. . . You gave me . . . What you did not have, and I gave you . . . What I had to give—together, we made . . . Something greater from the difference.
— Alberto Rios, Poet, “When Giving Is All We Have ”
The Journal of Expressive Writing is more than a publication. We aim to be an engaged and supportive community of writers and listeners. Giving our focused attention to each other’s voices, stories, and writing is a generous, necessary act of humanity, repair, and celebration.
Each month, the Journal OPEN MIC will open with a featured author, in addition to 20 reserved spots for writers to read their work. During the OPEN MIC, each writer will read for up to 3 minutes max. All events are FREE to attend and OPEN TO ALL, but you do need to Pre-Register. The Journal Open Mic is produced and hosted by Kelly DuMar.
Thurs, October 7, 2021
7-8:30pm EST
Vanessa Jimenez Gabb
Author of Basic Needs (forthcoming October 26, 2021 from Rescue Press) and Images for Radical Politics (2016), Editor's Choice in the 2015 Rescue Press Black Box Poetry Prize contest, Vanessa Jimenez Gabb has taught English and Writing at St. John’s University and Newark Academy, and for Brooklyn Poets, the International Women’s Writing Guild, and the Geneva Writers Group. In addition to her writing, she currently runs the literary arm of the arts & literary consulting company, Collective Consciousness NYC, Inc, where she offers writing coaching services. Of Belizean and Colombian descent, Vanessa hails from and lives in Brooklyn, NY. Read more about Vanessa.
Thurs, November 11, 2021
7-8:30pm EST
Fleda Brown
View Recording
Fleda Brown’s third collection of memoir-essays, Mortality with Friends, was published by Wayne State University Press in 2021. Growing Old in Poetry: Two Poets, Two Lives, a collection of essays with Vermont Poet Laureate Sydney Lea, came out in 2013 from Green Writers Press, and Driving with Dvorak was published in 2010 by the University of Nebraska Press. Her essays have won the New Letters and the Ohio State Univ/The Journal awards for creative nonfiction. Her tenth collection of poems, Flying Through a Hole in the Storm, (2021) won the Hollis Summers Prize from Ohio University Press. Fleda has won the Felix Pollak Prize, a Pushcart Prize, the Philip Levine Prize, and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award, and she has twice been a finalist for the National Poetry Series. She is professor emerita at the University of Delaware, where she taught for 27 years. She was poet laureate of Delaware 2001–7. She now lives with her husband in Traverse City, Michigan. Read more about Fleda.
Tues, December 7, 2021
7-8:30pm EST
Robert Carr
Robert Carr is the author of Amaranth, published in 2016 by Indolent Books and The Unbuttoned Eye, a full-length 2019 collection from 3: A Taos Press. A five time Pushcart Prize nominee, his poetry appears, or is forthcoming, in the Crab Orchard Review, Lana Turner Journal of Poetry and Opinion, The Maine Review, The Massachusetts Review, Rattle, Shenandoah and other publications. Robert recently retired from a career as Deputy Director for the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. He lives in central Maine with his husband Stephen. Read more about Robert.
Sat, January 8, 2022
3-4:30pm EST
Ojo Olumide Emmanuel
Ojo Olumide Emmanuel is a Nigerian poet, Playwright and Book editor. He is the author of the Poetry Collection "Supplication for Years in Sands (Polarsphere Books, 2021). He was long-listed for the Poet in Nigeria Student Poetry Prize (2020) and he was short-listed for the Arojah Students' Playwriting Prize (2020). He is the winner of the Poetry Tuesday Writer of the month (February 2021). His works have appeared and are forthcoming at the Journal of Expressive Writing, Postgradjournal, Artloungenyc, Feral, Shallowtalesreview, Quills, Poets in Nigeria (PIN), Olney, Melbourne-Culture, TNR and elsewhere. He currently curates the monthly Wakasoprize for Poetry and Abubakar Gimba Prize for Short Fiction. He is also an Assistant Editor at The Nigerian Review (Teen/interview section) and an Alumnus of the SprinNG Writers Fellowship.
Wed, February 2, 2022
7-8:30pm EST
Laura Davis
Laura Davis is a six-time bestselling author. Her books, including The Courage to Heal and I Thought We’d Never Speak Again have been translated into 11 languages and sold 1.8 million copies. Laura's 2021 memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars, tells the story of her dramatic and tumultuous relationship with her mother, Temme, from the time of Laura's birth until her mother's death. This story about "two souls who just wouldn't quit each other" provides a no-holds-barred peek at the real Laura--the woman behind the teacher, the facilitator, and author. Laura lives in Santa Cruz, California with her spouse Karyn and their new yellow lab puppy, Luna. She leads writing workshops in the U.S. and internationally that focus on writing as a tool for healing and transformation. Read more about Laura.
Thurs, March 17, 2022
7:00-8:30pm EST
Catherine Raven
Catherine's Raven's 2021 INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, Fox and I––An Uncommon Friendship—written while she worked full time as a university professor—also won the 2022 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
Oprah Daily called the memoir about the friendship between a solitary woman and a wild fox "extraordinary." She is a member of Sigma Xi, (a scientific honors society), American Mensa and she is a former National Park Ranger. Her natural history essays have appeared in American Scientist, Journal of American Mensa, Montana Magazine, National Geographic-Traveler, and Narrative. Catherine won first place in the 2017 Montana Festival of the Book for nonfiction writing and was the 2019 Grand Prize Winner for book-length non-fiction from the Faulkner Society. Read more about Catherine.
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo is a Zimbabwean American poet, author, speaker, singer, and educator who has performed internationally in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Portugal, and Ireland. U-Meleni was featured on “WGBH Suitcase Stories.” Her poetry collection, Soul Psalms (She Writes Press) was described by David Updike as “written in a fearless female voice tempered with optimism and healing possibilities of love.” She is an Adjunct Professor at Endicott College-Boston teaching Creative Writing and Performance Poetry. U-Meleni is currently working on a multi-modal poetic one woman experience “Roots & Revelations” about identity and belonging stemming from family roots in Leominster and Zimbabwe/South Africa. Learn more at: u-meleni.com
Thursday, May 19, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
Laura L. Engel, originally from Mississippi, transplanted to San Diego’s East County over 50 years ago. In 2016, Laura retired from a 35-year career in the corporate world. In May, 2022, Laura fulfilled her dream of writing her first memoir, You’ll Forget This Ever Happened: Secrets, Shame, and Adoption in the 1960s. Since starting her book in 2017, Laura has had scenes from her memoir published in three Shaking The Tree Anthologies (with a fourth due for publication in 2023) and performed by professional actors at the North Coast Rep theatre in Solana Beach, California. In Spring of 2019, Laura was interviewed by the author Dani Shapiro for her Family Secrets Podcast. Her podcast interview has reached over 1 million listeners. Learn more at: www.lauralengel.com
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Thursday, June 23, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
R.J. Lambert (he, him, his) grew up near Denver and survived the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado. He has since been interested in the healing power of writing as individuals and communities respond to crises such as relationship violence, environmental disasters, mental health, and HIV/AIDS. R.J.’s debut poetry collection, Mind Lit in Neon, is newly available from Finishing Line Press. In these short lyric poems, R.J. brings together 80s music and fine art, celebrities and philosophers, nature and neon, all with a candid and curious sensibility. One poem, “Habits of Creature,” was chosen by Kaveh Akbar for the 2021 Patricia Cleary Miller Award for Poetry from New Letters, and The Worcester Review nominated the poem “Indelible in the Hippocampus” for a 2021 Pushcart Prize. R.J. currently teaches scientific and professional writing at the Medical University of South Carolina. Learn more at: rj-lambert.com
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Thursday, August 25, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
Riham Adly is an award-winning fiction writer and editor from Giza, Egypt who is also a mother, ex-dentist, editor, and blogger. Riham is the first ever female from Africa and the Middle East to have a debut flash fiction collection published in English. Her collection of 61 flash fiction stories Love is Make-Believe was published in November, 2021 by Clarendon House publications in the U.K. View book trailer here. In 2013, her story “The Darker Side of the Moon” won the MAKAN award. In 2019 she was long-listed in Brilliant Flash Fiction’s food themed contest and in 2020 her story “How to Tell a Story from the Heart in Proper Time” was a winner and was included in the 2020 Best Micro-Fiction Anthology. In 2022 her story “Two Peas in a Pod” won second place in the Strand International Flash Fiction Contest. Riham was nominated for the Pushcart in 2019 and was nominated for Best of the Net in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Riham's flash fiction has appeared in over sixty journals. Learn more at: rihamadly.com
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Thursday, September 29, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
Artress Bethany White, PhD
Artress Bethany White, associate professor of English at East Stroudsburg University, is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. She is the recipient of the Trio Award for her poetry collection My Afmerica: poems (Trio House Press, 2019). Her essay collection, Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity, received a 2022 Next Generation Finalist Indie Book Award and is listed as a Community of Literary Magazines and Presses social justice read. Her prose and poetry have appeared in such journals as Harvard Review, POETRY, Birmingham Poetry Review, Solstice, Pleiades, Tahoma Review, Green Mountains Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Ecotone, and The Hopkins Review. Her literary criticism appears in the anthologies: How I Wrote This Poem: 62 Poets on Creativity and Craft (McFarland, 2022); Seeking Home: Marginalization and Representation in Appalachian Literature and Song (University of Tennessee Press, 2017); and Literary Expressions of African Spirituality (Lexington Press, 2013). Learn more at: artressbethanywhite.com
Thursday, October 27, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
Megan McDermott is a poet and Episcopal priest living in Western Massachusetts. She was ordained a priest at age 26. In 2018, she graduated from Yale Divinity School where she earned both a Master’s of Divinity and a diploma in Anglican Studies. As an undergraduate at Susquehanna University in her home state of Pennsylvania, she discovered passions for both poetry and preaching. Those interests led her to the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, an interdisciplinary program dedicated to religion and the arts, which she also graduated from in 2018. Megan is the author of two chapbooks, Prayer Book for Contemporary Dating (Ethel Micro-Press) and Woman as Communion, and a full-length collection Jesus Merch: A Catalog in Poems (Fernwood Press, forthcoming). Learn more at: meganmcdermottpoet.com
Thursday, November 17, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
Hilton Koppe is a writer, workshop facilitator, podcaster, and doctor living on Bundjalung
land on the east coast of Australia. Hilton’s book, One Curious Doctor – A Memoir of Medicine, Migration and Mortality, explores the personal impact of working as a country doctor. His play, Enduring Witness, is used to facilitate conversations about end-of-life care. Hilton is co-host of Dementia In Practice podcast, a top 100 Great Australian Pod. Hilton facilitates reflective writing workshops for doctors and other health professionals with the goal of deepening their compassion, overcoming professional isolation and reducing risk of burnout. The workshops have been adapted for people living with chronic and mental illnesses, as well as enthusiastic amateur writers. Hilton has been invited to present his workshops all the way from Byron Writers Festival to Harvard Medical School. Learn more at: www.hiltonkoppe.com
Thursday, December 15, 2022
7:-8:30pm EST
Taté Walker is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. They are an award-winning Two Spirit storyteller for outlets like The Nation, Pipe Wrench, Everyday Feminism, Native Peoples, Indian Country Today, Subaru’s Drive” magazine, Apartment Therapy, and ANMLY. They are also featured in several anthologies, including FIERCE: Essays by and about Dauntless Women, South Dakota in Poems, W.W. Norton's Everyone's an Author, The Languages of Our Love: An Indigenous Love and Sex Anthology (forthcoming 2022, Abalone Mountain Press), and Ethical Eating: Conversations, Conflicts, Commitments (forthcoming 2023, New York University Press). Taté recently released their first full-length, illustrated poetry book, The Trickster Riots (Abalone Mountain Press, 2022). Purchasing through this link supports the Indigenous/Latinx-owned local bookshop in Phoenix). Learn more at jtatewalker.com
Thursday, January 12, 2023
7:-8:30pm EST
Raegen Pietrucha writes, edits, and consults creatively and professionally. Head of a Gorgon is her debut full-length poetry collection. Her debut poetry chapbook, An Animal I Can't Name, won the 2015 Two of Cups Press competition. She has a memoir in progress. She received her MFA from Bowling Green State University, where she was an assistant editor for Mid-American Review. Her writing has been published in Cimarron Review, Puerto del Sol, and other journals. Her photography has been published in Rivanna Review, Olney, and other outlets. Preferred purchase link for Head of a Gorgon is here. Learn more at: raegenmp.wordpress.com
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Tuesday, January 24, 2023
7:-8:30pm EST
Monologue Showcase
The Journal of Expressive Writing proudly hosted a special theatrical event, showcasing Voices for Healing and Transformation. Writers from Kelly DuMar’s Play Lab will presented monologues for the stage, performed by actors.
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This evening of staged readings was free and open to the public with 100% of the donations supporting Casa Myrna: Boston’s largest provider of shelter and supportive services to survivors of domestic violence, providing safety, resources, advocacy and information since 1977.
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This event raised $357.19 for Casa Myrna!
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Thursday, March 2, 2023
7:-8:30pm EST
Jennifer A. Minotti, Editor + 15 contributors to Who Am I Today?: 40 Women Answer the Question read from this hot off the press Anthology. Published by the Center for Women's Health and Human Rights at Suffolk University in Boston, MA. In this stunning collection of poetry, prose, flash non-fiction, and memoir, 40 talented women from diverse backgrounds and locations around the world (including the USA, India, England, China, Ireland, Canada, and Dubai) answer the question—"Who Am I Today?"—a simple writing prompt that Jen poses at the beginning of each of her Women's Writing Circles. This anthology illuminates the individual and collective power that arises when women's voices are held, supported and affirmed. Preferred purchase is from an independent bookstore that is owned and operated by women, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and others who are aligned with the missions of the Women's Writing Circle.
Thursday, March 30, 2023
7:-8:30pm EST
Kelly DuMar, author of her new book, jinx and heavenly calling is interviewed by Eileen Cleary, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Lily Poetry Review and Lily Poetry Review Books. Kelly is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from Boston. She’s author of four poetry chapbooks, including jinx and heavenly calling, published by Lily Poetry Review Books in March. Kelly’s poems and photos are published in a variety of literary journals. She teaches creative writing and runs Play Labs for the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Transformative Language Arts Network. Kelly produces the Featured Open Mic for the Journal of Expressive Writing. Learn more about Kelly here.
Thursday, April 27, 2023
7:-8:30pm EST
Lisa Lucca is the award-winning author of Ashes to Ink: A Memoir, a story that shines a light on the challenges of living true to who we are. She is a member of the 2023 cast of the off-Broadway production of Listen to Your Mother NYC performing Teal Dreams, a passage from her book. Lisa was awarded the 2022 Literary Legacy Award from El Paso College and was named an Outstanding Woman of the Mesilla Valley for her contributions to the Borderland community in literature and media. Lisa was a #Blogher Voice of the Year Honoree and her work has been published in several anthologies, including the collection, Crone Rising. She is the co-author of the epistolary memoir, You Are Loved, with her partner, Mark Mathias. Learn more about Lisa here.
Thursday, May 18, 2023
7:30:-9:00pm EST
Tommy Archuleta is a mental health and substance abuse counselor for the New Mexico Corrections Department and author of the HOT OFF THE PRESS collection entitled, Susto, "a whittled bone of a book, seething with marrow."
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Tommy Archuleta's poems have appeared in the New England Review, Laurel Review, Lily Poetry Review, The Cortland Review, Guesthouse, and the Poem-a-Day series sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. His debut full-length collection entitled, Susto, (Center for Literary Publishing, Colorado State University Press), and his debut chapbook, Fieldnotes (Lily Poetry Review & Press) were both release in April 2023. He lives and writes on the Cochiti Reservation.
Featured Panel of Writers
Thurs, Oct 12, 2023
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Amy Ferris is an author, a writer, a screenwriter, an editor and a playwright. Her new memoir, Mighty Gorgeous - A Little Book About Messy Love, will be published in the fall (SheWritesPress 2023). Her memoir, Marrying George Clooney, Confessions From a Midlife Crisis (Seal Press) was adapted into an Off-Broadway play (CAP 21 THEATER) in 2012. She has written for both the big screen (Mr. Wonderful, Anthony Minghella - Director) and the small screen (Jack's Place, Scott Brazil, Producer/Director) and her screenplay for Funny Valentines (Director, Julie Dash - BET/STARZ) was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Award. She has written three books, one YA novel and contributed to numerous anthologies. She curated and edited the anthology Shades of Blue (Seal Press), co-edited the anthology Dancing at the Shame Prom (Seal Press) and co-authored - with Rev Run (RunDMC) - the memoir, Old School Love (2021) for HarperCollins. Learn more about Amy here.
Thurs, November 16, 2023
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Cynthia Manick
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No Recording Available
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Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad, 2023) which received 5 stars from Roxane Gay, editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell Colony, and Château de la Napoule among other foundations. For 10 years she curated Soul Sister Revue, a quarterly reading series that promoted poetry as storytelling and featured emerging poets, poet laureates, and Pulitzer prize winners. Manick’s poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems and debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. Cynthia lives in Brooklyn, New York but travels widely for poetry.
Learn more about Cynthia here.
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Wed, December 6, 2023
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Myra Shapiro's poems have appeared in many periodicals and anthologies including The New Yorker and two editions of The Best American Poetry. She is the recipient of the Dylan Thomas Poetry Award from The New School and was the finalist for the Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America. Her books of poems are I'll See You Thursday, 12 Floors Above the Earth and When the World Walks Toward You and the memoir, Four Sublets: Becoming a Poet in New York. Shapiro serves on the Board of Directors of Poets House and teaches poetry workshops for the International Women’s Writing Guild. Learn more at: https://www.myrashapiro.com
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Wed, January 10, 2024
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Olga Livshin
Olga Livshin's poetry and translations appear in the New York Times, Ploughshares, the Kenyon Review, and other journals. She is the author of A Life Replaced: Poems with Translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman (Poets & Traitors Press, 2019). Livshin co-translated A Man Only Needs a Room, a volume of Vladimir Gandelsman's poetry (New Meridian Arts Books, 2022), and Today is a Different War by Lyudmyla Khersonska (Arrowsmith Press, 2023). Learn more at: https://www.olgalivshin.com/
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Thursday, February 1, 2024
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Sarah Birnbach embarked on her encore career as a writer in 2015 after successful careers as an HR management consultant and a family therapist. She has been a sought-after speaker who has conducted more than 500 workshops and presentations. Sarah is the author of A Daughter’s Kaddish: My Year of Grief, Devotion, and Healing, published in 2022 by Wonderwell. She is a five-time award winner from the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, a program of the National League of American Pen Women. Her stories have appeared in numerous magazines and journals as well as The Washington Jewish Week and The Jerusalem Post. Her essay was published in the recently-released anthology, Who Am I Today? Sarah is an active member of the National Association of Memoir Writers and the Women’s National Book Association. Learn more at: sarahbirnbach.com
Thursday, March 7 2024
7:00:-8:30pm EST
January Gill O'Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of Glitter Road (2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. From 2012-2018, she served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cave Canem, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O'Neil was the 2019-2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She currently serves as the 2022-2024 board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and lives in Beverly, MA. Learn more at: januarygilloneil.com
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Thursday, April 11, 2024
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Quintin Collins (he/him) is a writer, assistant director of the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program, and a poetry editor for Salamander. He is the author of The Dandelion Speaks of Survival and Claim Tickets for Stolen People, selected by Marcus Jackson as winner of The Journal's 2020 Charles B. Wheeler Prize. Quintin's other awards and accolades include a Pushcart Prize, a BCALA Literary Award honor, the 2019 Atlantis Award from the Poet's Billow, and Best of the Net nominations. Learn more at: qcollinswriter.com
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Thursday, May 16, 2024
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Nadia Colburn
Nadia Colburn is the author of the poetry books I Say the Sky and The High Shelf, and her poetry and prose have appeared in more than eighty publications, including The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Spirituality & Health, Lion's Roar, and the The Yale Review. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University, is a yoga teacher and serious student of Thich Nhat Hanh and is the founder of Align Your Story Writing School, which brings traditional literary and creative writing studies together with mindfulness, embodied practices, and social and environmental engagement. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children. Learn more at: nadiacolburn.com
Featured Panel of Writers
Thursday, September 26, 2024
7:00:-8:30pm EST
Heather Treseler
Heather Treseler is the author of Auguries & Divinations, which received the 2023 May Sarton NH Prize and is a finalist for the 2024 New England Book Award in Poetry, and Parturition, which received the international chapbook award from the Munster Literature Centre in Ireland. Her poems appear in Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, The Irish Times, Narrative, and The American Scholar and have received the W. B. Yeats Prize and The Missouri Review’s Editors’ Prize. Her criticism appears in LARB, Boston Review, and in eight books about American poetry. She is professor of English at Worcester State University and a scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center. More about Heather at: heathertreseler.com
Featured Panel of Writers
Thurs, November 7, 2024
7-8:30pm EST
Dorsía Smith Silva is the author of In Inheritance of Drowning (CavanKerry, 2024), poetry editor of The Hopper, and Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Her poetry can be found in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Cimarron Review, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. Dorsía is Editor of Latina/Chicana Mothering and the coeditor of seven books. She is the recipient of the Katharine Bakeless Nason Scholarship from Bread Loaf and Voices of Color Fellowship (Second Place) from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She is a member of the Get the Word Out Poetry Cohort and 5 over 50 Writers Cohort of Poets & Writers in 2024. Dorsía holds a Ph.D. in Caribbean Literature and Language. She posts on social media @DSmithSilva and is thrilled that In Inheritance of Drowning is listed as a poetry book to read for fall 2024 by Publishers Weekly. More about Dorsia: dorsiasmithsilva.com
Tuesday, Dec 10, 2024
7-8:30pm EST
Joy Ladin
Joy Ladin is a widely published essayist and poet, literary scholar, and nationally known speaker on transgender issues. Her most autobiographical and socially engaged poetry collection to date, Family is an intimate exploration of private and public loss, resilience, and love. From 2003 to 2021, she held the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University; her gender transition and return to teaching in 2008 made her the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. Joy is the author of twelve books, including the National Jewish Book Award-winning The Book of Anna, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, Through the Door of Life, and ten books of poetry. She is also a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist. More about Joy: www.joyladin.com
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
7-8:30pm EST
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow
View Recording
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow is a writer, sewist, author, and editor native to Blackhawk, Ms. She is a graduate of Mississippi Valley State University (BA, English) and Mississippi University for Women (MFA, Creative Writing). She is an associate editor at Fractured Lit and is the Editor-in-Chief of The Loveliest Review. Exodus has been nominated for Best of The Net, Best MicroFiction, Best Small Fictions and a Pushcart Prize. Her essay, "When the World Was Ending We Wore the Cornrows, We Twisted Our Coils, and We Waited" was selected for Best American Essays 2024 as notable. She is the author of the fiction chapbook—Look at All The Little Hurts of These Newly-Broken Lives and The Bittersweet, Sweet and Bitter Loves and I'm Afraid That I Know Too Much About Myself Now, To Go Back To Who I Knew Before, And Oh Lord, Who Will I Be After I've Known All That I Can? Exodus was the recipient of the 2022 "The Changing American South" fellowship at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow in Arkansas and the Mississippi Arts Commission Grant for an Individual Nonfiction Artist Fellowship in 2023. More about Exodus: www.exodusoktaviabrownlow.com
Thursday, February 27, 2025
7-8:30pm EST
Louis Bourgeois is the Executive Director of Mississippi Prison Writes Initiative, a non-profit which provides training in basic literacy and creative writing for incarcerated Mississippians and Editor in Chief at VOX PRESS, which just published Unit 29: Writing from Parchman Prison, a collection of writings from over 30 Mississippi inmates housed in the infamously brutal Unit 29 at Mississippi State Penitentiary, better known as Parchman Farm. Since its founding in 2004, VOX Press, Inc. has devoted itself to supporting neglected and underserved populations in Mississippi through education, literature, and the arts by publishing books, organizing and sponsoring readings, performances, and other special events, and, by providing in-house educational services (remedial, secondary, and post-secondary) to inmates in the Mississippi prison system. VOX’s Prison Writes was the recipient of the Mississippi Humanities Council’s Educator of the Year Award and the Mississippi Governor’s Volunteer of the Year Award. More about VOX Press, Inc.: www.voxpress.org
Thursday, March 6, 2025
7-8:30pm EST
Nancy Slonim Aronie
View Recording
Nancy Slonim Aronie is the author of Seven Secrets to the Perfect Personal Essay: Crafting the Story Only You Can Write (Oct, 2024), published by New World Library. The author of Memoir as Medicine: The Healing Power of Writing Your Messy, Imperfect, Unruly (but Gorgeously Yours) Life Story and Writing from the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice, she is Founder of the Chilmark Writing Workshop on Martha’s Vineyard, where she lives. Nancy has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Visiting Writer at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and a monthly columnist for McCall’s magazine and multiple newspapers. She was the recipient of the Eye of The Beholder Artist in Residence award at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and won the Teacher of the Year award for all three years she taught at Harvard University for Robert Coles. Nancy also teaches writing workshops and lectures at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Omega Institute, Rowe Conference Center, Esalen, Wain-Wright House, and The Open Center in New York City. More at: chilmarkwritingworkshop.com
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
7-8:30pm EST
Kelly DuMar
Recording only available
to the writers
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Kelly DuMar is a poet, playwright and workshop facilitator from the Boston area. She’s author of four poetry collections, and her poems and art are published in a variety of literary journals. Kelly’s plays have been published and produced around the US. Kelly has been teaching creative writing in a variety of settings for over four decades, and she facilitates Monologue Writing Play Labs and showcases for the International Women’s Writing Guild and the Transformative Language Arts Network. She produces the Featured Open Mic for the Journal of Expressive Writing. A certified psychodramatist, Kelly also leads expressive arts support groups for psychologists in war zones. She lives in the woods with her family on the Charles River. More at:
kellydumar.com
