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.
“A heart, a kaleidoscope of love's diverse embrace,
Shattered constraints, a newfound grace.”
– Kai Newell, “A beacon of hope in a muted world, queer and colorful, unfurled.”
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.
“perhaps you too have endured being divided into nothing”
– Claire Dodson, “safekeep”
“You say you’ve come a long way, I say the door is already open…”
– Melissa Conway, “The Door is Already Open”
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
Pre-order your copy of Shattered Constraints: An Anthology of Radical Hospitality using the PayPal link below. Orders ship on April 19, 2024…
About the Theme of “Radical Hospitality” (from St. Ambrose University)
Radical hospitality refers to an expansive and committed welcome to all regardless of background, beliefs, or circumstances, and particularly to those who face barriers to belonging. More than politeness, radical hospitality calls for a generous sharing of time, resources, and life together. It includes offering support without judgment and fostering relationships of deep connection. Radical hospitality involves collaboration to combat barriers to inclusion and the creation of paths to access and safety in support of true communal belonging.
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Editor’s Note
Kindness, we believe, is not to be taken lightly, nor should it be shared discretely. When John Hagar, Director of The Galvin Fine Arts Center at St. Ambrose University, reached out to us about working on a project around the idea of radical hospitality, we were immediately interested. We were (and still are) excited about the forward and outward nature of its demand to “welcome the stranger.” Given the discrimination, erasure, and lack that so many people experience, we believe the embrace we extend to others should be loud, the welcoming strong and clear as a bell. To be reserved in our welcome and generosity at this moment (at any moment) falls short of the manifold needs of so many, needs that far exceed what any one of us can provide. We need a chorus of welcoming.
The works included in this anthology represent the strongest, and most various, calls to embrace those who too often are meant to feel outside of any community. Together, we hope this book forms a community of radical hospitality: a collective call written for and toward our neighbors across the Quad Cities. These works were read and selected blindly and represent about a third of the total submissions we received for this project in the fall of 2023; for ten of these authors, this is their first publication. Many of these authors read their work at the “Speak Your Peace” event at Galvin Fine Arts Center on January 26, 2024 (we have acknowledged the winners of that night’s competition, as selected by the audience that night).
We are grateful for all of the contributors to this project, and to all of our collaborators and partners who helped to see the project through to the book you are now holding in your hand. We hope that this chorus of welcoming will encourage everyone it encounters to more readily embrace those of our neighbors in need, to create space for larger conversation about the tremendous needs we have and how we might work together to better meet them, and to consider to what extent we want anyone to feel like a stranger. We should not make strangers of our neighbors, lest we become strangers to ourselves. May this book encourage you to open your arms and hearts widely to all of your neighbors…
Sophia Best, Ryan Collins, Sarah Elgatian – Editors
Rock Island, IL
March 2024