director & Chief Curator Candice Hopkins (Carcross/Tagish First Nation) and Director of Indigenous Programs & Relationality Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yaktitʸutitʸu yaktiłhini [Northern Chumash]), Forge has directly supported nearly 300 Indigenous artists, hosted dozens of cultural practitioners and knowledge keepers, and built new audiences and platforms for their work.

About Rough Draft

Rough Draft is a community bar and bookstore located in uptown Kingston, New York, the ancestral homelands of the Esopus band of the Lenape tribe, who were forcibly displaced from the region through years of Anglo-European settlement. Rough Draft is a place for people from Kingston and beyond to come together for reading, drinking, conversation, and nightly events.