Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (she/they) is a queer disabled nonbinary femme writer and cultural worker of Burger/Tamil Sri Lankan and Irish/Roma ascent. Leah's work has been widely published and anthologized, most recently in The Deaf Poets Society, Glitter and Grit, and Octavia's Brood, including work in the anthologies Dear Sister, Persistence: Still Butch and Femme, and Visible: A Femmethology, among others. A VONA fellow, she holds an MFA from Mills College. In 2010, she was named one of the Feminist Press' 40 Feminists Under 40 Shaping the Future, and she is a 2013 Autostraddle Hot 105 member.

Join Leah and the Spectrum Center for a conversation on the intersection of queerness, race, and disability in today's society. Leah will treat us with her latest work on the aforementioned topics and bring us to her own world. 

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is part of a series of keynote speakers Spectrum Center is hosting on campus covering radical queer advocacy and activism work in collaboration with several departments and student organizations at University of Michigan. 

This program is presented by the U-M Spectrum Center, and co-sponsored by Trotter Multicultural Center, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), Center for Campus Involvement (CCI), University Housing Diversity and Inclusion, Institute for the Humanities, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Michigan Community Scholars Program, LSA Residential College, School of Social Work DEI, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art.