Wailing on Whisper Street 2nd Edition Book Launch

An evening of poetry at the beautiful Texas Keeper Cider just south of Austin, in celebration of the second edition of Bree Bailey's Wailing on Whisper Street poetry collection from Write Bloody Publishing

Featuring

Derrick Brown
Valerie Nies
Hollie Hardy
Nicholas Grooms
Bree Bailey

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Friday, November 6, 2026
7pm – 8:30pm

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Texas Keeper Cider
12521 Twin Creeks Rd.
Manchaca, TX

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Free

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Author Bios

Hollie Hardy is an editor, poetry instructor, and author of Lions Like Us (Red Light Lit Press) and How to Take a Bullet: And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press). She teaches private writing workshops, is the founder of Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets, and host of Saturday Night Special: A Virtual Open Mic. She’s performed at hundreds of venues nationwide; her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in numerous anthologies and literary journals, including Alchemy, Caesura, The Common, Fourteen Hills, Parley Lit, Passionfruit Review, Poetry Super Highway, The Quarter(ly), Synkronicity, and elsewhere.
Website: holliehardy.com Follow her on IG: @hollie.hardy‍ ‍

Derrick C. Brown is an award-winning poet, storyteller, comic and president of Write Bloody Publishing. His innovative fusion of poetry and comedy earned Paste Magazine's Comedy Album of the Year (2023). The New York Times praises his work as "a rekindling of faith in the weird, hilarious, shocking, beautiful power of words." A former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne who fell in love with poetry in Long Beach, CA, Brown has authored ten poetry collections and four children's books, winning the Texas Book of the Year Award for Poetry. He serves as the 2025/26 Poet Laureate of Los Feliz, California, and often tours via motorcycle, bringing his explosive combo of humor and heartfelt to venues worldwide.
Follow him on IG @derrickbrownpoetry

Valerie Nies is a comedian, poet, and gluten enthusiast living in Austin, Texas. She is the author of Snacks for the Love Hungry (2022, World Stage Press) and the chapbook Imaginary Frenemies. Valerie's poetry has appeared in Rattle, Softblow, and Drunk Monkeys, among other online publications. Her humor has appeared in McSweeney's, Reductress, Jezebel, and Bitch. Connect with her popular literary comedy series on social @_halfemptyhalffull or find her at valerienies.com.
Follow her on IG @valerieknees

Nicholas Grooms is a poet, writer and musician hailing from Garden City, Kansas. He has appeared in such periodicals as Verse Libre Quarterly, Roi Faineant, Skyline Magazine and Midsummer Dream House, though he is best known for his work creating music for the Kansas City Chiefs organization. Grooms is also a revered sports and entertainment journalist and is author of the book Me, Myself and I Hate You, Estranged Things, as well as My Mental State Has a Midwest Shape. Grooms has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry. He currently resides in Austin, TX, forever learning and growing in his favorite role of "proud father."
Follow him on IG @nicholasgroomsraps

Bree Bailey is a queer Latina poet, a mistress of the music of inflections, late night pizza, and ironic punny chuckles. A Newark, New Jersey native now residing in South Austin, TX, she writes with heart and humor about mental health, love, and resilience. A former educator, Bree wrapped up her first US poetry tour in the fall of 2025 for her debut poetry collection, Wailing on Whisper Street, which won the Jack McCarthy Book Prize with Write Bloody and is out everywhere you buy books. Her second edition will be out everywhere on October 9, 2026. Find her in Exposition Review, West Trade Review, Remington Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, and more.
Website: breebaileypoetry.com Follow her on IG: @Breebaileypoetry
Buy the book!

SNS | 10-24-26

Join us online for the 16th Annual SNS Halloween Reading, Open Mic
& Costume Party!

Featuring:
Drew Sage & Lauren C. Johnson

Theme: Halloween
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, October 24, 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 0960 3094

Passcode:‍ ‍800908

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Author Bios

Lauren C. Johnson attributes her upbringing in Florida, America’s weirdest state, to her interest in the ecological and surreal. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Orion Magazine online, and others. She is the interviews editor for The Racket Journal and is a member of The Ruby, a Bay Area collective for women and non-binary artists and creatives. She earned her MFA in creative writing at American University and lives in San Francisco, where she is a co-host of Babylon Salon, a quarterly Bay Area reading series, and Club Chicxulub, a sci-fi and fantasy performance series. Her debut novel, The West Façade, was recently released from the Santa Fe Writers Project (SFWP) in 2026.

Andrew Powell (aka Drew Sage) was born in the UK to Jamaican parents who immigrated to the US in 1971. Mainly due to an overzealous 5th grade English teacher, Drew has been writing poetry since 1978. Smitten by the hip-hop bug in 1983, he incorporates wordplay into his writing. Drew holds degrees in Broadcast Electronic Communication Arts and Black Studies from San Francisco State University and is a School of Ethnic Studies Hood Recipient and a graduate of KPFA’s First Voice Apprenticeship. In 2025, Drew’s first poem was published by Decentered Arts in an anthology entitled Poolside Poets, 2023-2025. This year, Drew published his first book of poetry, Chronicled Observations and Their Poetic Results.

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

Join me Thursday evening, October 22, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy where we can work together on our theme.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

October Writing Prompt

For the 16th Annual Saturday Night Special Halloween Open Mic, we’re revisiting our classic themes, with some fresh inspiration.

Halloween gives us permission to make the ordinary strange. For one night, the dark outside the window might hold a ghost, a monster, a witch, or something we can’t explain. Costumes transform us. Stories give shape to our secret fears. Even the season's familiar symbols—pumpkins, candy, dry leaves, bonfires, black cats, and the long shadows of trees—reach toward the uncanny in tangled moonlight.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

1. Start with a monster: demons, zombies, vampires, sirens, witches, werewolves, ghosts, predators, clowns, the circus, the president, the horsemen of the apocalypse, blood-thirsty or benign creatures, Bigfoot, fairies, mutants, psychopaths, politicians, parents, screaming children, bullies, bosses, exes, societal cruelties, the misunderstood—What defines a monster? What monsters have you known? What monsters have you been? Were they real or imagined? Evil or misunderstood?

2. Start with a seasonal symbol: pumpkins, scarecrows, cemeteries, black cats, bats, harvest moons, apple cider, candy, hay rides, trick-or-treat. Choose something familiar and let the poem make it strange.

3. Tell a tiny Halloween story: What’s your best, craziest, strangest, or scariest Halloween story? A costume you wore, a party you attended, a door you knocked on, a trick that went wrong. Start with one small moment and see how much story it can hold.

4. Go dark, scary, gross, bizarre: What is grotesque? Unthinkable? What are you afraid of, and how might that fear become literal? Pool drains, sharks, heights, blood, poison, ants, failure, the sun, disfigurement, dying alone, or whatever makes your skin crawl.

5. Start with a spooky location: haunted house, graveyard, things in the woods, under the bed, outside the window, inside the house, in the past, in your dreams. Let the setting become a character. 

6. Write a real ghost story: Have you ever seen a ghost? Experienced the supernatural? An apparition, poltergeist, possession, exorcism, bumps in the night? Or know someone who has? What happened? Or what might have happened?

7. Write to a ghost: What or whom have you lost? What would you say to their ghost? 

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

All Saints’ By Corey Van Landingham

Aubade on a Ghost Hunt By Traci Brimhall

Halloween in the Anthropocene By Karyna McGlynn

This Online Shopping Habit Is Sympathetic Magick By Caroline Crew

The Witch By Ye Hui (叶辉) (Translated By Dong Li)

Halloween By Lindsay Turner

Monster By Jason Irwin

The Witch Has Told You a Story By Ava Leavell Haymon

Jane Goodall and Bruce Springsteen Contemplate their Childlessness by John Dudek

Bildugsroman By sam sax

Little Spells By Jennifer Sweeney

The Monster in the Lake By Martín Espada

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!

Women Who Submit ATX October Meeting

Join the Austin Chapter of Women Who Submit's October 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 new 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, October 10, 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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Birds Nest Poetry

Join us online for an evening of poetry followed by an open mic

Featuring:
Hollie Hardy

Hosted by: Julie Martin

To sign up for a 5-minute open mic slot, email jumar002@icloud.com

Birds Nest Poetry is a literary series based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, featuring local gatherings for writers and a monthly Online Open Mic reading series, promoting individual poets.

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Sunday, September 27, 2026
Zoom opens at 5:45pm Central
Reading Begins at 6pm Central

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Zoom
Meeting ID: 824 5300 2067
Passcode: birdsnest

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Free

Austin Independent Book Fair

Austin friends! Join me for an afternoon of literary networking, readings, libations, and book shopping with more than 70 vendors to choose from.

Schedule

12pm Event Start
12:30pm Drag Story Hour
12pm-3pm ATX Book Swap
2pm Prose Reading
3:30pm Poetry Reading

Follow Austin Indie Book Fair on Instagram for updates.

Come find me!
I’ll be selling books and giving away stickers at the Armadillo Author Society table

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Sunday, September 27, 2026
12pm – 5pm

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Radio East
3504 Montopolis Dr.
Austin, TX

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Free
All Ages

SNS | 9-26-26

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

Featuring:
Rosebud Ben-Oni
Die Lunte

Theme: Small Wonders
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, September 26, 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:‍ ‍841 1688 1708

Passcode: 527359

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Author Bios

Rosebud Ben-Oni is the author of several collections, including the forthcoming The Last Great Adventure is You (Alice James Books, 2027), a sequel to If This is the Age We End Discovery (2021), which won the Alice James Award. Her work has been commissioned by Paramount, the National September 11th Memorial, and the Holocaust Memorial. She has received grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Queens Arts Fund, Cafe Royal Foundation, Queens Council on the Arts and CantoMundo. Her work appears in POETRY, APR, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, among others. rosebudbenoni.com
Find her on IG: @matarose

Die Lunte is the founder and editor of Avalon Park Press. Her debut collection of poetry, Cicada Songs, was published in 2024. She is the host of the Fata Morgana Lit Club & Open Mic in Austin, Texas. She is inspired by books and art that explore the nature of existence, human belonging, and the creative spirit.
Find her on IG: @die.lunte

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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, Sept. 24, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

September Writing Prompt: Small Wonders

Lately, it’s often felt like the world is piling on. Weather, disease, war, catastrophe, plane crashes, politics, the president. It’s hard to feel hopeful; easy to get discouraged. I think this month we could use a reason to seek out joy.

What small thing has delighted, surprised, amused, comforted, or captivated you recently? A perfect peach. A bird doing something silly. Moonlight sneaking through your window. A stranger’s overheard conversation. The cold side of the pillow. A long lost treasure resurfacing. A tiny flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. (If you can’t think of anything, I invite you to go looking!)

For this month’s prompt, pay attention to the small things that make the world feel briefly, unexpectedly marvelous. Your piece can be joyful, but it doesn't have to be. Follow your curiosity and see where a small wonder leads you.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

1. Make a list of 10 small wonders. Don't overthink it. Write down the first things that come to mind: a smell, a coincidence, a bird, a perfect bite, something someone said. Choose one and begin there.

2. Go outside in search of small or surprising wonder, something you might have overlooked: a weed, an insect, a shadow, a feather, a crack in the sidewalk, an unfamiliar sound. Linger, observe, connect.

3. Write about something ordinary as if you've never seen it before. A spoon, a dog, a tomato, a parking lot, your own hands. Forget what you already know and discover it newly.

4. Think of a small pleasure you return to again and again—a particular food, a ritual, a sound, a texture, a safe place, a song, the sound of your name on your lover’s lips. What memories, associations, or unexpected stories gather around this pleasure? Follow this joy as it expands on the page.

5. Write about something that made you smile when you weren't expecting to smile. Recreate the moment in enough detail that the reader see what you saw, hear what you heard, and understand why this tiny moment resonated or caught you off guard.

6. Follow a small wonder through time. What did you love as a child? What tiny pleasure have you recently rediscovered? What has remained oddly delightful throughout your life? Let the present and the past bump into each other.

7. Borrow someone else's wonder. Write about watching another person, animal, or even a child become completely absorbed in something. Notice how wonder can be contagious.

8. Make a catalog. Five things you noticed on your walk. Seven sounds you heard today. Three things that tasted exactly right. Ten objects you would save if you could. Let the accumulation create its own pattern or surprise.

9. Take something insignificant and make it important. Give a tiny object, event, gesture, or detail the kind of close attention usually reserved for something monumental. See how much meaning you can find inside something very small.

10. Find the thing that shouldn't be wonderful. Choose something mundane, broken, ugly, inconvenient, overlooked, or even annoying—and look at it until you discover what makes it beautiful, funny, strange, or compelling.

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

INSPIRATION

The Last Thing By Ada Limón

Wonder as Wander By Sharon Olds

So Much Happiness Naomi Shihab Nye

What Seems Like Joy By Kaveh Akbar

Wedding Poem By Ross Gay

Darling Coffee By Meena Alexander

The Language of Joy By Jacqueline Allen Trimble

The Mystery of the Hunt By Michael McClure

Hesitation Theory By Reginald Shepherd

Give Me This By Ada Limón

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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

Women Who Submit ATX Annual Submit 1 Party

Join the WWS-ATX “Submit 1” Party!

"Submit 1" is an annual global submission drive hosted by Women Who Submit. At this special 3-hour event, we’ll gather to send out work to top-tier literary journals as a unified community to help close the gender gap in publishing.

We’ll also be on Zoom during this event for anyone who wants to participate but can’t make it in person. If you plan to participate via Zoom, please email our chapter lead, Ramona Reeves, HERE to receive the Zoom link a day in advance.

We’ll have a mini meet and greet, share a list of top-tier journals with open submissions, and then have dedicated time to submit work. At the end, members can announce literary news, events, and opportunities. Kids welcome at this event.

NOTE: It’s okay to come late or leave early! Join for however long you can!

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.

New members (& OG members who haven’t yet) 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, September 19, 2026
10am - 1pm

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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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Book Launch — It’s Got to Be You by Twinkle Zaman

Join us for an evening of books, wine, and stories, to celebrate the launch of Twinkle Zaman’s debut novel, It’s Got To Be You.

Multi-Genre Author Panel
Featuring:

Ashley Wall
Shayla Jesse
Sasha Summers
Raquel Medora
Hollie Hardy
Twinkle Zaman

Q/A Moderated By:
Jackie Dorman

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Friday, Sept. 11, 2026
Doors 7pm
Panel Discussion 7:30m

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

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Free

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About the Book

With It’s Got To Be You, Zaman introduces readers to a cinematic love story about hope, transformation, and the extraordinary power of a single hello. Set against a backdrop of music, longing, and the pull of destiny, the novel follows nineteen-year-old Lucy DeLuca after a chance encounter with rising country star Chip Wayne changes the course of her life.

About the Author

TWINKLE ZAMAN is an author best known for her poetry book Love Notes: Single Hearts Affairs, where she found her confidence to speak unapologetically about the woman she has become. With unfiltered honesty and faith in love, she has sparked a flame within herself and become an inspiration to women. Her debut novel, It’s Got To Be You, is a bold and intimate story of growth, resilience, and transformation. She invites readers to believe in love that lingers long after the final page.

About the Panelists

ASHLEY WALL is an educator, a mom of two and a passionate architect of imagination! With a master’s degree in education and a wealth of teaching experience, Ashley has a unique vision: to empower young minds through imagination and belief in oneself.

SHAYLA JESSE is a wife, mom, author, and speaker passionate about encouraging women to strengthen their faith and embrace their purpose through her books, podcasts, and speaking engagements.

SASHA SUMMERS writes stories that celebrate the ups and downs, loves and losses, ordinary and extraordinary occurrences of life. Sasha pens fiction in multiple genres and hopes each and every book will draw readers in and set them on an emotional and rewarding journey. When not writing, she’s reading or spending time with her family somewhere in the Texas Hill Country.

RAQUEL MEDORA is a Texas native. She received a BA in English from UT Austin with a Creative Writing Certificate in Poetry. Outside of writing, Raquel is an avid gardener, pulling weeds in her rose-rage garden, planting new seeds and trees, and she enjoys hiking, spending time with her two kids, and enjoying life with her friends.

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. Follow on IG: @hollie.hardy

About the Moderator

JACKIE DORMAN is a relationship coach, matchmaker, bestselling author, and speaker who has helped over 1,600 people get married in just the last four years through her singles program Last Year Single and her proprietary HeartWork process. She calls Austin, Texas home with her husband of 18 years, David. Together they have a beautiful blended family with three adult children and two grandbabies.

SNS | 8-29-26

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

Featuring:
Justin Demeter
Amanda Johnston

Theme: Fever
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday, August 29, 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: 837 4279 2148

Passcode:  030750

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Author Bios

Justin Demeter is a queer/trans poet and painter who lives and loves in Oakland, CA. He has poems published by New Words Press, Oxford University Press, Beyond the Veil Press, Feather Press, and others. His special talents include climbing things, parallel parking, and catching falling objects. Justin peddles paperbacks on mental health for a living. 
Learn more: https://www.justindemeterart.com/

Amanda Johnston is a writer, visual artist, and the 61st Poet Laureate of Texas. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter, and editor of Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, The Moth Radio Hour, Bill Moyers, The Rumpus, and the anthologies Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation and founder of Torch Literary Arts.  

Learn more: https://www.amandajohnston.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, Aug. 27, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

August Writing Prompt: Fever

We usually think of fever as something to cure, a symptom of the body invaded. But a fever is also evidence of a body fighting back, a threshold where perception blurs, dreams become vivid, memories return unexpectedly, and reality takes on the strange logic of heat.

Language, too, can run a fever. Desire burns. Anger simmers. Cities bake beneath record temperatures. Crowds catch a fever for a cause, a celebrity, a revolution. Grief can feel feverish. So can passion. This month’s inspiration poems (see below) move through illness, longing, hunger, plague, politics, environmental catastrophe, and ecstatic imagination, using fever less as a diagnosis than as a kind of energy, vibration, or a way of seeing.

What happens when something overheats? What begins to melt, distort, or transform? What survives the fever?

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

1. Write about a literal fever that felt scary or memorable — your own or someone else’s. Paint the scene with unexpected images, metaphors, sensory details.

2. Think of fever not as illness but as rapture. Write about a moment when you lost yourself completely— laughing, singing, dancing, loving, painting, praying, protesting, rolling down a hill, or watching a storm roll in.

3. Explore an obsession. What have you caught that you can't seem to shake? A person, an idea, an ear worm, a memory, a fear, a question.

4. Write from the perspective of something that burns: a wildfire, a light bulb, a star, an engine, a candle, a city sidewalk in August. What kind of fever does it carry?

5. Imagine a collective fever rather than an individual one. What is your neighborhood, your family, your country, or the internet burning with right now?

6. Borrow the dream logic of a fever dream. Let impossible transitions happen naturally: rooms become forests, strangers become relatives, the dead return, time folds in on itself. Resist explaining the leaps.

7. Think about something "running hot": anger, passion, creativity, jealousy, climate, machinery, love. Follow that metaphor until it transforms into something unexpected.

8. Write a piece in which every image contains heat or its opposite. Steam, sweat, sunlight, friction, embers, melted wax, ice packs, cool sheets, rain on hot pavement. Let temperature become the poem's emotional vocabulary.

9. Begin with restraint and end in abandon. Let the fever build through repetition, longer sentences, bolder images, or increasingly ecstatic language.

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

INSPIRATION

Saturday Class: Fever Dream (George, Breonna, and Trayvon) By Kelly Norman Ellis

After Preparing the Altar, the Ghosts Feast Feverishly By Jane Wong

Fever By Hailey Leithauser

Fever By Edward Hirsch

Fever 103° By Sylvia Plath

This Is Not about Us (It’s Just about Desire and the Plague) By RK Fauth

Multiple Choice for Adrift Michigander By Brian Czyzyk

Blame It On Summer By Linda Rodriguez

[I hate the fever that alights on your forehead] By Tilsa Otta (Translated By Farid Matuk)

Blackwater Fever By Vandana Khanna

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Want more writing prompts?

Join Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets!

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 August 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

---

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

---

Free

---

---

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