Former guest Nisha Gupta returns to interview Seema Reza about her creative process and relationship to silence.

Seema Reza is a writer and performer and the author of the memoir When the World Breaks Open (Red Hen Press) and the poetry collection A Constellation of Half-Lives, (Write Bloody Publishing). An alumnus of Goddard College and VONA, her writing has appeared on-line and in print in McSweeney’s, The Washington Post, The LA Review, The Feminist Wire, HerKind, The Offing, and Entropy among others, and case studies on her work have appeared in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Related Diseases in Combat Veterans. She has performed and lectured at universities, festivals, correctional facilities and theaters across the country, including Columbia University, The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, and the Near Future Conference.

Based outside of Washington DC she is the CEO of Community Building Art Works, an organization that encourages the use of the arts as a tool for narration, self-care and socialization among a military population struggling with emotional and physical injuries. In 2015 she was awarded the Col John Gioia Patriot Award by USO of Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore for her work with service members. In 2018, the HBO Documentary “We Are Not Done Yet” featured Reza’s work. She has taught poetry in classrooms, jails, hospitals, and universities.

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