A Conversation with James Shea

The public is invited to 

A Conversation with James Shea

Author of Last Day of My Face (2025) 

Part of the KRITIKA KULTURA READING SERIES

To register, visit https://go.ateneo.edu/KKReadingSeriesShea.

Kritika Kultura, in collaboration with the Literary and Cultural Studies Program, the Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices, the Department of Fine Arts, and PLUME, invites you to “A Conversation with James Shea,” with poet James Shea of Hong Kong Baptist University. The event will be held on 14 January 2026, 5:00–7:00 PM, at the Escaler Hall, Ateneo de Manila University.

The program will include a reading from Shea’s most recent poetry collection, Last Day of My Face, as well as a conversation with the author on poetics and the practice of writing, alongside writers Nikka Osorio Abeleda and Abner E. Dormiendo.

Admission is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase before and after the event. Please bring a valid ID for campus access. 

BIONOTE. James Shea is the author of Last Day of My Face (University of Iowa Press), selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the 2024 Iowa Poetry Prize. His previous collections include The Lost Novel (Fence Books) and Star in the Eye, selected by Nick Flynn for the Fence Modern Poets Series. He is the translator of Applause for a Cloud (Black Ocean), a collection of contemporary Japanese haiku by Sayumi Kamakura. He co-edited The Routledge Global Haiku Reader (Routledge) and co-translated Moving a Stone: Selected Poems of Yam Gong (Zephyr Press). He is the director of the International Writers’ Workshop at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), where he also directs HKBU’s bilingual creative writing program. He has received grants from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, National Endowment for the Arts, and Vermont Arts Council.

ABOUT THE DISCUSSANTS. Nikka Osorio Abeleda is a faculty member at Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University, where she teaches Philippine literature, creative writing, and art appreciation. In 2007, she served as a writing fellow for Filipino poetry at the IYAS La Salle National Writers’ Workshop. Since 2003, she has been a member of LIRA (Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo), a group of young poets writing in Filipino. Her poems have been featured in anthologies such as Latay sa Isipan: Mga Bagong Tulang Filipino and Lila: Mga Tula. She also authored a poetry collection titled Ang Nalalabi Rito, which was reprinted in 2024.

Abner E. Dormiendo is the author of Sa Antipolo pa rin ang Antipolo (Librong LIRA, 2023), a finalist for Best Book of Poetry in Filipino at the 42nd National Book Awards. He is currently the president of Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo (LIRA), the oldest organization of poets writing in Filipino, and the director of its workshop. He teaches creative writing and art appreciation at the Ateneo de Manila University.

ABOUT KRITIKA KULTURA. Kritika Kultura is acknowledged by a host of Asian and Asian American Studies libraries and scholarly networks and indexed in the MLA International Bibliography, Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Clarivate), Scopus, EBSCO, the Directory of Open Access Journals, and the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs (ICCTP). Read KK issues and learn about submission guidelines and events on https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk or email the editors at kk@ateneo.edu.