Badass Reunion Open Mic & Potluck

Poets Hollie Hardy & Cassandra Dallett are teaming up to get the Bay Area poetry gang together for a backyard reading & potluck. Bring poems, drinks, snacks, & a jacket or blanket if it’s cool.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
Cassandra Dallett

OPEN MIC

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Saturday, August 22, 2026
6pm

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Cassandra’s Back Yard
2465 26th Ave
Oakland, CA

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Free

Fata Morgana Lit Club & Open Mic

Join us at Monkeywrench Books in Austin for Avalon Park Press presents: Fata Morgana Lit Club and Open Mic! All poets, writers, and musicians welcome.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
Heidi Kasa
Charles Knight
Augustus Standeven

Hosted by:
Die Lunte

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Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Doors 6:30pm
Show 7pm

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Monkeywrench Books
110 North Loop Blvd. East
Austin, TX

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Free

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Featured Artists:

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 Write-In with Hollie Hardy and the monthly reading series Saturday Night Special: A Virtual Open Mic. She has performed at hundreds of venues nationwide and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in numerous anthologies and literary journals.
Follow on IG: @hollie.hardy

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, and elsewhere. She works as an editor and creates handmade artist books and necklaces in Austin.
Find her at www.heidikasa.com.

CHARLES KNIGHT is a queer, singer-songwriter who specializes in melancholic songs about his exes, anxieties, exes, and insecurities about the modern world of America…but mostly about his exes. Follow him on IG: charlesknight0717

AUGUSTUS STANDEVEN plays a variety of sounds and genres, which include hip hop, indie rock, electronica and acoustic folk. Originally from Boston, his eclectic taste is united by a consistent theme of personal growth, love, and creativity. His album, Wallow, is available on all streaming platforms. Follow on IG: @augustus.standeven

Women Who Submit ATX August Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's July gathering! We’ll have a mini 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.
Please fill out the member questionnaire below.

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, August 8, 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 | 7-25-26

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

Featuring:
Jennifer Acker
Sarah Renee Beach

Theme: Salt
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, July 25, 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: 845 6017 3161

Passcode:  468177

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Author Bios

Jennifer Acker is a writer, editor, and translator. She is founder and editor in chief of the global, award-winning literary magazine The Common. Her debut novel, The Limits of the World, was a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir Fatigue is a #1 Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah Daily, the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, Slate, and Poets & Writers, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and a BA from Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in Western Massachusetts and Portland, Maine. Her second novel, Surrender, was released in April 2026 from Delphinium Books.

Learn more: https://www.jenniferacker.com/

Buy Surrender: https://www.delphiniumbooks.com/book/surrender/

Originally from Southeast Texas, Sarah Renee Beach received her MFA from The New School, where she was awarded the Dean’s Merit Scholarship, and is an alum of the Tin House Summer Workshop. She is the author of the poetry chapbook IMPACT, which won Sundress Publications’ 2022 Chapbook Contest. You can read her poetry and essays in The Sewanee Review, Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, TX, where she is the Program Director at the Writers’ League of Texas.

Learn more: https://www.sarahreneebeach.com/

Download (free) Impact: https://www.sundresspublications.com/e-chaps/impact

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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 THURSDAY afternoon, July 23, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

July Writing Prompt: Salt

Few substances have traveled so freely between the ordinary and the sacred.

Salt gathers in oceans and tears, on sun-warmed skin and winter roads, in bread dough and blood. Kingdoms have fought over it. Lovers have tasted it. Ancestors offered salt in welcome, scattered it for protection, carried it across deserts, dissolved it in wounds. Salt preserves what might otherwise disappear, yet too much can leave a field barren. Every crystal holds a contradiction.

This month, let salt be your light. Wander toward history or home, science or scripture, love or labor, hunger or healing. Somewhere inside the ordinary grain, something salty and new is already forming.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

1. Write about a body of salt water—a beach, an ocean crossing, a salt flat, a lake—or invent one that exists only in memory or imagination.

2. Explore one of the body's salts: sweat after work or desire, tears of grief or joy, the taste of skin, blood chemistry, healing, exhaustion, survival.

3. Consider something that has been preserved. What have you tried to save? What has been kept alive long past its season? What refuses to decay?

4. Begin with an idiom or expression: worth one's salt, salt of the earth, take it with a grain of salt, rub salt in the wound, below the salt, salting the earth. Let the phrase lead you somewhere unexpected.

5. Write about a wound—literal or emotional. What makes it sting? What helps it heal? Is there a difference between pain that cleanses and pain that simply hurts?

6. Research salt's surprising history or science. Salt has served as currency, sparked revolutions, shaped trade routes, preserved food, and transformed landscapes. Let a fact become the seed of a poem.

7. Think about flavor. What gives a life, a relationship, a place, or a memory its particular savor? What is missing when the salt is gone?

8. Explore the spiritual or symbolic dimensions of salt. Across cultures it has represented covenant, purification, protection, hospitality, wisdom, and transformation. What rituals or beliefs around salt have stayed with you?

9. Write from an unusual perspective: a grain of salt, a salt shaker on a diner table, a salt marsh, a pillar of salt, the ocean speaking to the shore.

As ever, the theme is optional — an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

she washes the sea
on her knees.

—salt

(Nayyirah Waheed)

Salt By Melissa Broder

Salt By Philp Levine

Photo of a Girl on a Beach By Carmen Giménez

Salt to Make a Sea By Renée Ashley

Saltine By Michael McFee

Salt and Sea By Ariana Lee

Salt By Charles Wright

Praise Song for Oceania By Craig Santos Perez

Salt Hill By Jane Springer

Love Like Salt By Lisel Mueller

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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

Ha! Ha! Storytime!

Ha! Ha! Storytime is the self-described “greatest live event on earth!” a wackadoodle ruleless literary gameshow in which local writers and comedians compete for the love of the audience and a bag of (nonexistent) hotdogs. Come enjoy the chaos!

Featuring:

Jillian Striker
Michael Louis Dixon
Dale Bridges
Hollie Hardy
John Baltisberger


Hosted by:
Sonic the Hedgehog & Crash Bandicoot

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Tuesday, July 14, 2026
7:30pm

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Radio Coffee & Beer (South)
4204 Menchaca
Austin, TX

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Free

Poets’ Lounge Summer Quarterly

Join this free community event and support local writers & creatives! Bring poems, books, and other creative works to sell or trade and share at the open mic.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
Qween Red
Stephanie Sol

Hosted by:
Weird Warrior Yoga (Taylor Fox)

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Sunday, July 12, 2026
5pm — Community Time
5:30pm — Featured Readers
6pm — Open Mic

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Radio Coffee & Beer (South)
4204 Menchaca
Austin, TX

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Free

Women Who Submit ATX July Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's July gathering! We’ll have a mini 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.
Please fill out the member questionnaire below.

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, July 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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Paper People Retreat

Creative friends! I’m offering a FREE introductory workshop on zuihitsu poetry as part of the inaugural Paper People online retreat —

At this FREE international event, I’ll be one of a dozen teachers sharing ideas to help you slow down, nourish your creativity, and get on the page—writing, drawing, sketching, mark making, calligraphy, poetry, and journaling. 

Join us online for 3 days of gentle workshops you can fit into small slivers of time—or upgrade to the Library Pass (~$35) for ongoing access to the workshops (beyond the 72 hours of the retreat) AND a bunch more freebies worth hundreds of dollars, including my new Love Poems Mini Master Class, a Short Story Tool Kit, Drawing Lessons, Summer of Snail Mail, Little Life Stories, Watercolor for Beginners, and so much more!!

Instructors

Mel Rye
Traci Skuce
Mia Botha
Hollie Hardy
Susan Yeates
Heather Leavitt Martinez
Kim Houssenloge Mak
Fatih Mıstaçoğlu
Lauren Clark
Traci Skuce
Shelley Skail
Traci Skuce
Cynthia Hauk

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Online
July 3 – 5, 2026

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Please use these 👆 buttons for my affiliate links to sign up for the retreat ❤️

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SNS | 6-27-26

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

Featuring:
Tracy Artson
Maw Shein Win

Theme: Exposure
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, June 27, 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: 893 3525 8474

Passcode:  079689

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Author Bios

Tracy Artson is a poet and licensed psychologist in California. Her poems explore the human conditions of social justice, climate crises, immigration, queerness, grief and yearning. Published poems: Passionfruit Review, Colossus Press, The Los Angeles Press, River Heron Review, Pushcart nominated by the editors of River Heron Review: https://www.riverheronreview.com/awards. Ina Coolbrith Circle 98th Annual Spring Contest: First place in the category, Nature. Winner of Political Festival, 2026 (WildSound). She is currently working on a manuscript.

Maw Shein Win's latest full-length poetry collection is Percussing the Thinking Jar (Omnidawn, 2024) which was recently shortlisted for the 2025 Northern California Book Award in Poetry. Her previous full-length collection Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn, 2020) was longlisted for the PEN America 2021 Open Book Award, shortlisted for the Golden Poppy Award for Poetry, and nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA, the recipient of the 2026 AWP George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature, the 2025 Berkeley Poetry Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2025 Nomadic/SF Foundation Literary Award for Non-fiction. She teaches poetry in the MFA Programs at the University of San Francisco, Dominican University, and Saint Mary’s College of California. mawsheinwin.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 THURSDAY afternoon, June 25, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

June Writing Prompt: Exposure

This month’s theme carries a wide range of meanings. Exposure can be dangerous: prolonged exposure to the cold, the sun, radiation, toxins, disease, war. Exposure can be voluntary or involuntary: a secret revealed, a body uncovered, a private thought made public. Exposure can be emotional—the risk of vulnerability, confession, intimacy, honesty.

Exposure has also become a kind of social currency. We live in a culture that encourages us to share, document, disclose, perform, and broadcast ourselves. Social media rewards visibility. We curate versions of our lives for public consumption, choosing what to reveal and what to conceal. Yet exposure can bring connection as easily as scrutiny, misunderstanding, judgment, or loss of privacy.

Photography offers another way into the theme. Exposure refers to the amount of light allowed into a camera. A brief exposure freezes a moment. A long exposure records time itself, blurring motion into ghostly traces. A double exposure layers two images atop one another, allowing multiple realities to occupy the same frame.

Exposure can also describe an encounter with the natural world. Think of northern skies illuminated by the aurora borealis, landscapes shaped by wind and weather, or moments when the world reveals something extraordinary to those willing to stand outside and witness it.

Write a poem that engages with the idea of exposure in any of its forms: physical, emotional, social, environmental, photographic, or metaphorical. Consider what is revealed, what is concealed, and what happens when boundaries between the two begin to blur.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

Some Ideas for Getting Started

1. Write about a time you were exposed to something dangerous, beautiful, transformative, or unexpected.

2. Explore a personal vulnerability. What have you hidden, protected, or kept private? What might happen if it were brought into the light?

3. Write about public exposure in the digital age. Consider social media, surveillance, online identities, personal branding, oversharing, anonymity, viral attention, or the pressure to remain visible.

4. Use photography as a central metaphor. Think about focus, framing, negatives, flash, long exposures, overexposure, underexposure, or what remains outside the frame.

5. Write a poem in which two versions of yourself occupy the same space, creating a kind of double exposure between past and present, public and private, real and imagined.

6. Create a formal double-exposure poem by layering language from two different sources. You might alternate lines from two texts, weave fragments together, or allow two voices, narratives, memories, or documents to overlap and create unexpected meanings.

7. Consider environmental exposure. Write about prolonged contact with weather, landscape, climate, pollution, illness, grief, love, work, or any force that changes us through repeated contact.

8. Begin with an encounter with the aurora borealis, a meteor shower, an eclipse, or another natural phenomenon that feels like a revelation. Let the poem explore what becomes visible in that moment.

9. Write about public nudity—being naked in public, or witnessing public nudity. Think: Burning Man, a nude beach, a strip club, a naked motorcycle ride, a flasher in a trench coat, sex in the forest.

As ever, the theme is optional — an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

Self-Portrait as Cindy Sherman’s Instagram Account By Elizabeth Knapp

Indecent Exposure By Judith Moffett

Exposure By Robin Robertson

Timed Exposure By George Bilgere

Time Exposure By Josephine Jacobsen

from Double Exposures By Greg Williamson

On PrEP or on Prayer [“when i say pre-exposure prophylaxis”] By sam sax

Exposure By Wilfred Owen

Zion, Vernacular Exposure, Mockingbird Song By R. T. Smith

Double Exposure by May Swenson

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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

Women Who Submit ATX June Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's June gathering! We’ll have a mini 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.
Please fill out the member questionnaire below.

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, June 13, 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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Ha! Ha! Storytime!

Ha! Ha! Storytime is the self-described “greatest live event on earth!” a wackadoodle ruleless literary gameshow in which local writers and comedians compete for the love of the audience and a bag of hotdogs. Come enjoy the chaos!

Featuring:

Ryan C. Bradley
Max Booth 
Eric Garcia
Hollie Hardy
Meg Jerit 
Susan Snyder

Hosted by:
Sonic the Hedgehog & Crash Bandicoot

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026
7:30pm

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Radio Coffee & Beer (South)
4204 Menchaca
Austin, TX

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Free

SNS | 5-30-26

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

Featuring:
Julie Martin
Cristina Adams

Theme: Ekphrastic Garden
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, May 30, 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: 879 8156 9214

Passcode:  615185

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Author Bios

Born on a fault line in Anchorage, Alaska and raised at the foot of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Julie Martin developed a deep connection to the natural world. She now lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota near the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. Her poems, rooted in place,  invite readers to discover all that is hidden in plain sight. Her work has been widely published in literary journals, and she frequently joins other poets in giving readings in Minnesota and beyond. Her debut collection, Homespun Alchemy, a meditation on home, land, and the everyday sacred, is forthcoming, Spring 2026. Learn more: juliemartinpoet.com

Buy Homespun Alchemy: https://finishinglinepress.com/product/homespun-alchemy-by-julie-martin/

Cristina Adams is a Cuban American poet and author of Copycat: A fabulous (and slightly naughty) memoir of a life in fashion (Atmosphere Press, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Quartet Journal, The Broken Teacup, Dickinson Review, Buffalo Press, Ark, Minetta Review, and other publications. She ghostwrites nonfiction/memoir, reads poetry for Epiphany Journal, and is currently working on her first full-length collection of poems, which explore cultural memory, family history, identity and the search for belonging. She has an MA in creative writing-poetry from New York University and lives in Austin with her husband and Luna the dog.
Buy Copycat: https://atmospherepress.com/books/copycat-by-victor-costa-and-cristina-adams/

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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, May 23, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

May Writing Prompt: Ekphrastic Garden

Ekphrasis is writing that responds to a work of art—a painting, sculpture, photograph, dance, or film. A way of looking closely, then answering in language.

A garden can be part of that conversation. It’s a kind of living artwork—shaped by care, time, weather, flora, fauna, wildness. The occasional bird bath or garden gnome.

This month, you have a few ways in: write an ekphrastic piece inspired by a garden (real or represented in art), write an ekphrasis about any subject (no garden required), or move more loosely and simply write toward nature—its textures, colors, endangerment, its living cycles of change.

Follow what draws your attention. Let the piece be a response—something seen, remembered, or still growing in the mind.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

1. Choose a specific artwork (painting, photograph, sculpture, etc.) that includes a garden or natural element. Write to it, from it, or against it.

2. Visit a garden—public, private, remembered, imagined. Treat it as the artwork. What does it ask of you? What do you notice first, and what takes time?

3. Write from the perspective of something in the garden: soil, root, fence, weed, irrigation line, bee, rot. Let it speak.

4. Focus on human intervention: pruning, planting, neglect, control. Where does care end and domination begin?

5. Let the poem move between two spaces: the artwork and your own life. Where do they overlap, contradict, or echo each other?

6. Misread the “source” on purpose. Invent what isn’t there. Let the poem be wrong in a generative way.

7. Write about a garden that no longer exists, or one that hasn’t been made yet.

8. Use the structure of another form (letter, field notes, inventory, instructions, prayer, caption, museum placard).

9. Start with close observation—color, texture, sound—then let the poem widen into thought, memory, or question.

10. If you’re not drawn to ekphrasis, write a garden or nature piece that pays attention to growth, cycles, seasonality, or the tension between wild and tended.

As ever, the theme is optional — an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

In a Garden of Small Dreams: Art + Poetry in Conversation By poet Tricia Bogle and artist Shu Tu

Roses By Barbara Guest

In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden By Matthea Harvey

Calling Things What They Are By Ada Limón

Ekphrasis With Toothing Chainsaw in Unnamed Halhul Vineyard By George Abraham

Ekphrasis on Nude Selfie as Portrait of Saint Sebastian By torrin a. greathouse

Summer Haibun By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Hello, the Roses By Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

Only a Shadow By Carmen Giménez

nail hard By Samiya Bashir

Bonus

Rattle Archive of monthly Ekphrastic Challenge Winners

My Garden (Book) By Jamaica Kincaid

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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

GAB Fest Workshop — Bring Your Writing to Life: Performance for Authors

Bring Your Writing to Life: Performance for Authors

For writers who get nervous reading in front of an audience or secretly long to shine in front of a mic— I’m be teaming up with Austin Poet Laureate Zell Miller III and award-winning audiobook narrator Marcus Barton to bring you the tips and tricks you need to bring your writing to life and to offer guidance for those curious about audiobook narration.

This workshop will include discussion, Q & A, practical suggestions for powerful performances, live demonstrations, and the opportunity for volunteers to practice at the mic and receive supportive, actionable feedback.

Featuring:

Zell Miller III
Hollie Hardy
Marcus Barton

This workshop is part of the Austin Public Library’s annual GAB Fest Book Fair. 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 like this one!

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Saturday, May 16, 2026

Book Fest
10am – 5pm
Special Event Center (1st floor)

Performance Workshop
3pm – 4pm
Innovation Lab (5th Floor West)

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Austin Public Library (Central)
710 W. César Chávez St.
Austin, TX

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Free

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.

I’ll be facilitating a free afternoon workshop:

Bring Your Writing to Life: Performance for Authors

For writers who get nervous reading in front of an audience or secretly long to shine in front of a mic— I’m be teaming up with Austin Poet Laureate Zell Miller III and award-winning audiobook narrator Marcus Barton to bring you the tips and tricks you need to bring your writing to life and to offer guidance for those curious about audiobook narration.

This workshop will include discussion, Q & A, practical suggestions for powerful performances, live demonstrations, and the opportunity for volunteers to practice at the mic and receive supportive, actionable feedback.

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
Special Event Center (1st floor)

Performance Workshop
3pm – 4pm
Innovation Lab (5th Floor West)

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Austin Public Library (Central)
710 W. César Chávez St.
Austin, TX

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Free

Women Who Submit ATX May Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's May gathering! We’ll have a mini 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.
Please fill out the member questionnaire below.

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, May 9, 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 | 4-25-26

In honor of National Poetry Month, join us online for an evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring:
Austin Poet Laureate Zell Miller III &
San Francisco Poet Laureate Emeritus Tongo Eisen-Martin

Theme: Sirens
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, April 25, 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: 858 1033 8675

Passcode:  493753

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Author Bios

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker, and educator. His curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, We Charge Genocide Again, has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. He is the author of “Someone’s Dead Already”, “Heaven Is All Goodbyes”, “Waiting Behind Tornados for Food”, and “Blood on the Fog”. In 2020, he co-founded Black Freighter Press to publish revolutionary works. He was San Francisco’s eighth poet laureate.

Zell Miller III is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Austin, Texas—an award-winning interdisciplinary theater artist, playwright, and performer known for bold, thought-provoking work exploring identity, culture, and the human experience. Named Best Poet/Writer by the Austin Chronicle in 2004 and inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2017, he has become a powerful voice in contemporary American arts, with features on PBS, KVUE News, and in the Austin Chronicle. A nationally and internationally touring artist, Miller has opened for legends such as Nikki Giovanni and The Last Poets, and his poetry blends history, race, and emotion into compelling, resonant narratives. As a playwright and director, he has created 12 full-length productions, including My Child, My Child, My Alien Child, Hands Up Hoodies Down, Ballot Eats the Bullet, and The Evidence of Silence Broken, earning the David Mark Cohen Playwright Award. His artistic style, rooted in a jazz aesthetic influenced by mentor Laurie Carlos, emphasizes rhythm, improvisation, and deep audience connection. Through his work on and off the stage, Miller remains committed to using art as a catalyst for creativity, healing, and social change. He has his first book of poetry will be released in 2026 from 310 Brown Street.

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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, April 18, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

April Writing Prompt: Sirens

We live in perilous times. The headlines are full of war as the government seeks to silence journalists, protestors, educators. When I think of sirens, I think of fire, of police, of Amber alerts, air raids and storm warnings. The unheeded siren songs of scientists crying in frustration as children die from measles and the world rolls back its climate initiatives and defunds women’s health. I think about mythical sharp-toothed mermaids pulling vain men toward a watery demise. The importance of poets, the power of songs and words to bring people together, to raise the alarm.

A siren calls attention—warns, seduces, interrupts, gathers. Sirens can signal danger or desire, or both. Follow the sound. Let the call lead you somewhere—toward urgency, memory, myth, the body, toward the world as it is or as it could be.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

1. Write toward a literal siren—a police car, an ambulance, a fire engine. Who hears it? Who responds? Who gets left behind? Is the siren at the center? Or just noise in the background?

2. Write a poem of warning. What needs to be said, urgently, now? Who refuses to listen?

3. Write from the perspective of a siren—mechanical, human, animal, mythical. What does it want? What does it demand?

4. Write toward the mythic siren—sea creature, singer, seducer. Who gets pulled in? What does the song promise?

5. Write a poem that listens. Follow a sound through a city, a neighborhood, a memory. Let the poem move where the sound moves.

6. Write about a moment when something pierced the ordinary—a noise, a voice, a realization—and changed the course of a day or a life.

7. Write a poem that gathers many voices, like a chorus or a call and response. Let the lines echo, overlap, argue, or harmonize.

8. Write about silence after the siren passes. What remains? What lingers in the body?

9. Write a strange or playful siren—dogs howling in unison, a choir of appliances, a warning system no one understands.

10. Write toward seduction. What draws you in against your better judgment? What song do you keep following?

Feel free to follow your own song if something else emerges. As ever, the theme is optional — an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.

INSPIRATION

The Course of Meal By Tongo Eisen-Martin

Siren Song By Margaret Atwood

Tipping the Scales By Jessica Lee Alton

Citizen: “You are in the dark, in the car...” By Claudia Rankine

Poem About Police Violence By June Jordan

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

Fire Engines By Stevie Redwood

I Have Waited for the Siren By Tina Boyer Brown

What Is (War) By Joanna Klink

Joint Typhoon Warning Center By Isabella Borgeson

Warning: By David Sullivan

The All-Dog Siren Choir By Michael McFee

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Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar Poetry Night

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar hosts an evening poetry reading and book signing showcasing local Austin authors.

Join us for poetry, wine, and books!

Featuring:

Cristina Adams
Melanie Alberts
Candace
Hollie Hardy
Emily Jansen
Meg Jerit
Christina Lopez
Mazat
Micah
C.M. Moorhead
Valerie Nies
Talia Pinzari
Jennifer Lee Quinlan
Amy Richardson
Mel Balderrama Siles
Raven Vervain
Abigail Wolf
Twinkle Zaman

Hosted by: Hollie Hardy

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Friday, April 24, 2026
6:30pm Doors / 7pm Reading

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Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar
1101 E 11th ST
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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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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