Please join us for this very special event. Chicago-based artist Pope.L will present a reading of his short story, “The Cypress,” written for X-TRA’s Artist Writes commissions series. “The Cypress,” published in the summer issue of X-TRA, follows the narrator’s descent into a world of crime and incarceration driven by his relationship with a man called Mr. Pretty-Girl. The reading will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with curator Hamza Walker, Executive Director of LAXART. This program is part of X-TRA’s Artist Writes series, commissioned essays and lectures by A.L. Steiner, Andrea Fraser, Martine Syms, and Pope.L. Artist Writes is grounded in X-TRA’s mission to provide a platform for artists to define their own terms of engagement and to make meaningful contributions to the fields of criticism and theory.