Word Up welcomes Dixa Ashariel Ramírez to celebrate her debut novel “Mist”, about two overachieving professors who join forces to investigate why generations of Black women have been disappearing into a terrifying realm of eternal ice. In conversation with Ramírez will be Alejandro Heredia, author of “Loca”.

ABOUT THE BOOK: It is 2019 and Josefina Pujols, an overachieving professor going up for tenure at Tanner University (“The Ninth Ivy”), watches in dismay as social media popularity threatens to take over the academic standards she had been rigorously trained to uphold. Online shopping, group chat, and an alcohol problem palliate her encounters with an inbox full of increasingly ludicrous requests from her colleagues.  When Doralis Montero, who had mysteriously quit her prestigious professorship two years earlier, reaches out and explains the sinister reasons behind her disappearance, Jo leaps into a research rabbit hole teeming with South American Nazi villages, racial impostors, and ancient AI. Despite the life-threatening risks inherent to this research project, Jo glows with newfound purpose.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Dixa Ashariel Ramirez was born in Santo Domingo and raised in the Bronx. She teaches literature at Brown University and has published many works of scholarship. She now also writes about spiritual transformation, consciousness, and the nature of reality. Some of her work is available on her website, open_in_newdixaramirez.com.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER  Alejandro Heredia is a writer from the Bronx. He has received fellowships from LAMBDA Literary, Dominican Studies Institute, UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College.

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 50 max attendees. All attendees must register in advance.