Ina Coolbrith Circle 98th Annual Spring Poetry Contest Awards

I have the honor of speaking at this year’s Ina Coolbrith Circle 98th Annual Spring Poetry Contest Awards (formerly Awards Dinner)

Join us online for a literary celebration, including the announcement of this year's spring poetry contest winners, who will read their winning poems, and guest speaker Hollie Hardy (that’s me!) will read and discuss work from her latest poetry collection, Lions Like Us (Red Light Lit Press 2024). Free! All are welcome. 

Want a chance to win the $100 Grand Prize?

Poets must mail (yes, old school with a stamp) entries of one poem on the theme of “infinity” in up to four of the following categories (four poems total, one per category): “Beginnings & Endings,” “Humor,” “Love,” “Nature,” “People,” “Poet’s Choice,” or “Spaces & Places” with a check for $20. CLICK HERE for complete SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

DEADLINE: April 1

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Saturday, June 7, 2025
1pm – 4pm Pacific Time

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Check back for Zoom Info

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Free

SNS | 4-26-25

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

Featuring: Marya Hornbacher + Mike Urquidez

Theme: Time Travel
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, April 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: 837 7186 3685

Passcode: 946213

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Author Bios

Marya Hornbacher is an award-winning journalist, essayist, novelist, and poet, and the New York Times bestselling author of five books. She has received the Annie Dillard Award for Nonfiction, the Logan Fellowship for Social Justice Journalism, the White Award for Magazine Journalism, the ASCAP Award for Music Journalism, the Fountain House Humanitarian Award, and other distinctions. Her work appears in publications including New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Minneapolis StarTribune, Chicago Reader, Smithsonian Magazine, Vogue, Glamour, Crazyhorse, Guernica, Longreads, AGNI, Arts & Letters, Gulf Coast, DIAGRAM, and many more. She is the creator of the the bestselling Substack "Going Solo at the End of the World," a multi-media report from the American road. Her sixth book, Solo, is forthcoming from Hachette/Cardinal Books in early 2027.

Mike Urquidez is a poet, writer, and educator living in northeast Los Angeles, where he teaches English at Los Angeles Pierce College. He is a graduate of the creative writing program at San Francisco State University and former fiction editor of Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review. Recent work has appeared in Stick Figure Poetry, Moria, and elsewhere. He is currently at work on a full-length collection of poetry, as well as a mystery novel set in the San Fernando Valley.

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

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

April Writing Prompt: Time Travel

Write a poem, short prose, or speculative fiction piece inspired by time travel. 🚀❤️⏰

SOME IDEAS

• Do you believe in the possibility of time travel? 

• What would you want to do if you could time travel? Would you go back in time to see specific things, change things, redo mistakes, prevent genocide, see dinosaurs? Or would you roll forward to see if we save or destroy the planet? 

• What would your time machine look like?

• What would you learn or reveal about humanity or yourself?

• Your poem can be from any point of view. From your own or a character's. So you might imagine yourself in a different time or a someone from the past for example, traveling forward to our time. 

• Time travel as memory or imagined future. 

• Time travel as the literalized surreal.

• Time travel as a way to revisit or reclaim, to save or to salvage.

Or something else! Think big! Be expansive.

INSPIRATION

Time Travel for Beginners by Ardon Shorr

Time Travel by Mihee Kim

Being in This World Makes Me Feel Like a Time Traveler by Kaveh Akbar

I Have a Time Machine by Brenda Shaughnessy

The Time Traveler Finally Falls in Love by T.S. Leonard

LeaveTaking by Rita Dove

Time Traveler by Patrick Cotter

I Have a Time Machine by Brenda Shaughnessy

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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!

GAB Fest

I’m thrilled to be included in this year’s Greater Austin Book Festival! Come schmooze with local authors, buy signed books, bask in gorgeous city views from the library, and enjoy a full day of panels, workshops, and programs.

I’ll be moderating a Poetry Panel featuring Usha Akella, C. Prudence Arceneaux, Bree Bailey, KB Brookins and me from 12pm –1pm in the second floor art gallery. More details to come.

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Saturday, April 26, 2025

Book Fest
10am – 5pm

Poetry Panel
12pm – 1pm

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Austin Public Library (Central)
710 W. César Chávez St.
Special Event Center (1st floor)
Art Gallery (2nd floor)
Austin, TX

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Free

Austin Indie Book Fair

Join us on Saturday, April 5 from noon to 4pm for The Austin Independent Book Fair, a free, all-ages event celebrating books and literacy, featuring local authors, literary programs, story time performances.

Programing:

12:30pm
Drag Story Hour with Brigitte Bandit

2pm
Prose readings hosted by Richard Santos
featuring:
Ryan Bradley
Emily May
Diamond Braxton
Jose Rodriguez
Steph Grossman
Lilas Taha
Jeanette Horn
Leticia Urieta

3pm
Poetry Corner with Taylor Fox
featuring:
Nala Washington
Abel Koury
Nori Rose Hubert
Hollie Hardy
Osmani Alcaraz-Ochoa
Raven Vervain
724 Press Collective*
(*A. A. Britto & L. M. Gomez)

Vendors:

Adobe Press
Alienated Magesty Books
Birdhouse Books & Gifts
The Bohemian Bookshop
Finess Fiction
Lioness Books
Red Salmon Arts
Reverie Books
The Sunday Post
Vignette Books
The Writers’ League

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Saturday, April 5, 2025
12pm – 4pm

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Radio East
3504 Montopolis Dr.
Austin, TX

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Free

Author Signing at AWP Conference & Bookfair

I’m headed to LA on March 26-29 for the 2025 Annual Associated Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference.

Hit me up if you’re going and want to connect!

Buy books at the Parley Lit table at the bookfair (T1111) and come see me for a signing on Saturday at 12:30pm.

Parley Lit is an interactive, performance-based storytelling platform, and the home of Totally Biased Reviews, a podcast series featuring interviews with writers.

You can listen to my conversation with Parley Lit Editor-In-Chief Asha Dore here

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AWP Bookfair
Los Angeles Convention Center
1201 S Figueroa St,
Los Angeles, CA

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Author Signing
Saturday, March 29, 2025
12:30pm – 1:30pm

Parley Lit Table
T-1111

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Free

Write from the Gut! AWP Offsite Reading

Join us for bar eats, good writing, and great company in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Write from the Gut! literary reading series, featuring the best and brightest of San Francisco Creative Writing Institute, including current and former students, faculty, and poet laureates, followed by open mic (time allowing), in a bar that looks like Bukowski himself would approve. FREE! All are welcome! Join us!

Featuring:

Tongo Eisen-Martin
Alexandra Kostoulas
Paul Corman-Roberts
Hollie Hardy
Nick Mamatas
Marya Hornbacher
Oliver Sedano-Jones
Kelliane Parker
Vallie Lynn Watson
Nichole Henares
Aimee DeLong
Gaia Thomas
Aideed Medina
Pretty Stefina
Keith Gaboury
K.R. Morrison
Mimi Gonzalez

Hosted by:
SF Creative Writing Institute

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Friday, March 28, 2025
5:30m – 7:30pm
(doors at 5pm)

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The Escondite (aka The Hideout)
410 Boyd St.
Los Angeles, CA

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Free

Half Empty Half Full Literary Comedy Show

Half Empty Half Full is a literary comedy game show with a twist! Optimism versus pessimism—Austin's sharpest and wittiest stand-up comics and writers share their talents and compete to determine if the glass is half empty or half full. The show's host, comedian and poet Valerie Nies (McSweeney's, Rattle, and the comedy show Smile More), is joined by a panel of clever judges to choose who wins: the comedians and writers who see life half full or half empty!

The lineup for March includes stand-up comedians Josh Castro and Patrick Gallagher along with poets Hollie Hardy (Lions Like Us from Red Light Lit Press; How to take a Bullet: And Other Survival Poems from Punk Hostage Press) and Angelina Martin (Buzzkill at the Buzz Mill; Slide in the DMs; Bodega Magazine, Sandy River Review). 

Featuring:
Josh Castro
Patrick Gallagher
Hollie Hardy
Angelina Martin

Judges:
Dena Afrasiabi
Molly Mangel
Tyler Randle

Hosted by:
Valerie Nies

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Saturday, March 1, 2025
8pm

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Coldtowne Theater
1700 East 2nd St.
Austin, TX

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$15

SNS | 2-22-25

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

Featuring: Cindy Huyser + Irvin Weathersby Jr.

Theme: Mad Love
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, February 22, 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: 813 7985 9004

Passcode: 185550

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Author Bios

Cindy Huyser is the author of the chapbook Burning Number Five: Power Plant Poems (Blue Horse Press, 2014) and the full-length collection Cartography (3: A Taos Press, 2025). She is the long-time host of Austin’s BookWoman 2ndThursday Poetry Series and holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University.  Learn more on her website: cindyhuyser.wordpress.com

Irvin Weathersby Jr. is a Brooklyn-based writer and professor from New Orleans, and author of In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space released in January from Penguin Random House. His writing has been featured in LitHub, Guernica, Esquire, The Atlantic, EBONY, and elsewhere. He has earned an MFA from The New School, an MA from Morgan State University, and a BA from Morehouse College. He has received fellowships and awards from the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation, the Research Foundation of CUNY, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Mellon Foundation. irvinweathersby.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, February 15, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

February Writing Prompt: Mad Love

In grad school, Jacob Evans, fellow a poet, once said, “There ain’t no poetry like the poetry of longing,” and it was one of those phrases that hummed with lasting truth, like the deep resonance of a Japanese Bonshō bell.

Even after writing Lions Like Us, a whole book of love poems, it’s still my favorite subject for poetry. And so, with Valentine’s Day as our annual excuse, we turn once again to a familiar theme.

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

SOME IDEAS

You could write a classic poem or story of love or desire, romantic love, longing, wild and crazy love, new love, lost love, anoymous love, forbidden love, anti-love, angry love, love/hate, etc, or you could write about loving everyday objects, shoes, pets, your body, your favorite movie, your favorite child. You could write about the risks or grand gestures you’ve performed for love. Maybe “mad” means deep or insane, but maybe it means angry. What about loving your country and being mad at the same time? Feel free to interpret loosely. ❤️💔❤️‍🩹💙💛💝

INSPIRATION

Ditty by Kevin Young

Dirty Valentine by Richard Siken

I Love you to the Moon & by Chen Chen

Husky Boys' Dickies by Jill McDonough

Aimless Love by Billy Collins

Flirtation by Rita Dove

Movement Song by Audre Lorde

Pupil by D.A. Powell

Love Like Salt by Lisel Mueller

The Hush of the Very Good by Todd Boss

Wild nights - Wild nights! (269) by Emily Dickinson

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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 | 1-25-25

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

Featuring: Rebecca Foust & Bianca Alyssa Pérez

Theme: Mirrors
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, January 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: 819 4126 2676

Passcode: 005075

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Author Bios

Rebecca Foust’s most recent books are YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR (Backbone Press 2024) and ONLY (Four Way Books 2024, starred review in Publisher’s Weekly). Her poems won the James Dickey Prize, and the Fischer Cantor Prize in 2024, and the New Ohio Review Prize in 2023, as well as the Pablo Neruda, James Hearst, and Poetry International prizes in recent years. New poems are in recent issues of The Common, Iowa Review, POETRY, Ploughshares, and Southern Review. Other recognitions include fellowships from The Frost Place, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee, and a Marin County Poet Laureateship where Rebecca’s program, “Poetry as Sanctuary,” featured readings by local immigrant poets. Reach her at rebeccafoust.com

Bianca Alyssa Pérez (she/her) is a Latina poet, educator, and editor born and raised in Mission, Texas – a small southern town bordering Mexico. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Texas State University, where she also teaches and coordinates the MFA in Creative Writing program. She was the 2022-2023 Clark House Writer-In-Residence in Smithville, TX. Her chapbook, Gemini Gospel, is published with Host Publications. She serves on the Board of Writers' League of Texas and Abode Press. She is also the co-host of the horror podcast, Basement Girls, with writer, Steph Grossman. Find more chisme at her website: biancaalyssaperez.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, January 18, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

January Writing Prompt: Mirrors

As January offers its symbolic, annual fresh start, many of us take time to reflect on the previous year, set goals for the year ahead. Mirrors offer literal and metaphorical reflection of ourselves and the world around us—in nature, in our homes, bodies, hearts, actions, politics, and in the stories we tell ourselves.

Your challenge this month is to write a poem, story, or prose piece (3-minutes or less) inspired by mirrors and/or their reflections.

SOME IDEAS:

• Describe a visual reflection, what is seen in a mirror, what is reflected in a body of water, your face close up, mirrored sunglasses, the exterior of a skyscraper, a sunset on fire.

• A mirror or palindrome poem—forms that repeat in reverse midway through or repeat across two columns like a Rorschach (see Rita Dove and Natasha Trethewey poems below for examples of each)

• Self-reflection or self-portrait

• Reflections on a political landscape

• Dear Mirror, or Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, or a monologue from the mirror’s point of view

• The infinity effect of mirrors reflecting and reflecting forever (see “Resting Gently on Her Unibrow” below)

Or something else! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore. Below are some poems on our theme to inspire you.

FOR INSPIRATION

Night Mirror by Li-Young Lee
Mirror, Mirror by Tom Healy
Mirror at Shallot by Jameson Fitzpatrick
Mirror by Rita Dove
Moon Mirrored, Indivisible by Farid Matuk
Mirrors at 4 a.m. by Charles Simic
Mirror by Jack Stewart
Mirror by Max Garland
Myth by Natasha Trethewey
Sunset, Loon Lake by Rebecca Foust
Huge Mirrors by Matthew Sweeney

RESTING GENTLY ON HER UNIBROW
by Baruch Porras Hernandez

She had several self portraits in which she painted an object on her forehead.

If it was a small painting of her husband, it would be titled, Thinking of Diego.

If the object was a skull, it would be titled,

Thinking of death.

Oh Frida, if only I could be a small image on your forehead

resting gently on your unibrow, with a small painting on my forehead

of a doughnut.

It would be titled, Frida, Thinking of Baruch, Thinking of a Doughnut,

and at the top of the doughnut, where the doughnut’s forehead would be

between the sprinkles, a small painting of Frida Kahlo,

and on her forehead, a small painting of me, and on my forehead,

a small painting of a doughnut, and so on, and so on, forever, and forever,

and forever, and forever.

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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!

First Anniversary Celebration of the ATX Chapter of Women Who Submit

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

Note: Masks are required inside BookWoman

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
Jess Bross
Lily Chien-Davis
Lisa Estus
Roanna Flowers
Jade Goldwire
Hollie Hardy
Cindy Huyser
Meg Jerit
Dani Macedo
Kathleen Reeves
Shannon Perri

Hosted by:
Chapter Lead Ramona Reeves

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Sunday, December 8, 2024
4pm - 6pm

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BookWoman
5501 N. Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX

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Free Event

SNS | 11-30-24

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

Featuring: Annelyse Gelman & Arthur Kayzakian

Theme: Ekphrasis
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, November 30, 2024
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: 892 5382 4176

Passcode: 479424

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Author Bios

Annelyse Gelman‘s most recent book, Vexations (University of Chicago Press, 2023), won the 2022 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and was longlisted for the National Book Award. Gelman is also the author of the poetry collection Everyone I Love Is a Stranger to Someone (Write Bloody, 2014), and the experimental pop EP About Repulsion (Fonograf Editions, 2019), as well as the artist’s book POOL (Neck Press, 2020). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, BOMB Magazine, the PEN Poetry Series, The Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Learn more: https://annelysegelman.com/

Arthur Kayzakian is the finalist for the 2023 Kate Tufts Award, and the winner of the 2021 inaugural Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings, which was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is the recipient of the 2023 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also the winner of the Open Chapbook Competition for My Burning City. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International and a recipient of the Minas Savvas Fellowship. He serves as the Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has appeared in publications such as The Adroit Journal, Portland Review, Chicago Review, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Witness Magazine. Learn more: https://www.artkay.org/

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

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

November Writing Prompt: Ekphrasis

Ekphrasis is a literary response to a real or imagined work of art. It might be descriptive, interpretive, inventive, narrative, tangental, historical. It could be a painting, drawing, sculpture, mosaic, tapestry, or even dance.

Your challenge this month is to write an ekphrastic poem, story, or mixed-genre prose piece inspired by or in reaction to a work of art (3-minutes or less).

SOME IDEAS:

If you can, go to a museum or gallery and find something to fall in love with, otherwise, choose something from an art book, a magazine, a newspaper, an old photograph, or anything you can find online, maybe browse Google Images of art, look up artists on Instagram, or choose a piece of art in your home, or a local café, some graffiti in your neighborhood, a mosaic on a trash can, a sculpture in the cemetery, a dance you attended and vividly recall or watch on YouTube, whatever you want. It could be famous or unknown. It could be political or not. Literal or metaphorical. 

Describe, narrate, or invent a life beyond the image.

As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore. Below are some poems on our theme to inspire you.

FOR INSPIRATION

Anna Walinska by Arthur Kayzakian

in honor of the long-lost but ultimately found Portrait of Anna Walinska by Arshile Gorky (1937)

Vexations (excerpt) by Annelyse Gelman

short sample of her book-length poem which includes an ekphrastic description of a painting by Balthus titled "Thérèse on a Bench-Seat (1939)

French Chocolates by Ellen Bass

with apologies to Open Window, Collioure, by Matisse (1905)

In the Mouth of the Dead:  A Metaphor for Tenderness

 b

y Hollie Hardy

inspired by Rhea Adri’s untitled painting (2015)

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams

after "The Fall of Icarus," painting by Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-69)

Impression of a Rib b

y Keith S. Wilson

after “Café-Concert at Les Ambassadeurs,” by Edgar Degas (1876–77)

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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!

Lit Crawl Austin presents: Literary Death Match

Lit Crawl Austin

For some nighttime fun at the Texas Book Festival join us downtown on Saturday, November 16 from 7–10 PM for the 13th annual Lit Crawl Austin, a night of literary performances, games, trivia matches, storytelling sessions and more! For the first time, Lit Crawl Austin is under one roof. All Lit Crawl events will take place across various stages at Speakeasy Austin (412 Congress Ave. D, Austin, TX 78701). All events are free and open to the public. Guests must be 21+ to attend.

Literary Death Match

8:30pm-10pm—Join us in the Ballroom at Speakeasy Austin for Literary Death Match! Now in 73 cities worldwide, LDM brings together a mix of brilliant writers to read their most electric writing for five minutes or less before a live audience and a panel of three all-star judges. After each reading, the judges take turns spouting hilarious commentary about each story, and then select their two favorites to advance to the finals. There, the show trades in its literary sensibility for a comical climax as the finalists play a game (think “Pin the Mustache on Hemingway”) to determine who will take home the Literary Death Match crown.

Featuring:

Mateo Askaripour
Rita Bullwinkel
Porochista Khakpour
Hollie Hardy
Becka Oliver
Ray Suarez
and more

Hosted by:
Adrian Todd Zuniga

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Saturday, November 16, 2024
8:30pm - 10pm

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Speakeasy Austin
(Ballroom)
412 Congress Ave. D
Austin, TX

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Free Event

Sneaky Ottoman Review’s Fall 2024 Release Party

Join us at Radio East on Monday, Nov. 11, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm in celebration of the fall 2024 issue of the Sneaky Ottoman Review, featuring local Austin writers and artists. Pick up a copy, hot off the presses, enjoy some drinks, snacks, and readings, and schmooze with some local creatives.

Featuring:

Steven Abernethy
Casey Castleberry
Michael Ebbinghaus
Hollie Hardy
Meg Jerit
Diana Martinez
C.M. Moorhead
Jordan Rosenfeld
Robert Ruiz Jr.
John Schmitt
Altar Sherman
Becca Ziegler

Hosted by:
C.M. Moorhead

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Monday, November 11, 2024
6:30pm - 8:30pm

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Radio East
3504 Montopolis Dr, Austin, TX 78744
Austin, TX

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Free Event

SNS | 10-26-24

Join us online for the 14th Annual SNS Halloween Reading, Open Mic
& Costume Party!

Featuring:
Traci Kato-Kiriyama & Louise Moises

Theme: Halloween
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, October 26, 2024
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: 899 9133 5791

Passcode: 505916

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Author Bios

traci kato-kiriyama (they+she) is an award-winning multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer, performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, and community organizer. kato-kiriyama is the author of the mixed-genre collection Navigating With(out) Instruments from Writ Large Press (2021). Their recognition & support includes the Art Matters Foundation; the CA State Senate Breaking Silence Award; ONE Archives Pride Publics; and the NEFA National Theatre Project for TALES OF CLAMOR and PULLproject Ensemble. tkk has performed at hundreds of venues and their writing, commentary and work appears in numerous media and print publications (including NPR; PBS; Elle.com; Entropy; Chaparral Canyon Press; Tia Chucha Press; Bamboo Ridge Press; Heyday Books; Temple UP).

Learn more and buy a book at https://www.traciakemi.com/

Louise Moises is an award-winning poet from the San Francisco Bay Area, an antiquarian bookseller, puppeteer, and performance artist. Her first chapbook, Peace Is a Pelican, is newly available from Finishing Line Press and on Amazon. The poems in this collection are based on life experiences and the poet’s interaction with nature. The titular poem “Peace Is…” was a grand prize-winner in the Dancing Poetry Contest, from Artist Embassy International. She’s been featured at Benicia First Tuesdays, Sacred Grounds, Riverside Poets and Voices of Lincoln, and her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including High Shelf Press, California Quarterly, Wingless Dreamer, Carquinez Review, The Write Launch, Tiny Seed, and elsewhere. Louise writes poems about backroad adventures while traveling solo in her RV, crisscrossing the country with her cat, to visit far-flung family and friends.  

Pick up Peace is a Pelican here:
https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/peace-is-a-pelican-by-louise-moises/

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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, October 20, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

October Writing Prompt

For the 14th 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
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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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

Poetry Near & Afar

Poetry Near & Afar is a bimonthly online reading series hosted by the Oceanside Library of New York on the first and third Mondays of each month at 6pm Central / 7pm Eastern. Each reading features a poet from the NY area and one from "afar." Plus an open mic (one poem limit).

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
&
Emily-Sue Sloane
+
Open Mic

Hosted by:
Tony Iovino

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Monday, October 21, 2024
6pm Central/ 7pm Eastern

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Zoom Info
Meeting ID: 857 8444 3637

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Free Event

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Hollie Hardy is a writer, educator, and author of the newly released 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, teaches private writing workshops online, and hosts the long-running monthly 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 including Bay Area Generations, Cobalt Poets, Colossus, The Common, Dispatches from Quarantine, Eleven Eleven, Fourteen Hills, Migozine, Milvia Street Journal, Mixed Bag of Tricks, Parthenon West Review, Passionfruit Review, sPARKLE & bLINK, Transfer, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, TX.

Emily-Sue Sloane is an award-winning Long Island poet who writes to capture moments of wonder, worry, and human connection. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection We Are Beach Glass (2022) and the chapbook Disconnects and Other Broken Threads (The Poetry Box, 2024). Her poetry has appeared in numerous print and online journals and anthologies, including Poetry X Hunger, To Be Completely Honest Anthology, Best of Long Island Poetry 2024 Anthology, Bards Annual, Wild Roof Journal, and Closed Eye Open. Her poem “Musical Musing” is featured in a choral piece of the same name by composer Joan Johnson Drewes, and her poem “Shots Fired at Heckscher Park” was part of WNYC’s Morning Edition celebration for this year’s National Poetry Month. Additionally, Sloane and her wife, singer-songwriter Linda Sussman, present an original poetry and music program called “Crossroads of Verse” at venues across Long Island. Learn more at: EmilySueSloane.com

Lone Star Zine Fest

Lone Star Zine Fest

Come find me at the 8th Annual Lone Star Zine Fest on Saturday, Oct. 19 with Heidi Kasa! We’ll be selling books and zines and schmoozing with local creatives in Austin, TX.

Lone Star Zine Fest is a free, fun, all-ages event featuring zine creators, collectives, distributors, retailers, libraries, and small presses sharing their amazing work and showcasing the diversity of expression made possible by independent- and self-publishing. The Fest is organized by Austin Zine Friends, a small group of zine-loving volunteers who are passionate about creating space for zine creators and zine fans to come together.

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Saturday, October 19, 2024
12pm to 6pm Central

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Blue Genie Art Bazaar
6100 Airport Blvd.
Austin, TX

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Free Event

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We are at Table #58
Listed on the venue map as:

Heidi Kasa & Hollie Hardy

View fullsize

SNS | 9-28-24

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

Featuring: Amanda Gunn & G. Macias Gusman

Theme: Smoking, Drinking & Screwing
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, September 28, 2024
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: 827 6585 3595

Passcode: 883132

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Author Bios

Amanda Gunn is a poet, teacher, and PhD candidate in English at Harvard. Raised in Connecticut, she worked as a medical copyeditor for 13 years before earning an MFA in poetry from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. She is a recipient of the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize as well as a Pushcart Prize and has received fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Her debut collection, Things I Didn’t Do With This Body, was released in 2023 from Copper Canyon Press.

G. Macias Gusman is a Midwest/West Coast Poet published in such silky rags as the Borfski Press, the Crazy Child Scribbler, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Last Call Chinaski!, 16th & Mission, Naked Bulb Anthology, and Alien Buddha Press, as well as a ton of online things, and a napkin he once left for a bartender, who was way too hot for his own good. G. wants you to know that his favorite things in life are PBR, weed, cats, and staring out the window writing love poems at four in the morning, while drinking coffee. He sings Ramones songs in the shower and knows that: there’s never gonna be enough Dope-to-Toke for going to work to be a good idea. His first full-length collection of poetry Neversent was released last month from Naked Bulb Press. Order it here.

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

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

September Writing Prompt: Smoking, Drinking, & Screwing

This month’s theme was inspired by the 1994 Chronicle Books anthology by the same title: Drinking, Smoking & Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times, edited by Sara Nickles, and containing poetry and fiction by famous writers ranging from Charles Bukowski to Erica Jong, Tom Robbins, Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller, Mark Twain, Vladimir Nabokov, Sam Shepard and many more.

Your challenge this month is to write a poem (or 3-minute prose piece, scene, monologue, song, etc) inspired by the classic vices—sex, smokes, drinks, drugs, etc.

SOME IDEAS:

• Write about enjoying, not enjoying, indulging or quitting a vice

• Write about how your relationship to “the good times” has changed over time

• Write a how-to poem about one of these topics

• Write a sexy or unsexy poem, a love or desire poem

• Write about the morning after

• Write about being “drunk” on something other than alcohol

• Write about the joys or consequences of drinking, smoking, or sex, ode or elegy

• Write about the myths of writers and their vices

• Write about how drinking, smoking, or screwing inform the heart, mind, or body

As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore. Below are some poems on our theme to inspire you.

FOR INSPIRATION

Fear of Flying (Zipless Fuck excerpt) by Erica Jong

Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda

Be Drunk! (on Poetry) by Charles Baudelaire

Are You Drinking by Charles Bukowski

Deer Hit by Jon Loomis

When Man Enters Woman by Anne Sexton

How to Smoke a Cigar by Hollie Hardy

The Best Cigarette by Billy Collins

No Smoking Please by Gary Soto

Smoking by Ronald Wallace

Smoking Notes by Sandra McPherson

You Were Perfectly Fine fiction by Dorothy Parker

NOTE: The SNS writing prompts will eventually be integrated into my subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets. Learn more and sign up for weekly prompts!

Lansing Poetry Club Reading & Open Mic

The Copper Chimney Lounge Poetry Series is curated by the Lansing Poetry Club, an organization working to engage the local community with poetry and the literary arts.
Join us for a Sunday reading and book signing of Hollie Hardy’s second poetry collection, Lions Like Us, plus an open mic.

Featuring:
Hollie Hardy
Jo Gram

Hosted by:
Ruelaine Stokes, Poet Laureate of Lansing, MI

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Sunday, September 8, 2024
4pm

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University United Methodist Church
1120 S. Harrison Rd
East Lansing, MI

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Free Event

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Hollie Hardy is a writer, educator, and author of the newly released 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, teaches private writing workshops online, and hosts the long-running monthly 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 including Bay Area Generations, Cobalt Poets, Colossus, The Common, Dispatches from Quarantine, Eleven Eleven, Fourteen Hills, Migozine, Milvia Street Journal, Mixed Bag of Tricks, Parthenon West Review, Passionfruit Review, sPARKLE & bLINK, Transfer, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, TX.

Jo Marie Gram is a rapidly emerging poet on the Lansing poetry scene. Formerly a teacher at Western Michigan University and an analyst for the State of Michigan, Gram is a pillar of the Lansing-area writing community and a longtime supporter of the arts.

Red Light Lit: Chicago

Join us for an evening of poetry, stories, and live music, exploring themes of love, sex, and relationships in celebration of Hollie Hardy’s newly released poetry collection, Lions Like Us published by Red Light Lit Press.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
Ada Genavia
Loria Mendoza
Nick Jaina

Music:

The Moon & The Man

Hosted By: Jennifer Lewis

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Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024
8pm

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Room 13 in The Old Chicago Inn
3222 N Sheffield Ave.
Chicago, IL

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$10
Tickets at the Door

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Author Bios

Hollie Hardy is a poet, educator, and award-winning author of Lions Like Us (Red Light Lit Press, 2024) and How to Take a Bullet, And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014). She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU and teaches private poetry workshops online. She is the founder of Praxis Poetry and host of the long-running monthly reading series Saturday Night Special, a Virtual Open Mic. Publications include The Common, Fourteen Hills, Colossus, Eleven Eleven, MiGoZine, Poetry Superhighway, sPARKLE & bLink, Parthenon West Review, and other journals. She lives in Austin, TX.

  
Ada Genavia is a writer living in Alameda, CA. A literary nomad with a day job, she enjoys writing prose, flash fiction and creative nonfiction. Ada has been previously featured with Red Light Lit and published in sPARKLE + bLINK. She is the daughter of Filipino immigrants.

Loria Mendoza is a queer Chicanx writer, curator, and performance artist from Austin, Texas. Their book, Life’s Too Short (Fourteen Hills Press) won the Michael Rubin Book Award and their debut book of poetry, The Body Can Tolerate is forthcoming in 2025. They are the curator and host of Red Light Lit Austin, Director of Events for the South Austin Art Project, COO of the Austin Arts Foundation, and a big time believer in the healing power of art, community, storytelling, and love.

Nick Jaina is an author and musician living in Oakland, California. His 2015 memoir Get It While You Can was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Atlantic Monthly, Wilderness House Review, Somnambulist, Oregon Journal of the Humanities, and many other places. His newest book SPEKTRUM is out now. He has composed music scores for feature films, such as the indie comedy All Sorts and the forest fire documentary Elemental. He also co-founded a ballet collective in New York City, in which he was the musical composer and worked with dancers from Juilliard and New York City Ballet and performed works at the Baryshnikov Center and BAM Center for the Arts. Thus far, Nick has recorded (at least) 16 studio albums.

 
The Moon & The Man is a fun, funky, sultry, indie pop band comprised of Luna Malbroux and Will Clemens—an Alien from the planet Funk, and a Deity of Groove—you have to guess which one is which. Based in the Midwest, The Moon & The Man’s monthly shows are a staple in Chicago and Cincinnati. With tunes reminiscent of the golden age of soul and grooves that call forth a new future, The Moon & The Man cross genres, time, and space to enter an atmosphere of groovy, soulful vibes.

Red Light Lit: Ferryville, WI

Join us in Driftless Wisconsin for a special book release party in celebration of Lions Like Us, the latest poetry collection by Hollie Hardy.

Hosted by Red Light Lit, this event will feature a blend of live music, storytelling, and poetry. Known for their regional shows, Red Light Lit will bring together a talented troupe of writers to explore themes of love, relationships, sexuality, and gender. Each reading will be accompanied by a live musical score composed by Nick Jaina, adding an extra layer of depth to the experience.

The evening will also include live musical performances by the Chicago-based duo, The Moon & The Man.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
Tanis O’Connor
Loria Mendoza
Jenifer Lewis
Nick Jaina

Music:

The Moon & The Man

Hosted By: Jennifer Lewis

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Friday, Sept. 6, 2024
6:30pm Doors
7pm Show

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ændre arthouse
58879 State Highway 171
Ferryville, WI

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$15

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Author Bios

Hollie Hardy is a poet, educator, and award-winning author of Lions Like Us (Red Light Lit Press, 2024) and How to Take a Bullet, And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014). She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU and teaches private poetry workshops online. She is the founder of Praxis Poetry and host of the long-running monthly reading series Saturday Night Special, a Virtual Open Mic. Publications include The Common, Fourteen Hills, Colossus, Eleven Eleven, MiGoZine, Poetry Superhighway, sPARKLE & bLink, Parthenon West Review, and other journals. She lives in Austin, TX.

  
Jennifer Lewis is a writer, editor, and publisher of Red Light Lit. Her debut short story collection, The New Low (Black Lawrence Press), was an SPD Bestseller. She is the winner of the Nomadic Press Bindle Award and The Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction Award. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as Cosmonauts Avenue, Midnight Breakfast, The Los Angeles Press, and CRAFT, among others. Additionally, her most recent nonfiction work has been featured in The Rumpus, Alta Journal, and Joshua Tree Voice. She received her MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University. Jennifer teaches at The Writing Salon in San Francisco.

Loria Mendoza is a queer Chicanx writer, curator, and performance artist from Austin, Texas. Their book, Life’s Too Short (Fourteen Hills Press) won the Michael Rubin Book Award and their debut book of poetry, The Body Can Tolerate is forthcoming in 2025. They are the curator and host of Red Light Lit Austin, Director of Events for the South Austin Art Project, COO of the Austin Arts Foundation, and a big time believer in the healing power of art, community, storytelling, and love.
 

Nick Jaina is an author and musician living in Oakland, California. His 2015 memoir Get It While You Can was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Atlantic Monthly, Wilderness House Review, Somnambulist, Oregon Journal of the Humanities, and many other places. His newest book SPEKTRUM is out now. He has composed music scores for feature films, such as the indie comedy All Sorts and the forest fire documentary Elemental. He also co-founded a ballet collective in New York City, in which he was the musical composer and worked with dancers from Juilliard and New York City Ballet and performed works at the Baryshnikov Center and BAM Center for the Arts. Thus far, Nick has recorded (at least) 16 studio albums.

 
The Moon & The Man is a fun, funky, sultry, indie pop band comprised of Luna Malbroux and Will Clemens—an Alien from the planet Funk, and a Deity of Groove—you have to guess which one is which. Based in the Midwest, The Moon & The Man’s monthly shows are a staple in Chicago and Cincinnati. With tunes reminiscent of the golden age of soul and grooves that call forth a new future, The Moon & The Man cross genres, time, and space to enter an atmosphere of groovy, soulful vibes.