Support Ryan Jafar Artes and The Adoptee Open Mic

Ryan Jafar Artes and Katelyn Durst Rivas are two adoption abolitionist poets. We cultivate individual and collective liberation. In this spirit, we call on you to collaborate with us in building this act of communal care. We are informed by our living and nonliving ancestors in all of our work, which calls for a return to indigeneity and the earth, away from systems and structures of capitalism and colonization. We are alchemizing this mutual aid campaign to sustain The Adoptee Open Mic, which was founded by Ryan, who hosts the monthly event online.

Katelyn and Ryan are organizing this call for mutual aid to sustain The Adoptee Open Mic, and support Ryan. Ryan founded The Adoptee Open Mic in December 2020 while unemployed during the Covid-19 quarantine. They facilitate The Adoptee Open Mic with an emphasis on consent and safety, with the purpose of building community around adoptee storytelling. The event has become an important fixture in the landscape of virtual programming for adult adoptees, gathering for intimate sessions which attract 6-30 participants monthly. Ryan unfortunately is faced with returning to work. They expressed this dilemma on a call with Katelyn, who immediately envisioned a plan to save The Adoptee Open Mic.

The resources raised from this mutual aid campaign will allow Ryan to continue hosting The Adoptee Open Mic. The funds will be used to provide Ryan with housing and food security, and support their continued sobriety. These resources will also allow Ryan to bring their vision for The Adoptee Open Mic to fruition. This includes a continuation of the virtual programming, along with in-person sessions in Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, and Philadelphia.

If you are unable to donate at this time, we request that you share this mutual aid campaign with your communities and networks. Thank you for your support, and for building collective liberation with us!

Organizer Bios

Ryan Jafar Artes (he/she/they) is an activist, memoirist, and poet. Ryan’s work re-imagines culture via cultural renaissance from their perspective and lived experience as a transracial transnational South Asian Indian American adoptee. Ryan hosts The Adoptee Open Mic and teaches virtual writing classes to support their activism and art.

Ryan is the Grand Prize Winner for poetry of the inaugural Dream, Create, Liberate: A Future Without Family Policing contest by upEND Movement. Ryan’s poem “8,049 Miles,” was a finalist in the 2021 Prometheus Unbound Competition and is featured in the accompanying anthology. Ryan’s work appears in Panorama: The Journal of Travel Place and Nature, and anthologies published by Querencia Press, Moonstone Arts Center, and Capturing Fire Press.

Katelyn Rivas (she/they) is a poet, essayist, researcher, teaching artist and mother who examines themes of Black girlhood, transracial adoption, motherhood, abolition and care for Black bodies through their work. She completed an MA from Eastern University in Urban Studies and Community Arts and has a BA in English and Writing and Art and Design from Northern Michigan University. In 2019, she published the chapbook “Radical Self-Care for Black Women” and founded the Detroit chapter of The Free Black Women’s Library. Their work has been featured in Michigan Quarterly, Khöra, Tayo Literary Magazine and others.

Katelyn is currently at work on a memoir that is about their experience as a transracial adoptee composing their own definition of Blackness where she weaves personal and political narratives through braided essays that combine prose, verse and Black Feminist reproductive rights issues. When not writing she can be found adventuring with her daughter, laughing with friends and dreaming up a prairie garden.