GAB Fest 2026

I’m thrilled to be included in the 3rd Annual Greater Austin Book Festival! GAB Fest brings together authors, illustrators, and readers from Travis, Hays, and Williamson Counties to establish meaningful connections and engage with their community.

Come schmooze with local writers, buy signed books, bask in gorgeous city views from the library, and enjoy a full day of panels, workshops, and programs.

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Saturday, May 16, 2026

Book Fest
10am – 5pm

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Austin Public Library (Central)
710 W. César Chávez St.
Special Event Center (1st floor)
Austin, TX

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Free

Women Who Submit ATX April Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's April gathering! We’ll have a quick meet and greet, followed by dedicated time to write and/or submit work. Then members can announce literary news, events, and opportunities.

At WWS, we are women supporting women — writing, submitting work, connecting, and sharing resources. Bring your laptop! All women and nonbinary writers welcome. Membership is free.

Women Who Submit is a national non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women and non-binary writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, and providing resources, workshops, grants, and publication opportunities to help them submit work and achieve greater equity in publishing.

The Austin chapter meets to write, share information, and submit work upstairs at the Central Market Café 38th & N. Lamar, on the second Saturday of every month at 10am.

ATX Chapter Lead:
Ramona Reeves

ATX Chapter Co-Lead:
Cristina Adams

Events & Social Media Coordinator:
Hollie Hardy

New Member Liason:
Meg Jerit

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Saturday, April 11, 2026
10am - 11:30am

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Central Market Cafe
(Upstairs, Elevator Accessible)
4001 N Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX

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Free

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SNS | 3-28-26

Join us online for an evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring:
Sara Bawany & Claire Bowman

Theme: In Living Color
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, March 28, 2026
8:00pm Central time

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 846 5359 7762

Passcode:  384048

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Author Bios

Sara Bawany, MFA, MSSW, is an award-winning poet, author, and clinical social worker based in Austin, TX. She is the author of two poetry books: (w)holehearted: a collection of poetry and prose, and Quarter Life Crisis (Flowersong Press, 2023). She manages her own mental health practice and serves as the Lead Writing Instructor at House of Amal, with whom she co-edited and curated the Threads of Palestine anthology for charity. You can learn more about her work at www.sarabawany.com.

Claire Bowman (she/they) is a writer, editor, and the author of Dear Creatures. Her poetry has been published in Narrative Magazine, PANK, Black Warrior Review, A Dozen Nothing, and elsewhere. They were the recipient of a fellowship from the Michener Center for Writers, and serve as the Editor in Chief and co-Executive Director at Host Publications. She co-hosts the long-standing feminist reading series, I Scream Social, and is a passionate advocate for Austin’s literary community. Learn more at: clairebowmanpoet.com

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, March 21, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

March Writing Prompt: In Living Color

"In living color" describes something seen in full, vibrant, and realistic color, rather than in black and white. Originating from the advent of color television, it now often signifies seeing something firsthand, in vivid detail, or in a particularly striking and memorable way. Where the literal meaning holds imagery bursting with color, the figurative meaning offers realism, vivid intensity, immediacy, or honesty.

The inspiration poems gathered below explore color in many different ways. Some focus on the lush physical world— the peonies in Mary Oliver’s garden, the orchard in Ross Gay’s poem. Others use color as metaphor, memory, or identity: Natasha Trethewey reflecting on race and childhood, Maggie Nelson’s whole book about blue. Kim Addonizio’s desire as a red dress. Frank O’Hara’s famous poem considers color through art and process, while Jillian Weise’s “Color Study in Blue” reimagines perception through a technological and embodied lens. In each case, color becomes a medium of art and a way of seeing.

Color can hold emotion, culture, memory, and meaning. It can illuminate joy, reveal injustice, capture a fleeting moment, or transform an ordinary object into something luminous. Color can also stand in for mood, tone, and atmosphere—the color of grief or longing, the color of a rainy afternoon.

This month, your invitation is to create something that lives in color. That might mean writing vividly about the sensory world, exploring the symbolic meaning of color, or capturing a moment of experience so clearly that it feels immediate and alive on the page.

Write a poem, essay, short scene, flash or hybrid piece inspired in some way by the idea of In Living Color.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

1. Write a piece centered on a single color—red, blue, gold, chartreuse, bruise-purple. Where does it appear? What memories, objects, emotions, or histories attach themselves to it?

2. Write about an object that holds color — A dress, a painting, a fruit, a childhood toy, a stained glass window, a traffic light, a bouquet, a bruise. Let the object anchor the piece while the meaning of its color unfolds.

3. Write a memory through color rather than chronology — Instead of telling the story in order, move through the colors you remember: the green carpet, the yellow kitchen light, the red bike leaning against the fence.

4. Explore the emotional life of color — What color is grief? What color is anger, joy, boredom, jealousy, or relief? Write a piece that treats color as emotional language.

5. Write about color and identity — Skin tone, clothing, cultural symbolism, hair, uniforms, flags, makeup, paint. How does color shape the way people see one another—or themselves?

6. Write about making art — Frank O’Hara’s poem begins with painting but becomes something else entirely. Write about drawing, painting, crafting, cooking, decorating, or any act of creation where color matters.

7. Write about a moment of vivid perception — Capture a moment so sharply that it feels alive on the page—a sunset, a neon sign in the rain, the inside of a grocery store, a field in spring.

8. Write about something that changes color — Leaves turning, the sky at dusk, rust spreading on metal, dye soaking into fabric, a bruise healing. Let the shift in color guide the structure of the piece.

9. Write about color in unexpected places — The colors of sound, taste, numbers, cities at night, silence. Let your imagination stretch what color can mean.

10. Write about a moment when the world suddenly felt more vivid — A realization, a revelation, a news story, a memory that refuses to fade. What does it look like to experience life “in living color”?

Feel free to follow your own path if something else emerges. Let the idea of color, literal or metaphorical, lead you somewhere surprising. As ever, the theme is optional — an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

Why I Am Not a Painter By Frank O’Hara

Sorrow Is Not My Name By Ross Gay

Peonies By Mary Oliver

“What Do Women Want?” By Kim Addonizio

Excerpt of Bluets By Maggie Nelson

White Lies By Natasha Trethewey

Some Days By Billy Collins

Tiara By Mark Doty

Parsley By Rita Dove

Color Study in Blue By The Cyborg Jillian Weise

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Want more writing prompts?

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Women Who Submit ATX March Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's March gathering! We’ll have a quick meet and greet, followed by dedicated time to write and/or submit work. Then members can announce literary news, events, and opportunities. At WWS, we love to support each other, work, laugh, chat, and share resources. Bring your laptop! All women and nonbinary writers welcome. Membership is free.

Women Who Submit is a national non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women and non-binary writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, and providing resources, workshops, grants, and publication opportunities to help them submit work and achieve greater equity in publishing.

The Austin chapter meets to write, share information, and submit work upstairs at the Central Market Café 38th & N. Lamar, on the second Saturday of every month at 10am.

ATX Chapter Lead:
Ramona Reeves

ATX Chapter Co-Lead:
Cristina Adams

Events & Social Media Coordinator:
Hollie Hardy

New Member Liason:
Meg Jerit

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Saturday, March 14, 2026
10am - 11:30am

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Central Market Cafe
(Upstairs, Elevator Accessible)
4001 N Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX

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Free

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Tender Hearts Club: An Anthology of Love Poems

This poetry anthology brings together voices shaped by love — the tender, the aching, the transformative, the true. It's a celebration of vulnerability, courage, longing, devotion, and the kind of love that changes us.

Join us online to hear love poems read by contributors.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
M.G. Martin
Richard Stimac
More readers tba!

Hosted by: Ingrid Keir

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Sunday, March 8, 2026
11am Pacific / 1pm Central Time

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Zoom

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Free

SNS | 2-28-26

Join us online for a love-drenched evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring:
Ingrid Keir & Mona Zamfirescu

Theme: Love in Uncertain Times
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, February 28, 2026
8:00pm Central time

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 839 4951 1186

Passcode:  166605

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Author Bios

Ingrid Keir is a poet, curator, publisher and healer. She runs Feather Press, an independent women’s literary press based in the Bay Area, and Toward The Light Healing, an energy healing practice. She is co-founder of the WordParty, a long-running San Francisco poetry and jazz series. A former Creative Writing instructor at SFSU, Ingrid has featured at numerous Bay Area venues including the DeYoung Museum, The Beat Museum, SF Public Library, Quiet Lightning and San Francisco City Hall. She’s published the chapbooks: The Secrets of Like  (2004), Toward the Light  (2007) and a full-length collection The Choreography of Nests (2016). Other publications include: Colossus: Current, Petaluma Poetry Walk Anthology, So It Goes, Dash Literary Journal, Two Hawks Quarterly, Sparkle + Blink and Hot Tub Astronaut. Ingrid is also the editor of the brand-new Love Poetry Anthology: Tender Hearts Club, Volume One releasing this month!

Learn more: https://featherpressbooks.wordpress.com

Order the love poem anthology here:
https://telegraphhillbooks.com/products/tender-hearts-club-volume-one

Writer, painter, and photographer Mona Zamfirescu is a Professor of Mathematics at Baruch College, CUNY. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies and has been showcased at the NYC Poetry Festival. Mona is a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. She holds a PhD in Statistics from Columbia University. Currently, she is studying for an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry at CCNY, CUNY. Her debut collection, Who Looks Outside Dreams, was published by Poetry Global Network, Publishing in 2025.

Get the chapbook! https://www.poetryglobalnetwork.com/who-looks-outside-dreams

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, February 28, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

February Writing Prompt: Love in Uncertain Times

We live in an era of uncertainty: news alerts, climate change, unanswered questions, and shifting ground. And yet, we find moments of joy, hope, love, friendship. A sunset, a kiss, a held hand, a thank you text, a love letter. We hold on despite the world’s precarity.

This month, we return to our annual February theme, but in a fresh context. Love in uncertain times might offer romance, or it might lean familial, communal, spiritual, political. You might consider love long-distance, post-breakup, pre-apocalypse, or self-directed. This love might be tender, anxious, funny, devoted, bewildered, or stubbornly hopeful, existing in small rituals of daily life or in the face of vast, unknowable futures.

Your challenge this month is to write a poem or short prose piece (3 minutes or less) inspired by Love in Uncertain Times.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Write about love during a moment of instability: a move, an illness, a political season, a natural disaster, a breakup, a new beginning.

• Write a piece in which love persists even though the world feels like it’s ending.

• Write about desire, longing, heartbreak, hunger, regret, unrequited love, the one that got away, the imaginary lover.

• Write about love on another planet or plane.

• Write about love and miscommunication or missed connection: missed calls, unsent texts, words you wish you’d said, the unmet stranger.

• Write about the small, domestic acts of love: saying I’m sorry, cooking a favorite meal, making the bed, running errands, bringing home flowers or donuts, fixing the roof, making the dreaded doctor appointment, waiting, staying.

• Write about loving someone whose future is uncertain, or loving without guarantees, or loving someone with different political views.

• Write about the tension between permanence and impermanence—what stays, what disappears, what you try to hold onto.

• Write a surreal or imaginative love poem (new planets, talking birds, alternate timelines, parallel lives).

• Write about loving someone across distance: time zones, borders, grief, memory.

• Write an anti-love poem that argues with love, doubts love, or questions whether love is enough.

• Write about the ways love shows up quietly, almost invisibly, in everyday life.

Or something else! There are as many ways to write about love as there are loves and lovers. As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

The Quiet World By Jeffrey McDaniel

Astronomers Locate a New Planet By Matthew Olzmann

Bird-Understander By Craig Arnold

i love you to the moon & By Chen Chen

Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real? By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

[Sonnet] You jerk you didn't call me up By Bernadette Mayer

Object Permanence By Nicole Sealey

A Memory of Us By Safia Elhillo

Aimless Love By Billy Collins

the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love By Kara Jackson

Venice, Unaccompanied By Monica Youn

[love is more thicker than forget] By E. E. Cummings

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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

Women Who Submit ATX Monthly Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's Valentine's Day Submission Party! We’re serious about writing and submitting and we love to support each other, work, laugh, chat, and share resources. All women and nonbinary writers welcome. Membership is free.

Women Who Submit is a national non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women and non-binary writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, and providing resources, workshops, grants, and publication opportunities to help them submit work and achieve greater equity in publishing.

The Austin chapter meets to write, share information, and submit work upstairs at the Central Market Café 38th & N. Lamar, on the second Saturday of every month at 10am.

ATX Chapter Lead:
Ramona Reeves

ATX Chapter Co-Lead:
Cristina Adams

Events & Social Media Coordinator:
Hollie Hardy

New Member Liason:
Meg Jerit

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Saturday, February 14, 2026
10am - 11:30am

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Central Market Cafe
(Upstairs, Elevator Accessible)
4001 N Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX

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Free

SNS | 1-31-26

Join us online for the first Saturday Night Special of 2026 — an incredible evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring:
Jess Hagemann & Laura Villareal

Theme: Dispel
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, January 31, 2026
8:00pm Central time

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 896 8816 4851

Passcode:  547256

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Author Bios

Laura Villareal is a poet and book critic. Her debut poetry collection, Girl’s Guide to Leaving, was awarded Texas Institute of Letters' John A. Robert Johnson Award for a First Book of Poetry and the Writers' League of Texas Book Award for Poetry. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts, National Book Critics Circle’s Emerging Critics Program, and the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program.

Buy Girl’s Guide to Leaving: https://www.lauravillareal.com/books

Jess Hagemann's recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beneath the Bluebonnets: Tales of Terror from Texas Women, Three Seasons of Winter, and Last Girls Club, among others. Her debut novel Headcheese (2018) won an IPPY Award in Horror. Her sophomore novel Mother-Eating (2025) joins Marie Antoinette and cults. Jess received her MFA from the Jack Kerouac School, and has been awarded a teaching fellowship at McNeese State University as well as a writing residency at Dear Butte. She lives in Austin.

More at jesshagemann.com

Buy signed copies of Mother-Eating: https://ghoulish.rip/product/mother-eating/

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, January 24, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

January Writing Prompt: Dispel

January is a time of quiet reflection, of fresh starts and recentering goals, of healing, (re)committing, and banishing the things that no longer serve us.

To “dispel” is to is to clear something actively—to banish, undo, loosen, scatter, disperse, thin the air. Think: Fog lifting. A body shedding, poison, pounds, or pain. Learning to leave. Grief changing shape. What remains is not always clean, but it is breathable.

The inspiration pieces gathered below approach dispel from different angles: leaving as an art, grief as a slow release, fog as both obstruction and mercy, memory as something the body carries until it doesn’t. These selections remind us that dispelling doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s a walk away. Sometimes it’s staying long enough for the mist to thin. Sometimes it’s learning to let go.

This month, let’s write toward something you are (or have) intentionally cleared, excised, left, or dispelled. Let the act of dispelling shape the form—whether that’s a poem, a short prose piece, a list, a fragment, or something in between.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Write a piece that centers on leaving as a skill—something learned, practiced, revised. What instructions, rules, or missteps does it require?

• Begin in a state of obscurity (fog, grief, confusion, sleep, ritual, heat, noise) and let the piece enact the gradual clearing—without promising certainty on the other side.

• Write about unselfing: a moment when ego, identity, or certainty thins or dissolves. What replaces it—if anything?

• Let the body lead. Write from a physical sensation of release: unclenching, exhaling, loosening, waking, standing up, walking out.

• Take a phrase, belief, or inherited story you were taught to hold sacred and write the moment it is quietly undone—not necessarily shattered, just dispelled.

• Write a piece that refuses urgency. Let dispelling be slow, unglamorous, ongoing—a grief that softens, a fog that lifts inch by inch.

• Experiment with negative space: erasures, gaps, white space, fragments, or lists of what’s no longer there. Let absence do some of the work.

Or something else! Please feel free to mix, match, alter, or follow whatever inspiration takes you! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

Girl’s Guide to Leaving By Laura Villareal

The Art of Unselfing By Safiya Sinclair

“the desert dispels this hallowed ground of coarse insinuations” By Julia Wong Kcomt (Translated By Jennifer Shyue)

Good Grief By KB Brookins

A.M. Fog By Mark Jarman

Instructions on Not Giving Up By Ada Limón

A Body Drawn By Its Own Memory By Kate Colby

My Mother's Afternoon Nap By Donald Britton

Diluvian Dream By Wilmer Mills

The Man Moves Earth By Cathy Song

Bonus

To Have & to Hold By Jess Hagemann (short horror story featured on NPR)

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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

Tea & Poison: A Book Launch for The Beginners

Join author Heidi Kasa in celebration of her new speculative fiction chapbook, The Beginners, (Digging Press 2025) for an afternoon of "tea and poison" with short fiction readings from local Austin writers.

Featuring:

Roanna Flowers
G.M. Gray
Hollie Hardy
Britta Jensen
Kara Lenore
Gustavo Martinez
Nikei Salas
Heidi Kasa

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Sunday, January 11, 2026
2pm – 4pm

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Antiques by Anna
9722 Great Hills Trail Ste. 390
Austin, TX

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Free Event

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About The Beginners

Winner of the 2023 Digging Press Chapbook Series Award. The Beginners is a collection where poetic intensity meets speculative imagination, demanding we examine not just where we're going, but who we're becoming along the way. With sharp wit and surprising tenderness, Heidi Kasa explores what it means to be human when the lines blur-between self and machine, love and dependence, memory and ghost. Each story is a portal, sometimes surreal and startling, transporting readers to places where the uncanny becomes beautiful and the impossible feels inevitable.

About Heidi Kasa

Heidi Kasa is the author of the poetry collection The Bullet Takes Forever (Mouthfeel Press, 2025), the flash fiction collection The Beginners, winner of the 2023 Digging Press Chapbook Contest (2025), and the fiction chapbook Split (Monday Night Press, 2022). She received the 2024 Plaza Prose Poetry Prize and the 2023 Poetry Super Highway Prize for poems from The Bullet Takes Forever. Her writing has been chosen as a finalist or shortlisted for Best of the Net, Fractured Lit, Black Lawrence Press, Plentitudes Flash Fiction, Plaza Flash Fiction, and ESWA Crossroads contests, and nominated for a Pushcart. Kasa's work has appeared in Barrelhouse, The Brooklyn Rail, The Pinch Journal Online, and elsewhere. Find her at www.heidikasa.com.

BookWoman 2nd Thursday Poetry

Join us on Zoom or in person at BookWoman in Austin, TX for the inaugural 2nd Thursday Poetry Reading of 2026!

If you're joining us in-store, be sure to bring a mask, as BookWoman continues to require them in the spirit of protecting the vulnerable among us. And if you're joining via Zoom, be sure to register via Eventbrite and to log into your Zoom account with email and password before accessing the link.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
Laurel Benjamin

Hosted by:
Cindy Huyser

Each month on the second Thursday, BookWoman presents an inclusive poetry reading and open mic hosted by Cindy Huyser. The evening highlights one or more featured poets—local, national, or international—who share a curated selection of their work, followed by a “round-robin” open mic where attendees are invited to read their own poetry. The event is free, accessible, and available both in person at BookWoman in Austin and online via Zoom

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Thursday, January 8, 2026
7:15pm – 9pm

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BookWoman
5501 N. Lamar #A-105
Austin, TX

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Free Event

Space is limited, register to reserve your spot and/or Zoom Link!

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Author Bios

Hollie Hardy is the author of two books of poetry, Lions Like Us (Red Light Lit Press, 2024) and How to Take a Bullet: And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014), winner of the Annual Poetry Center Book Award at San Francisco State University. She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU and works as an editor, book coach, and private poetry instructor online. She is the founder of Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets and host of the long-running reading series Saturday Night Special: A Virtual Open Mic. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals. Recent publications include Alchemy, Caesura, Colossus, The Common, Fourteen Hills, Four Tulips, Passionfruit Review, Poetry Super Highway, Synkroniciti, and more. She lives in Austin, TX. Follow her on Instagram: @hollie.hardy Learn more at: holliehardy.com

Laurel Benjamin is a San Francisco Bay Area poet, whose debut poetry collection, Flowers on a Train (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025), was a finalist for the Cider Press Book Award and received an Honorable Mention for the Small Harbor Publishing Laureate Prize. Forthcoming is Written into the Curve of the Sea's Open Throat (Shanti Arts, 2026). She is active with the Women’s Poetry Salon and is a reader for Common Ground Review. She founded and leads Ekphrastic Writers, a group dedicated to writing and community. Publications: Lily Poetry Review, Pirene's Fountain, Cider Press Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Calyx, Mom Egg Review, Gone Lawn, Nixes Mate. Her work has also been anthologized in Women in a Golden State (Gunpowder Press, 2025), The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America's Land, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders (2025), among others. She has Pushcart Prize and Best of Net nominations, as well as finalist status in many ekphrastic challenges, and honorable mention for the Ruben Rose Memorial prize. Laurel holds an MFA from Mills College. She is a former temp worker, children's book buyer, and community college English instructor. She invented a secret language with her brother. https://laurelbenjamin.com

Local Author Book Fair

Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar in East Austin hosts its inaugural Local Author Book Fair, a winter market just in time for the holidays. Shop local, support bookstores, sip mulled wine, meet Austin authors, and buy signed copies of books for everyone on your holiday gift list!

Check back soon for official list of authors & vendors

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Sunday, December 7, 2025
12pm – 4pm

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Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar
1101 E 11th ST
Austin, TX

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Free Event

Women Who Submit - ATX 2nd Anniversary Reading

Join us for an afternoon of poetry and prose to celebrate the second anniversary of the ATX Chapter of Women Who Submit.

Women Who Submit is an organization that began in Los Angeles and now has many chapters across the United States. The organization seeks to empower women and nonbinary writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, supporting and encouraging submissions to literary journals, and clarifying the submission and publication process. The Austin chapter began in late 2023 and meets to write, share information and submit work the second Saturday of every month.

Featuring:

Cristina Adams
Sara Bawany
Roanna Flowers
Jess Hagemann
Hollie Hardy
Meg Jerit
Heidi Kasa
Ramona Reeves
Nikei S Salas
Laura Villareal

Hosted by:
Hollie Hardy & Meg Jerit

If you are a member of Women Who Submit, and would like to read at this event, please fill out a request to read form.

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Saturday, December 6, 2025
4pm - 6pm

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Epoch Coffee (The Village)
2700 W Anderson Ln.
Austin, TX

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Free Event

The Bullet Takes Forever Book Launch Party

Join us for the launch of Heidi Kasa's first full-length poetry collection, The Bullet Takes Forever from Mouthfeel Press.

Featuring:

Kim Denning
Hollie Hardy
S.C. Says
Stalina Villarreal
Heidi Kasa

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Friday, December 5, 2025
6:30pm

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Birdhouse Books
5925 Burnet Rd
Austin, TX

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About the Author

Heidi Kasa is the author of the poetry collection The Bullet Takes Forever, the flash fiction collection The Beginners, winner of the 2023 Digging Press Chapbook Contest, and Split. She received the 2024 Plaza Prose Poetry Prize and the 2023 Poetry Super Highway Prize for poems from The Bullet Takes Forever. Kasa's work has appeared in Barrelhouse, The Brooklyn Rail, The Pinch Journal Online, and elsewhere. She works as an editor in Austin and creates handmade artist books. Find her at www.heidikasa.com.

About the Book

The Bullet Takes Forever holds a massive mirror up to our country's deadly relationship with gun violence, from the perspective of both the bullets and the humans who wield them. With calculated precision and considered framing, this collection holds space for the anger, frustration, fear, and agony that gun violence inspires, and calls its readers to recognize the humanity we risk losing by accepting these events as ordinary.

~S.C. Says, author of Golden Brown Skin

At once personal and political, serious and satirical, these poems repurpose familiar tropes and phrases about guns to offer intimate snapshots of a dangerous new normal. In her most surreal and surprising poems, Kasa personifies and reimagines the bullet in existential crisis, yearning to “abandon itself mid-flight,” to become a camera or a key, an object of softness, perhaps, like “the sound of feathers resettling in a pillow.” This book seeks to break through silence and taboo, to ask Why can’t we be safe? What about the children?

~Hollie Hardy, author of Lions Like Us and How to Take a Bullet: And Other Survival Poems

Beauty and horror coexist in Heidi Kasa’s The Bullet Takes Forever, as she juxtaposes luminous imagery with the gloom and stark reality of pervasive gun violence. Her deft command of poetics lures the reader by guiding the eye and heart through the seesaw of loss and hope to persevere. The turns and layering in Kasa’s wordplay build emotions that make her work memorable, remarkable, and powerful.                        

~Stalina Emmanuelle Villarreal, author of Watcha

SNS | 11-29-25

Join us online for the last Saturday Night Special of 2025 — an incredible evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring:
Allison Goldstein & Heidi Kasa

Theme: The End
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

SNS will return at the end of January, following our annual holiday hiatus in December.

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Saturday, November 29, 2025
8:00pm Central time

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 876 4729 5193

Passcode:  176048

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Author Bios

Allison Goldstein is a poet, writer, and visual artist. She received her MFA in Poetry from California College of the Arts. Her horror movie-themed poetry chapbook, In The Night, In The Dark was released by Bottlecap Press in 2025. Her work has also appeared in a variety of literary and cultural publications including Not Very Quiet: The Anthology, Saw Palm, Gyroscope Review, Last Girls Club, and Maximum Rocknroll. Allison currently lives and writes in South Florida. You can learn more about her work by visiting allisongoldsteinpoetry.com

Buy the book: https://bottlecap.press/collections/bottlecap-features/products/thenight

Read Interview: https://bebarbar.com/author-spotlight-allison-goldstein

Heidi Kasa is the author of the just released poetry collection The Bullet Takes Forever (Mouthfeel Press), the forthcoming flash fiction collection The Beginners, winner of the 2023 Digging Press Chapbook Contest, and Split (Monday Night Press). She received the 2024 Plaza Prose Poetry Prize and the 2023 Poetry Super Highway Prize for poems from The Bullet Takes Forever. Kasa's work has appeared in Barrelhouse, The Brooklyn Rail, The Pinch Journal Online, and elsewhere. She works as an editor in Austin and creates handmade artist books. Find her at heidikasa.com

Buy the Bullet Book: https://www.mouthfeelbooks.com/product/the-bullet-takes-forever-by-heidi-kasa/78

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on SUNDAY afternoon, November 23, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

November Writing Prompt: The End

Every ending holds its own kind of beginning. The last line, the last light, the quiet after— each an invitation to pay attention. What dissolves? What remains? “The end” can mean closure or collapse, relief or revelation. It can be literal — the end of a story, a relationship, a world — or abstract, a threshold crossed, a transformation underway. The inspiration poems below remind us that endings are never just one thing — they are multitudes: elegy, echo, edge, and turning point.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Write toward a final moment: the last time, last word, last touch, last breath.

• Imagine the world ending — tenderly, absurdly, beautifully, or not at all.

• Explore a personal ending: of love, of a habit, of an era — what new self begins to appear in its wake?

• Try writing the ending first — what story or image leads up to it?

• Write from the voice of something ending: the year, a city, a species, a promise.

• Consider endings that aren’t tragic — what if the end is liberation, release, or relief?

• Or make it playful: the end of a TV show, a meal, a dream, a sentence — what lingers after?

Or something else! As ever, please feel free to follow whatever inspiration takes you! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

At the End of the Day By Shira Dentz

The End Game of Bloom By Deborah Landau

Quartet for the End of Time By Alison C. Rollins

After the Beginning, Before the End By Deborah Brown

The End By Emily Berry

Into Darkness by Karen Marker

The End of Crisis By Cindy Juyoung Ok

The End By Dorothea Lasky

The End of Television By Sara Nicholson

The End of Marriage By Lavinia Greenlaw

All the American Poets Have Titled Their New Books “The End” By Cornelius Eady

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Women Who Submit-ATX Symposium

The Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit hosts its first symposium! Join us for a half day of writing workshops and panel discussions in a cozy backyard garden in South Austin! Write, mingle with local authors, and buy books!

Women Who Submit seeks to empower women and nonbinary writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, supporting and encouraging submissions to literary journals, and clarifying the submission and publication process.  

The Austin chapter meets upstairs at the Central Market Café on second Saturdays. Become a WWS-ATX member to attend for free! Message for more information. We are open to women-identified and nonbinary writers!

Schedule

Meet & Greet: 9am – 9:30am
Coffee & tea in the fall garden

SESSION I: 9:30am – 10:30am
How and Why to Submit to Journals (Ramona Reeves)

SESSION II: 10:45am – Noon
Found Language, Lost Letters: A Multi-Genre Write-In (Hollie Hardy)

SESSION III: 12:15pm – 1:30 pm
Panel on Publishing and Writing Process (Panelists: Jess Hagemann (fiction), Laura Villareal (poetry), Paige Schilt (nonfiction) moderated by Cristina Adams)

Afterparty 1:30pm
Lunch at a nearby restaurant (optional)

Hosted by:

Ramona Reeves
ATX Chapter Lead

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Saturday, November 22, 2025
9am – 1:30pm

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South Austin
(RSVP for Address)

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Free for WWS Members
$20 donation for nonmembers (by invite only)

SNS | 10-25-25

Join us online for the 15th Annual SNS Halloween Reading, Open Mic
& Costume Party!

Featuring:
Jeffrey Bryant & Valerie Nies

Theme: Halloween
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, October 25, 2025
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 843 5908 9805

Passcode: 328842

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Author Bios

Jeffrey Bryant is a Pushcart-nominated queer poet. His work has appeared in numerous publications including the LA Times, LA Weekly, Synkroniciti Magazine, Quill and Echo and Tension Literary, as well as the anthologies Coiled Serpent, Altadena Literary Review, Shadowplay Literary Journal, 13 Poets for a Pigeon Kiss, and Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts. His debut collection The Catacombs of Vanished Lovers is out now from Cherry Pie Press @thecherrypiepress

To get a copy of the book, email your name and address to thecherrypiepress@gmail.com

Valerie Nies is a comedian, poet, and gluten enthusiast living in Austin, Texas. She is the author of Snacks for the Love Hungry (World Stage Press) and the chapbook Imaginary Frenemies. Valerie produces a monthly comedy and literary arts show called Half Empty Half Full at ColdTowne Theater in Austin, Texas. She previously hosted the acclaimed all-women’s stand-up showcase Smile More for four years. Her lauded stand-up comedy class is currently offered at Merlin Works, and she has given lectures on humor in storytelling in poetry at The University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and Community Literature Initiative in Los Angeles. Valerie’s poetry has appeared in publications such as Rattle, SOFTBLOW, and Drunk Monkeys. Her humor has appeared in McSweeney’s, Reductress, Jezebel, Bitch, and elsewhere. Connect on social @valerieknees or at valerienies.com.

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, October 18, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

October Writing Prompt

For the 15th Annual Saturday Night Special Halloween Open Mic, we’re taking up the classic theme.

Tell us a scary story; sing us a spooky song; write us a ghost poem about your pumpkin spice latte. Anything Halloween or Halloween adjacent is on theme.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Think: evil, demons, zombies, vampires, sirens, witches, werewolves, ghosts, predators, clowns, the circus, the horsemen of the apocalypse, blood-thirsty or benign creatures, Bigfoot, fairies, mutants, psychopaths, politicians, parents, screaming children, bullies, bosses, exes, oppressors, societal cruelties, false fears, monsters in masquerade, the misunderstood…

• Think: pumpkins, scarecrows, cemeteries, black cats, bats, harvest moons, apple cider, candy, hay rides, trick-or-treat

• What costumes have you dressed up in? What costume parties have you attended?

• What defines a monster? What monsters have you known? What monsters have you been? Were they real or imagined?

• What is grotesque? Unthinkable?

• What are you afraid of? How is that fear literalized?

• Think: things in the woods, under the bed, outside the window, inside the house, in the past, in your dreams.

• Think: pool drains, sharks, heights, blood, poison, ants, failure, the sun, disfigurement, dying alone

• Think: fire, flood, earthquakes, war, death, prejudice, injustice, grief, silence

• Have you ever seen a ghost? An apparition? Experienced the supernatural? Or know someone who has? What happened?

• In what ways are legacies, generational pain, memories, photos, even DNA kinds of ghosts?

• Consider: palimpsest as ghost, the way a city builds on the bones of the past.

• Think: haunted house, graveyard, poltergeist, possession, exorcism, bumps in the night

• Whom have you lost? What would you say to their ghost?

• What’s your best, craziest, strangest, or scariest Halloween story? Make a poem or flash story of it (3 minutes or less!)

Or something else! As ever, please feel free to follow whatever inspiration takes you! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

Below are some of my favorite Halloween poems and short stories on our theme to inspire you.

INSPIRATION

Poems

Jane Goodall and Bruce Springsteen Contemplate their Childlessness by John Dudek
Little Spells by Jennifer Sweeney
All Souls by Michael Collier
Windigo by Louise Erdrich
Bildungsroman by Sam Sax
Ghost by Cynthia Huntington
Field of Skulls by Mary Karr
Monster in the Lake by Martín Espada
Monster by Jason Irwin
The Witch Has Told You a Story by Ava Leavell Haymon
Halloween in the Anthropocene, 2015 by Craig Santos Perez
Strange Are the Products by George Oppen
Halloween by Lindsay Turner

Short Fiction

The Hitman short short fiction by T. C. Boyle
Pumpkins flash fiction by Francine Prose
The Anatomy of Desire flash fiction by John L’Heureux

Bonus

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers! McSweeney’s Essay by Collin Nissan

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SNS | 9-27-25

Join us online for an evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring: Jessica Hincapie + Cintia Santana

Theme: Strange Days
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, September 27, 2025
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 837 2756 4935

Passcode: 762437

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Author Bios

Cintia Santana’s debut poetry collection, The Disordered Alphabet (Four Way Books 2023) won a Northern California Book Award. She teaches fiction and poetry workshops in Spanish, as well as literary translation courses at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets 2016 and 2020, Beloit Poetry Journal, Guernica, The Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Narrative, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, The Threepenny Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. Santana’s work has been supported by CantoMundo and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. She lives in Northern California.

Buy the book: https://fourwaybooks.com/site/the-disordered-alphabet/

Jessica Hincapié’s debut poetry collection Bloomer won the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence (Trio House Press, 2022). She is the winner of RHINO Poetry’s 2024 Founder’s Prize and her work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes, finalist for Radar Poetry's 2020 Coniston Prize judged by Ada Limón, as well as a recipient of a 2022 Cuttyhunk Writers’ Residency. She has work out in numerous publications, including Gulf Stream Magazine, Poetry Northwest, Narrative Mag, and more. Originally from South Florida, she received her MFA in Poetry from The University of Texas (2018), where she won the Michael Adams Prize in Poetry. She also served as Bat City Review’s first Online Content and Web Editor.

Buy the book: https://www.jessicahincapie.com/bloomer

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, September 20, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

September Writing Prompt: Strange Days

Sometimes the world tilts—ordinary moments shimmer sideways, reality wears a new mask, or what we thought we knew grows alien. Sometimes reading the news renders the whole day strange, the world otherworldly. Strangeness can be absurd and funny, political and sharp, surreal or quietly tender. This month’s theme reminds us that creativity thrives in the uncanny, in the defamiliarizing of the everyday in the bizarre little fractures, where possibility rushes in, unexpected. Lean into the strange. Make it weird.

SOME IDEAS

• The Strangest Day — Write about a particular day that stands out in your memory because it felt so strange, so surreal, so different from every other day — perhaps because of a disaster, an election, a holiday, an outing, an unexpected visit, a stroke of luck, a series of surprises.

• Reimagine the ordinary — Like Ada Limón’s “Almost Forty” or Jodie Hollander’s “Avenue of Plane Trees,” take something everyday (a birthday, a street, a passing thought) and tilt it until it feels uncanny or surreal.

• Prophets and absurdities — Inspired by Barbara Perez’s “Strange Little Prophets” or Kurt Cole Eidsvig’s “Donald Trump Meditating on Love,” invent strange prophets, absurd teachers, or surreal guides to lead us through this moment.

• Possibility in strangeness — Following Chen Chen’s “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities,” write a piece that imagines wild, playful, or impossible futures. What strange wish might reframe the present?

• The strangeness of time — Robin Ekiss’s “The Bones of August” and Kunwar Narain’s “A Strange Day” remind us how uncanny it feels when time itself feels off-kilter. Write about a day, month, or season that arrived bent, skewed, or haunted.

• Apocalypse, again — In Franny Choi’s “The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On,” the surreal overlaps with the political. Write about living through strange times—apocalyptic headlines, climate unraveling, political absurdities—but focus on the surreal textures of daily survival within it.

• Space oddities — Bob Hicok’s “The Age of Space Travel” reminds us that science and technology make the present itself feel surreal. Write about invention, science, or technology that makes your life stranger than you expected.

• Defamiliarize the familiar — Pick an object in your room right now and describe it until it becomes strange: a spoon, a lamp, a pair of socks, a window. Let it morph into metaphor, prophecy, dreamscape.

• Or something else! This month’s theme invites playfulness. Let yourself take wild leaps!
  

INSPIRATION

The Age of Space Travel By Bob Hicok

Almost Forty By Ada Limón

Strange Little Prophets By Barbara Perez

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities By Chen Chen

The Bones of August By Robin Ekiss

Avenue of Plane Trees By Jodie Hollander

A Strange Day By Kunwar Narain

Donald Trump Meditating on Love By Kurt Cole Eidsvig

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On By Franny Choi

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Write More: If you like the SNS writing prompts, consider signing up for my subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets. Learn more and sign up for inspiration, accountability, and community!

SNS | 8-30-25

Join us online for an evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring: Beth Marquez + Brendan Constantine

Theme: Games
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, August 30, 2025
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 864 3529 3101

Passcode: 546291

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Author Bios

Beth Marquez has recent publications in Lit Shark, Cathexis, October Hill, and Spillway. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, a 2017 Pink Door Fellow, and holds three mathematics degrees. She is a freelance statistician, poet, and singer-songwriter residing in Los Angeles.

Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in many of the nation’s standards, including Poetry, The Nation, Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly, and Poem-a-Day. Recent collections include ‘Dementia, My Darling’ (2016) from Red Hen Press and ‘Bouncy Bounce’ (2018) a chapbook from Blue Horse Press. He has received support and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s All Things Considered, TED ED, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. Brendan teaches at the Windward School and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His latest book ‘The Opposites Game’ is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2026 and is available for preorder now.

Buy Brendan’s books here: https://brendanconstantine.com/bookstore/

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, August 23, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

August Writing Prompt: Games

It’s game time! Let’s play! This month’s theme is open to all kinds of games—board games, word games, sports games, card games, video games, slot machines, political games, lotteries, childhood games, game night, Squid Games, Game of Thrones, dating games, bingo, bedroom games, mind games, game shows, murder mystery games… you get the idea. There are no rules. But nobody wins at strip go-fish.

INSPIRATION

WHY I Am/ Because You Are by Andi Myles and Brendan Constantine

The Opposites Game by Brendan Constantine
This is an animated video version of the poem produced by TED-Ed as part of its series "There's a Poem for That"

Un-Velvet by Beth Marquez

Chess by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Game by Laura Kasischke

Diogenes Invents a Game by Mary Karr

Khaleesi Says by Leah Umansky

The End Game of Bloom by Deborah Landau

Sims: The Game by Elizabeth Spires

A Dream of Games by Josephine Jacobsen

War Machines Dress Up as Drag Queens by Mohammed El-Kurd

As Capitalism Gasps for Breath I Watch the Knicks Game by Yesenia Montilla

Game Prayer by Al Ortolani

Dogmatic Statement concerning the Game of Chess: Theme for a Series of Pictures by Ezra Pound

Fun and Games with a Sphere by Ko Un

Sideline Poetry by Sam Cohen
Poetry series assembled from the conversations overheard at children’s soccer games

SOME IDEAS

• Try out Brendan Constantine’s Question & Answer partner poem game (read the rules/ process at the end of the sample poem and find a willing partner to collaborate with (or join the write-in).

• Write about a current hobby, childhood game or sport you loved or hated, won or lost, or weren’t allowed to play—the Barbie you couldn’t have, the team you weren’t picked for.

• Tag, You’re It. Write a chase poem. Each line or sentence should push the action forward until someone is caught—or no one is.

• Create a whimsical piece using Oulipian contraints such as S +7 or an e-excluding lipogram

• Brendan Constantine’s Opposites Game asks “what is the opposite of a gun?” To play your own version of this game, try flipping a cliché, idiom, or truth on its head until the meaning transforms into something strange or profound. Or write in terms of impossible opposites.

• Write about a memorable game night or sporting event you attended

• Write about cheating in a game, at life, in love, in politics.

• Write about dating games—literal or psychological, yours or someone else’s, real or reality TV

• Write about a competition in which winning feels like losing, or losing feels like winning. This could be about sports, romance, politics, or an internal battle.

• Write about rules—social rules, parental rules, governmental rules, rules for being a person, rules for a real or imaginary game. The rules can be absurd, sinister, beautiful, or heartbreakingly unfair.

• Imagine life as a game or simulation—Sims, D&D, Candy Crush, Monopoly, Checkers, dice, or something only you could invent. Who’s holding the controller? Who’s pulling your strings?

• Write about the end game, the Hail Mary, the bases loaded, the nuke, the checkmate. Borrow from chess, sports, relationships, war games, or apocalypse scenarios. Focus on what happens when the pieces are few, the clock is almost out, and every move matters.

• Write about a game rigged from the start—either in your favor or against you. Who set it up this way? What happens when you realize it?

• Instructions Missing—Imagine opening a game box and finding only the pieces—no instructions. Your piece could be the chaotic game you invent on the spot, or the confusion, arguments, and alliances that erupt instead.

• Or something else! As ever, the prompt is optional, just a few ideas to jump start your pen.

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Write More: If you like the SNS writing prompts, consider signing up for my subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets. Learn more and sign up for inspiration, accountability, and community!

SNS | 7-26-25

Join us online for an evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring: C. Prudence Arceneaux + Michelle Patton

Theme: Stars
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, July 26, 2025
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)

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Online Event
Free Admission

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Sign Up in Advance to Get on the Open Mic List

The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Scroll down for monthly writing prompt

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Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 839 5740 4701

Passcode: 665391

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Author Bios

C. Prudence Arceneaux, a native Texan, teaches English and Creative Writing, and is the Department Chair of Creative Writing, at Austin Community College, in Austin, TX. Her work has appeared in various journals, including The Academy of American Poets’ Poem- A- Day, Limestone, New Texas, Hazmat Review, Texas Observer, Whiskey Island Magazine, African Voices and Inkwell. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks —Dirt (2018 Jean Pedrick Prize) and Liberty — and newly released collection Proprioception.
Get the book: https://www.tamupress.com/book/9781680034028/proprioception/

Michelle Patton received an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Fresno. She won the Ernesto Trejo Award for poetry in 2003 and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Rattle, The Atlanta Review, Southern Poetry Review, Calyx, Zyzzyva, Prairie Schooner, Cutbank, and others. She teaches English at Fresno City College.
Read some poems from her forthcoming first book, Horoscopes for Emergencies on the Poetry Super Highway: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/psh/poetry-from-michelle-patton-and-bob-mcafee/

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me the week before SNS, on Saturday afternoon, July 19, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

July Writing Prompt: Stars

Whether we’re talking about the night sky, horoscopes, gold stars, or movie stars—this month’s theme invites mystery, metaphor, imagination, and wonder. Take some inspiration from the stars.

SOME IDEAS

• Write about literal stars—space, constellations, the sun, dead stars, black holes, the unknown, vastness and splendor.

• Take a night walk. Or get out a lawn chair and sit outside one night, look at the sky, name things, let your mind wander and follow your thoughts onto the page.

• Write about a camping or hiking trip where the dark sky lets you see way more stars than usual. Describe that sense of wonder.

• Write from the point of view of an astronaut in space, perhaps looking back at Earth, or beyond to new horizons.

• Draw metaphorical connections between distant stars and life on earth, how does the macro of space illuminate the micro of dailiness?

• Write about a celebrity—a movie star, musician, journalist, politician, famous writer, a popular historical character, a star teacher—this might be a fictional portrait, a true story, an epistolary poem (love/hate letter), satire, dream, fantasy, tabloid, passing allusion, etc.

• Write a poem or prose piece in the form of a horoscope

• Write about a time when you shone, or were the star of something, or received a gold star. What happened? Why was it complicated?

Or something else! As ever, the prompt is optional, just a few ideas to jump start your pen.

INSPIRATION

Dead Stars by Ada Limón

My God It’s Full of Stars by Tracy K. Smith

I Know a Silent Movie Star by Michael Palmer

Astronomers Locate a New Planet by Matthew Olzmann

2 Poems from Horoscopes for Emergencies by Michelle Patton

Ode to Patrick Swayze by Tishani Doshi

How to Measure Distance by Charlotte Pence

Starship Somatics: An Invitation by Petra Kuppers

Stars over the Dordogne by Sylvia Plath

Stargazer by Dara Wier

Star Dust by Kay Ryan

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Write More: If you like the SNS writing prompts, consider signing up for my subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets. Learn more and sign up for inspiration, accountability, and community!

Saturday Literary Salon

The Saturday Literary Salon is an international online reading series produced by Eye Publish We in collaboration with Time to Arrive Open Mic, featuring writers from the US and the UK reading from their recent books, followed by an open mic.

Featuring:

Nazelah Jamison
Ian J McKenzie
Hollie Hardy

Hosted by: Dane Ince

Share / RSVP on Facebook

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Saturday, July 5, 2025
12pm Central Time

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Zoom

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Free

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Author Bios

Nazelah Jamison is a Bay Area-based poet, comedian, vocalist, and emcee known for her dynamic performances and fearless voice. Author of Evolutionary Heart (Nomadic Press), her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Town: An Anthology of Oakland Poets. She hosts Thee Virtual Open Mic and Berkeley Poetry Slam, and is active in curating inclusive, community-centered events. Also a horror screenwriter and performer, Nazelah brings heart, humor, and heat to every stage she touches—plus, she gives the best hugs in the Bay.

Ian J McKenzie is a poet from Barrow in Furness, Cumbria, NW England. He has had his poetry published in several anthologies to date, including, ‘Dissent: an anthology to end war and capitalism’, edited by Mark Lipman for Vagabond Books and in ‘Ain’t No Dead Beats Around Here’, edited by Fin Hall, published by Like A Blot From The Blue. He has also recently been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for Poetry for his poem, ‘A Piet Mondrian View of Beach Life’, included in, ‘Ain’t No Dead Beats Around Here.’ His debut collection, ‘Going To Montana In My Mind – Poems From A Coffee Shop’, came out in June 2025; copies are available online at lulu.com

Hollie Hardy is the author of two books of poetry, Lions Like Us (Red Light Lit Press) and How to Take a Bullet: And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press), winner of the Annual Poetry Center Book Award at San Francisco State University. She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU and teaches private writing workshops online. She is the founder of Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets, and host of the long-running reading series Saturday Night Special: A Virtual Open Mic. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in numerous anthologies and literary journals such as Alchemy, Colossus, The Common, Eleven Eleven, Fourteen Hills, Mixed Bag of Tricks, Passionfruit Review, sPARKLE & bLINK, Synkroniciti, Transfer, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, TX. Follow her on IG @hollie.hardy Learn more at: holliehardy.com