Recording | Coffee with Crossroads: Creation as Sustenance & Resistance - A conversation with Aja Couchois Duncan

What began as a pandemic gathering has grown into something bigger. Coffee with Crossroads is a live conversation series featuring change-makers, thinkers, and practitioners reimagining what's possible—people whose work pushes us to think, act, and organise differently.

Across nearly every workshop and conversation this year, one theme keeps surfacing: this political moment has people overwhelmed, discouraged, drained, and angry — and rightly so. Which is exactly why grounding ourselves and cultivating our imaginations isn't a luxury in difficult times; it's a necessity for resistance. Imagination is one of our most powerful tools.

So this fall, Crossroads Transitional Executive Director Jessica Vazquez Torres will sit down with artists, musicians, writers, painters, and creatives of all kinds for honest, informal conversations over coffee — live for the Crossroads network. With her guests, Jessica will explore creativity as a source of sustenance and fuel for resistance. Each session will have three outcomes:

• Hear the guest's story and creative journey
• Explore how creativity awakens their imagination
• Talk about why imagination is essential to the work of justice

These aren't polished presentations. They're real conversations about what it takes to imagine — and fight for — a more just world

OCTOBER 9th: Stories That Change the Future: Poetry, Ceremony, and Resistance with Aja Couchois Duncan

What if imagination isn’t a luxury but one of our most powerful tools for getting through hard times? 

Crossroads Transitional Executive Director Jessica Vazquez Torres sits down with poet, librettist, and movement consultant Aja Couchois Duncan for a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, vulnerability, and change. Aja shares her path from early reader and high school dropout to published poet, and how she co-wrote Sweet Land, an experimental opera about colonialism. Together they explore why colonialism is more precarious than it looks, how the stories we tell can change the future, and why creative work asks us to be vulnerable. They also talk about grief and ancestral healing, and why the “soft” work of ceremony and care makes everything else possible. Aja closes with a reading and an invitation: write some junk poetry, go outside, and reclaim your attention.

Pour a cup. Press play. Imagine what’s next.

THE LOGISTICS

• Watching the conversation requires registration.
• Once registered, the link to the conversation recording will be sent in the confirmation email.

THE COMMITMENT

At Crossroads, we believe meaningful dialogue should be open to everyone. That's why Coffee with Crossroads is free — a gift to our friends, partners, collaborators, and the broader public. If these conversations and the voices we're amplifying mean something to you, consider chipping in. We suggest $20, but every contribution — big or small — helps. Your support keeps this space open, accessible, and thriving. It's how we keep bringing you thoughtful, inclusive conversations that spark change and build community. To donate: select "Donation" at checkout and enter your amount.