Shattered Constrains: An Anthology of Radical Hospitality is a collaboration between the Midwest Writing Center and the Galvin Fine Arts Center at St. Ambrose University, bringing together poems, stories, and essays by 23 writers from around the Quad City area to form a chorus of welcoming. This book calls out to its readers to consider ways “to dismantle the barriers to belonging faced because of immigration status, recovery journey, or history of incarceration,” to be bold in their generosity, and to embrace those in our community who are too often considered strangers, as who they are: our neighbors.

Contributors to SHATTERED CONSTRAINTS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF RADICAL HOSPITALITY will read their work at this book release event at St. Ambrose University’s Galvin Fine Arts Center. The contributors are (in alphabetical order):

Cirissa Bentley | Sophia Best | Ann Boaden | Adrian Cole | Melissa Conway | Allie Crisco | Dawson Davenport | Claire Dodson | Jacob Duncan| Daniel Flosi | Faith Foley | Philip Goldfarb Styrt | Olha Huska | Farah Marklevits | Joseph Martin | Margie Mejia-Caraballo | Kai Newell | Haven O’Brian | Reyan Onder | Daniel Salazar| Olivia Smith | Elena Vallejo | Esther Windt

The first 100 people to attend the event will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology. There will be copies available for purchase during the event and via the MWC Press online bookstore after the event.

It can be preordered here: https://www.mwcqc.org/books/shattered-constraints/

MWC is collaborating with Galvin Fine Arts at St. Ambrose University to organize a series of events, activities, and publications around the theme of Radical Hospitality, which directly address several important issues in our community (affordable housing, life skills, mental health, safety net, violence intervention, among others).

Radical Hospitality “attends to the growing humanitarian crisis related to immigration and those seeking asylum from various places of harm. We will consider how to dismantle the barriers to belonging faced because of immigration status, recovery journey, or history of incarceration.” The goal of this project is not only to raise awareness about the concept of radical hospitality, but to encourage and inspire as many people in our community as we can to embrace and enact it in their lives and for their fellow citizens.

In the fall of 2023, we held a submission call for poems, stories, and essays from local writers around this theme. We received 61 works, which were read blindly by MWC Press who selected 23 works for inclusion in anthology, which our publishing imprint MWC Press will publish at an event at Galvin Fine Arts Center on April 18, 2024.

This project is supported by Quad City Arts, through the Arts Dollars re-granting program, supported by The Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency, The Hubbell-Waterman Foundation, and the Quad Cities Community Foundation – Isabel Bloom Art Education Endowment, and the MWC Legacy Society.