Art by Jin Suk
The Launch of AGNI 103
Join us for the VIRTUAL LAUNCH of the new spring issue, AGNI 103!
Tuesday, April 28, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. EDT
Register to join ON ZOOM: https://agni103.eventbrite.com
AGNI celebrates its ONE HUNDRED THIRD issue with readings by
- Hayan Charara: Author of several collections—including the Pulitzer Prize–nominatedThese Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit. Charara’s poems have been praised for their “ability to sing the difficult thing with real clarity” (Kaveh Akbar).
- Christie Hodgen: Novelist whose work has been called “the literary equivalent of a hand grenade” (The New York Times). Hodgen’s AGNI essay is a furious, breathless recounting of a long friendship with a strange neighbor.
- Joel Calahan & Giovanna Frene: Calahan, translator of experimental poetry and fiction from Italian and Latin, brings the work of poet Frene (Pieve del Grappa, Treviso, Italy) to English-language readers.
- Charu Sinha: Comedy writer, culture journalist, and emerging fiction writer. Sinha’s work has appeared in, among other outlets, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, and New York Magazine, and she has worked for Netflix and NPR.
The evening will also feature a musical performance by Alisa Amador.
More on the featured readers & performers:
Hayan Charara is the author of four books of poetry, most recently These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit (Milkweed Editions, 2022). He has also written a children’s book, The Three Lucys (Lee & Low, 2016), and a novel, Hush Little Children (Flexible Press, 2025). Born in Detroit, he lived in New York City for many years before moving to Texas, where he is a professor in the Honors College and creative writing program at the University of Houston.
Christie Hodgen is the author of four books of fiction, most recently Boy Meets Girl (The University of Chicago Press, 2022), winner of the 2020 AWP Award for the Novel. She teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and edits New Letters.
Joel Calahan’s translations from the Italian have appeared in such journals as Circumference, Aufgabe, AGNI, Cambridge Literary Review, and Lana Turner. The Bees, his chapbook of Book IV of Virgil’s Georgics, was published in 2024 by Verge Books. Calahan served as coeditor of Chicago Review from 2010 to 2013, where he published special issues on poet A. R. Ammons, composer Elliott Carter, and contemporary Italian poetry and fiction in translation. He lives in San Diego, California.
Giovanna Frene (the pen name of Sandra Bortolazzo) is the author of four books in Italian, including Il noto, il nuovo (the noted, the new; Transeuropa, 2011), with a facing-page English translation by Joel Calahan. She teaches poetry writing at the Bottega di narrazione (Narrative Workshop) and codirects the lit blog Inverso. Giornale di poesia.
Charu Sinha’s fiction has been published or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, Expat Press, AGNI, and Underwater New York, and elsewhere. As a comedy writer, she has written for Netflix, iHeartRadio, and NPR, and as a journalist, for New York Magazine and Heatmap News. She’s based in Brooklyn, New York.
The bilingual singer-songwriter Alisa Amador won the 2022 Tiny Desk Contest with “Milonga Accidental,” the first Spanish-language song to take the prize—and the resulting concert was the first to be performed back at the NPR desk after Covid. In 2024 Alisa released Multitudes, an album that ranges across languages, emotions, and tempos in “a testament to her steadfast dedication to creating a safe space for people to come as they are” (Sophie Severs for Atwood Magazine).
Tuesday, April 28th, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. EDT
A virtual event, free to attend!
Registration required: https://agni103.eventbrite.com
Contact us for accessibility or other questions: agni [at] bu.edu