Thirty–four years ago, two Chicana women anthologized twenty-nine women of color writers in This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color. This book has become a touchstone of academic, social, and political thinking, study, and activism for two generations. My name is Andrea Canaan, M.F.A. class of 2014, and I am one of the contributors to the historic 4^th Edition of This Bridge Called My Back, co-edited by Chérrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, SUNY Press, New York, 2015. When we contributed to This Bridge, we urgently hoped our writing and social justice work would become literal and figurative bridges from 1981 to now. This Bridge editors and contributors can all say that our urgent hopes have resulted in our work having become of powerful, positive, and productive use in our world. Imagine my joy at spotting a student reading a copy of This Bridge in The Market one day only to learn that it was being used as a text in her Gender Studies class.

I am so proud as a woman of color writer, an activist, a USF alumnus, and contributor to This Bridge, that the USF, MFA in Creative Writing Program has agreed to sponsor a reading of This Bridge on Wednesday September 16, 2015 from 7:00 to 9:00PM. Come join us.