Clara Burghelea and Roxana Cazan / Romanian Women Voices in North America

Women writers dominate the literature written by Romanians in North America. Our literary series, turning the spotlight on this phenomenal wave of creativity, organized in partnership with Denver-based Bucharest Inside the Beltway, brings together the largest group of Romanian-American and Romanian-Canadian women writers we have ever assembled in the cyberspace. The program, co-curated with author and academic Cristina A. Bejan, offers a series of readings full of passion, truth and skill to match a time of tumult and reinvention.

The fifth episode features poet, translator and editor Clara Burghelea and poet and translator Roxana Cazan.

Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University, NY. She is a recipient of the Scott James and Jerry Cain Creative Writing and Social Media Fellowship. In 2018, she received the Robert Muroff Poetry Award. Her poems, translations, and reviews appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, Cagibi, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her work was included in anthologies such as Where Are You From? (2017), Peacock Journal- Anthology: Beauty First (2018), Persian Sugar in English Sugar Anthology. Vol. II (2018) and Omnibus! (2020). Her collection The Flavor of The Other was published in March 2020 with Dos Madres Press. Her poems have been translated into Farsi and French. Her next volume, Woundology, is due for publication in 2021 with Chaffinch Press. Her first translation of Ștefan Manasia’s poetry collection Cerul Senin/ The Clear Sky will be published in 2021. She is the Translation and International Poetry Editor of The Blue Nib and a contributing editor to other journals. 

Roxana Cazan is the author of a poetry book entitled The Accident of Birth (2017) and the co-editor of Voices on the Move: Writing by and about Refugees (2020). Her poems have been featured in Poets Reading the News, Connecticut River Review, Construction Magazine, Cold Creek Review, Watershed Review, the Portland Review, and others. Roxana is also a translator of Romanian. Her translation of Matei Vişniec’s Teeth was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Reunion at UT Dallas. Roxana's scholarly work focuses on ethnic and postcolonial literature and women’s studies and has appeared in Neophilologus, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Comparative Literature Studies, Studies in American Jewish Literature, American Journal of Undergraduate Research, and Demeter Press. A chapter is forthcoming in Remembering Kahina: Women, Representation and Resistance in Post-Independence North Africa, Routledge. 

Watch on our Facebook, YouTube and website on Tuesday, November 3, 2 p.m. EDT or any time later. 

Next authors in the series: Anca Mizumschi, Adela Sinclair, Alina Ștefănescu, Lucia Cherciu, Amanda L. Andrei, Andreea Scridon.

Watch the previous episodes here:

Ep. 1 / Cristina A. Bejan and Alta Ifland

Ep. 2 / Mihaela Moscaliuc and Domnica Rădulescu

Ep. 3 / Carmen Bugan and Alina Cumpan

Ep. 4 / Diana Manole and Claudia Serea 

The program is organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and Bucharest Inside the Beltway with the support of NARPA - North American Romanian Press Association.