Local author Kendra Greene releases her new chapbook, Vagrants and Uncommon Visitors, with Illustrator Fowzia Karimi.
The third chapbook in A. Kendra Greene’s Icelandic collectors trilogy, Vagrants and Uncommon Visitors traces the origins, impact, and significance of a bird collection turned museum on the shores of Iceland’s Lake Mývatn. The lake supports a eutrophic ecology that, among other things, gives life to an all-but-complete collection of Icelandic birds. The birds, or maybe their collection, give purpose to Sigurgeir, a native son who has been sighting birds and gathering eggs on the lakeside family farm since childhood. When Sigurgeir is killed in an accident on the lake, his family begins a decade-long struggle to make a museum. In this gorgeously illustrated, long-form lyric essay, Vagrants and Uncommon Visitors concerns itself with family, gender, and memorials as it examines the grief, natural history, and accomplishment of Sigurgeir’s Bird Museum.
A. Kendra Greene began her museum career adhering text to the wall: one vinyl letter at a time. The University of Iowa gave her an MFA in Nonfiction Writing and the opportunity to costume a giant ground sloth in its Museum of Natural History. She’s been a Fulbright Grantee, Jacob K. Javits Fellow, and most recently Writer in Residence at the Dallas Museum of Art’s Center for Creative Connections. Her artist’s books are held in collections as far away as Qatar, and her zines appear in the White Rock Zine Machine for 25 cents a pop.
Fowzia Karimi has a background in Visual Arts and Biology. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. In her work, she combines the written and visual arts to tell stories. She is a recipient of The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards – 2011. She lives in Denton, Texas.
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