Red Light Lit: Austin

Join us for an evening of poetry, story telling, 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:

KB Brookins
Heidi Kasa
Loria Mendoza
Lisa Olstein
Roger Reeves
Hollie Hardy

Hosted By: Jennifer Lewis

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Saturday, August 18, 2024
7pm

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

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Alienated Majesty Books

Join us for an multi-genre reading, Q&A, and book signing

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy (Lions Like Us)

Emily Jon Tobias (MONARCH: Stories)

Scott Semegran (The Codger and the Sparrow)

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Thursday, August 15, 2024
6pm

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Alienated Majesty Books
613 W. 29th ST
Austin, TX

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Free Event

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. Learn more at: holliehardy.com

Emily Jon Tobias is an American author and poet. She is an award-winning writer whose work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, along with other honorable mentions, and has been featured in literary journals such as Santa Clara Review, Talking River Review, Flying South Literary Journal, Furrow Literary Journal, The Opiate Magazine, The Ocotillo Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, Big Muddy, Spoon Knife, Peauxdunque Review, and elsewhere. Midwestern-raised, she now lives and writes on the coast of Southern California and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University Oregon. MONARCH: Stories (Black Lawrence Press, 2024) is her debut collection.

Scott Semegran is an award-winning writer of nine books. BlueInk Review described him best as “a gifted writer, with a wry sense of humor.” His latest novel, The Codger and the Sparrow (Paperback from TCU Press, Audiobook from Vibrance Press), is a comical yet moving story about a 65-year-old widower’s unlikely friendship with a 16-year-old troublemaker. His eight previous books include The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island, which was the first-place winner for Middle-Grade/Young Adult fiction in the 2021 Writer’s Digest Book Awards, and To Squeeze a Prairie Dog, which was the winner of the 2020 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Gold Medal for Humor. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife. They have four kids, two cats, and a dog. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in English. Scott Semegran is co-host of the web series Austin Liti Limits along with fellow writer Larry Brill.

Red Light Lit: Seattle

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
Amber Flame
Josh Mohr
and more tba!

Hosted By: Jennifer Lewis

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Saturday, July 20, 2024
7pm

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Base Camp Studios 2
1901 3rd Ave.
Seattle, WA

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Red Light Lit: Joshua Tree

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
Natasha Dennerstein
and more Red Light Lit poets and musicians tba!

Hosted By: Jennifer Lewis

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Saturday, June 15, 2024
7pm

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The Palms in Wonder Valley
83131 Amboy Rd
Twentynine Palms, CA

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Red Light Lit: LA

Beyond Baroque presents: Red Light Lit with Hollie Hardy

Join us for an evening of poetry 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:

Jeffrey Bryant
Dennis Cruz
Natasia Dennerstein
Richard Ferguson
Hollie Hardy
Traci Kato-Kiriyama
Rick Lupert
K.R. Morrison
Linda Ravenswood
Dig Wayne

Hosted By: Jennifer Lewis

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Friday, June 14, 2024
8pm

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Beyond Baroque
681 N. Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA

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Free Event

Book tour donations welcome!!

Jeffrey Bryant is a Pushcart-nominated queer poet/writer who lives in Los Angeles.  His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Poetic Diversity, the New Verse News, Poetrysuperhighway.com, Synchroniciti Magazine and Quill and Echo. His work has also appeared in the anthologies The Coiled Serpent from Tia Chucha Press; the 2020 Altadena Literary Review from Shabda Press; Shadowplay Literary Journal from the University of Arkansas and Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts from Mystic Boxing Commission Press.

Dennis Cruz is a vital poet who inhabits the voice of the perpetual outsider and the purely American dissident. He has been writing, performing and publishing his work for over 30 years. His latest collection of Poetry THE BEAST IS WE is out now via Punk Hostage Press.

Natasha Dennerstein was born in Melbourne, Australia. She has an MFA from San Francisco State University. Natasha has had poetry published in many journals internationally, including The North American Review and Spoon River Poetry Review. Her collections Anatomize (2015), Triptych Caliform (2016) and her novella-in-verse About a Girl (2017) were published by Norfolk Press in San Francisco. Her trans chapbook Seahorse (2017) was published by Nomadic Press in Oakland and is now available through Black Lawrence Press. Broken: A Life of Aileen Wuornos in 33 poems was published in 2021 by Be About It Press. She lives in Alameda, California, where she is a freelance editor. She was a 2018 Fellow of the Lambda Literary Writer’s Retreat and writer-in-residence there in fiction in 2023. Forthcoming in 2024 is Apps Poetica from The LA Press

L.A. poet/spoken-word performer Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians.  He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals. He is the author of the novel New Jersey Me (Rare Bird Books), and two poetry collections 8th & Agony (Punk Hostage Press), and Everything is Radiant Between the Hates (Moon Tide Press). Most recently, Ferguson is the lead editor of an anthology of CA poets entitled Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press).

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. Learn more at: holliehardy.com

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. 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’s 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).

Rick Lupert is the recipient of the 2017 Ted Slade Award, the 2014 recipient of the Beyond Baroque Distinguished service award for service to poetry in Southern California, and a 3-time Pushcart and one time Best of the Net nominee. He created Poetry Super Highway the daily haiku site Haikuniverse and hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years. (Which lives on as a Zoom series.) He’s authored 28 collections of poetry (most recently It’s Spritz O’Clock Somewhere). He writes a weekly Jewish poetry column for JewishJournal.com and created the daily web comic Cat and Banana with Brendan Constantine.

K.R. Morrison is a Bay Area poet, drummer, and teen educator who since the pandemic, splits her time between San Francisco and a place she calls Mermaid Town, in Southern California. Morrison is a two-time Pushcart nominee and has featured for several curations and podcasts for her first collection of poetry, Cauldrons, published by PaperPress Books. Morrison seeks to cocreate with other artists and educators to construct fresh new communities that liberate families and their youth from old toxic forms of patriarchy. These days she engages this through writing workshops, teen life coaching, and divine feminine cultivation within the juvenile hall injustice system, in Southern California. Morrison’s poetry can be found in several publications, and in 9 anthologies in 2023. She plans to release a new collection soon titled, “From her Wrist.”"

 Linda Ravenswood BFA MA, PhD, is a poet and performance artist from Los Angeles. Her accolades include an Oxford Prize in Poetry (2022) and the Edwin Markham Prize in Poetry (2023). She is the founding editor of The Los Angeles Press, est. 2018, and the co-founder of the Poet Laureate program in Glendale, California. Her recent collections include Cantadora—letters from California (Eyewear London/The Black Spring Press Group, 2023), The Stan Poems (Pedestrian Press, 2022), Tlacuilx—Tongues in Quarantine (HINCHAS Press, 2021), and XLA Poets (HINCHAS Press, 2020). Find her at thelosangelespress.com

Los Angeles poet Dig Wayne teaches Method Acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in West Hollywood. Originally from Ohio, Dig has lived, worked, and practiced his art in New York City and London. He has published two books of poetry, Hip Pockets and Bongo Skin. His recent collection, One Fell Swoop was published by innateDIVINITYbooks. His poetry has been featured in the literary journals, High Shelf Press XXIX, Juke Joint, Ligeia Magazine, Askew Poetry, Spillway Poetry, Abramlin Press and more recently, the Anthology of Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts.

Book Soup

Red Light Lit and Book Soup present

New works — an evening reading, Q&A, and book signing

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy (Lions Like Us)

Emily Jon Tobias (MONARCH: Stories)

Arthur Kayzakian (The Book of Redacted Paintings)

Jennifer Lewis (The New Low)

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Thursday, June 13, 2024
7pm

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Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA

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Free Event

Red Light Lit: SF

Red Light Lit presents: Lions Like Us

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

Featuring:

Peter Bullen
Liz Cahill
Miah Jeffra
Loria Mendoza
Christine No
Kelechi Ubozoh
Matthew Zapruder
Hollie Hardy

Live Music:

Sass N Harmony

Hosted By: Jennifer Lewis

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Sunday, June 9, 2024
7pm

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Make-Out Room
3225 22nd ST.
San Francisco, CA

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Tickets $10 at the door

Oakland Book Launch Party

This is it! The lions are here at last!

Come help me celebrate the release of my second full-length poetry collection Lions Like Us, (Red Light Lit Press) back in my Bay Area stopping grounds, with students, friends, family, and local writers. Everyone is invited!

I wanted this reading, the first stop on my summer book tour, to feel like a curated in-person Saturday Night Special reunion reading, with many of my favorite writers reading for just 3 minutes each. I’ll also have a small open mic, time permitting.

Featuring:

Melissa Anderson
Tracy Artson
Sara Biel
Paul Corman-Roberts
Cassandra Dallett
Justin Demeter
Natasha Dennerstein
Hollie Hardy
Yume Kim
Alexandra Kostoulas
Karen Marker
Riley O'Connell
Indiana Pehlivanova
Drew Sage
Elisa Salasin
SB Stokes
Valerie Sopher
Kimi Sugioka
Maw Shein Win
Vagabond Empire

Music:
The Corrupt Money Changer

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Friday, June 7, 2024
7pm

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Studio Morey
5500 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA

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Free Event

Book tour donations welcome!!

SNS | 5-25-24

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

Featuring: Hollie Hardy & Tomas Moniz

Theme: Feral
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday May 25, 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: 836 3483 2432

Passcode: 416346

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Author Bios

Hollie Hardy is a writer, educator, and author of Lions Like Us (forthcoming from Red Light Lit Press on June 7th, 2024) and How to Take a Bullet: And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014) winner of the Annual Poetry Center Book Award at San Francisco State University. She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU, teaches private writing workshops online, and hosts Saturday Night Special: A Virtual Open Mic, originally founded and co-hosted with Tomas Moniz. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published in numerous anthologies and literary journals. She lives in Austin, TX. Learn more at: holliehardy.com

Tomas Moniz is a latinx writer living in East Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway and the LAMBDA. His new novel, All Friends Are Necessary, is forthcoming from Algonquin Books on June 11th, 2024. He teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program. He has stuff on the internet but loves penpals:
PO Box 3555, Berkeley CA 94703. He promises to write back. Learn more at tomasmoniz.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, May 18, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

May Writing Prompt: Feral

adjective: feral
(especially of an animal) wild, untamed, undomesticated, escaped from captivity
or resembling an animal—savage, fierce, unpredictable, untamed

Brainstorm: Neglected garden, tangled fuchsia, feral wind reaching, tasting the hem of your garment, boy next door, teenaged crush, trampled with desire, hair-tearing grief, Texas summer nights, sticky animal aroma, her sharp teeth, this ocean roaring at the feral moon, like a dog abandoned on the median or loping in the back alleys of urban squalor searching for love.

Write a poem (or short prose piece) on or tangential to the theme, or including the word “feral”.

SOME IDEAS:

• Write about a feral animal or a zoo animal or an animal rescue or encounter

• Write about a wild animal heart, feral love, a feral crush

• An animal personified, or person described as animal

• Animal as metaphor

• What else is feral? A city, a garden, a schoolyard, a childhood, a jungle, an outfit, a Taylor Swift fan, a woman you loved, the music you danced to, the tongue of a hummingbird, the possibilities are endless

As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore. The following sample poems offer a wildly diverse approach. Enjoy!

NOTE: The SNS writing prompts will soon be integrated into my new subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets

FOR INSPIRATION

Summer Story by Mary Oliver

It Was the Animals by Natalie Diaz

For the Feral Splendor That Remains by CA Conrad

She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo

Studies of an Ox’s Heart, c. 1511-13 by Sylvia Legris

Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out by Richard Siken

Sanctuary by Donika Kelly

Happy Trigger by Carmen Giménez

Sea Krait, Broom by Amanda Joy

Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns by Dean Young

Inside-Bird and Outside-Bird by Kim Hyesoon (translated by Don Mee Choi)

Summer by Joanna Fuhrman

James Dean with Pig by Sam Sax

Life Is Beautiful by Dorianne Laux

Allegory by Diane Seuss

NOTE: The SNS writing prompts will soon be integrated into my new subscription service, Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets

ATX Red Light Lit Poetry Open Mic

ATX Red Light Lit x Isis Destiny present a Lover Girl Open Mic at Revival
Indulge in an elevated open mic experience
in celebration of Red Light Lit Austin’s third anniversary

Featuring:

Music by Isis Destiny
Poetry by Hollie Hardy
+ local Austin poets and artists
&
books, body paint, henna, jewelry, live art
raffle prizes

Hosted By: Loria Mendoza

Red Light Lit is a reading series and small press devoted to writers, artists, and musicians who explore love, relationships, sexuality, and gender. Since its founding in 2013, RLL has published 10 literary journals and produced over 200 live shows (including in Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle).

Red Light Lit Press will release Hollie Hardy’s second full-length poetry collection Lions Like Us in May 2024. Preorder a signed copy here.

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Sunday, April 28, 2024
2pm - 6pm
(Readings at 3:30pm-ish)

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Revival Coffee
1405 East 7th Street
Austin, TX

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Free Event

SNS | 4-27-24

April is National Poetry Month! Join Saturday Night Special online for an evening of literary performance and open mic reading

Featuring: Dean Rader & Judy Halebsky

Theme: Fortune Cookie
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday April 27, 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: 856 5388 5137

Passcode: 852089

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Author Bios

Dean Rader has authored or co-authored twelve books, including Works & Days, winner of the 2010 T. S. Eliot Prize, Landscape Portrait Figure Form, a Barnes & Noble Review Best Book, and Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry, a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award and the Northern California Book Award. Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly, was published in April of 2023 and was named one of ten “mesmerizing” books of modern poetry by Book Riot.  His writing has been supported by fellowships from Princeton University, Harvard University, Headlands Center for the Arts, Art Omi, and the MacDowell Foundation. Rader is a professor at the University of San Francisco and a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry. 
Learn more at deanrader.com

Judy Halebsky is the author of three poetry collections—Sky=Empty, Tree Line,and Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged)—and the chapbook Space/Gap/Interval/Distance. Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she holds an M.F.A. in English & Creative Writing from Mills College and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California, Davis. On fellowships from the Japanese Ministry of Culture, she spent five years living in Japan, where she trained in Butoh dance and Noh theatre. She now directs the low-residency MFA program at Dominican University of California.
Learn more at judyhalebsky.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, April 20, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

April Writing Prompt: Fortune Cookie

April is National Poetry Month and many of us are endeavoring to write a poem every day for 30 days! (Some of you are enrolled in my Poetry Challenge getting fresh prompts for inspiration) Let’s have a little fortune cookie fun [in bed]:

Write a poem (or short prose piece) inspired by the fortune cookie.

INCLUDE ONE (OR MORE) OF THE FOLLOWING:

• Adages

• Warnings / Predictions

• Tips / Advice / Instructions

• The words "in bed" at the end of each line or stanza (or some other repeated phrase)

• Confident, assertive, didactic, sarcastic or matter-of-fact tone

• Interpolated lines from a fortune cookie

• [Brackets] with fortune inside

• Made up fortunes (serious or ridiculous)

• Mention of a real or metaphorical fortune cookie

• Second person address (to the reader, as "you")

• A meal eaten alone or with someone else, which includes a fortune cookie

  (and perhaps some setting or narrative details)

Or something else! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore. Have fun!

FOR INSPIRATION

Fortune [The neighbors will soon spread their confounding potluck before you.] poem by Dobby Gibson

Fortune [There’s only one horizon, yet it can be found] poem by Dobby Gibson

Handy Guide poem by Dean Young

The Moral Kicks In poem by Peter Twal

Cardi B Tells Me about Myself poem by Eboni Hogan 

In Bed poem by Kim Addonizio

Lines For the Fortune Cookies poem by Frank O’Hara 

New Lines for Fortune Cookies poem by James Masao Mitsui

Your Luck Is about to Change poem by Susan Elizabeth Howe

Little God Origami poem by Stefi Weisburd

If You Go to Bed Hungry poem by Angela Narisco Torres 

One Page Salon

Join us on the patio for a lively evening of literary entertainment

Featuring:

Dale Bridges
Hollie Hardy
Greg Marshall
Sergio Muro
Bianca Alyssa Pérez

Hosted By: WLT Executive Director Becka Oliver

The One Page Salon (called “the best literary evening in town” by the Austin American-Statesman) is a monthly reading series presented by the Writers’ League of Texas.

Five outstanding writers will read one page from a work in progress, which means the audience will be among the first to hear new material from our talented line-up. Plus, there will be literary chit chat and fun & games and laughter and so much more.

The One Page Salon takes place on the lovely outdoor patio (weather permitting) at Radio Coffee & Beer in South Austin where attendees can enjoy coffee and beer and other libations. There are some tasty food trucks if you want to pick up a bite to eat and Reverie Books will be on hand selling an assortment of great reads, including our readers’ latest books. Come early to save your seat!

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Tuesday, April 2, 2024
7:30 pm

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Radio Coffee & Beer
4204 Menchaca Rd
Austin, TX

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Free Event

SNS | 3-30-24

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

Featuring: Kelechi Ubozoh & Meg Jerit

Theme: The Sauce
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday March 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: 810 1670 2337

Passcode: 864243

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Author Bios

Kelechi Ubozoh is a Nigerian-American writer and mental health advocate. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she was the first undergraduate published in The New York Times. Her book with LD Green, We’ve Been Too Patient, elevates marginalized voices of lived experience who have endured psychiatric mistreatment. Her work is featured in Argot Magazine, Multiplicity, Essential Truths, sParkle & bLINK, Trauma, Tresses, & Truth, and When We Exhale. She co-hosts the Bay Area reading series MoonDrop Productions with Cassandra Dallett and has received a Pushcart Prize nomination. 
Learn more at kelechiubozoh.com. IG: @specialkech

Meg Jerit is a creative nonfiction writer, editor, poet, and author of the commissioned children’s book The Moonies: Journey to the Total Solar Eclipse. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia College, where she wrote her memoir, River Talks, a bildungsroman set in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. In 2022, she attended the Kenyon Review Summer Writing Workshop. Her poetry and prose has appeared in various journals such as, Adelaide: International Literary Magazine, Allium: A Journal of Poetry & Prose, The Commercial Appeal, The Southwestern Review, and forthcoming from Take Heart Publications. She is also the host of Smushed Blueberries, a monthly reading series at Epoch Coffee, in Austin, TX.  megjerit.com IG: @megitate @smushedblueberries

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Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!

LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!

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

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

March Writing Prompt: The Sauce

The many meanings of “sauce” include zest, zing, juice, confidence, style, salsa, rizz. It’s the slippery goodness that holds things together. It’s not just hot sauce, tomato, bbq, mustard, mayo, peanut, cherry, chocolate, sriracha, and soy—it’s all the sauces. And their metaphors. All the saucy people and things. Like salsa dancing. Sauce can also mean alcohol—like on or off the sauce, sauced.

Tell us a sauce story; sing us a saucy song; show us your salsa, write us a poem with some sauce in it!

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Write about a “secret sauce,” literal or metaphorical

• Write about something spicy or zesty—a food, an outfit, a date

• Write about “the goodness that holds things together”

• Write about salsa dancing or traditional dance, or the musical side of the sauce

• Write about (a character with) “rizz” (Oxford’s 2023 Word of the Year)

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

FOR INSPIRATION:

The Sauce, a Spotify playlist, short and saucy, to get you in the mood

Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, poem by Cornelius Eady

Calligraphy Accompanied by the Mood of a Calm but Definitive Sauce, poem by Dick Allen

Harold's Chicken Shack #1, poem by Nate Marshall

My Mouth Hovers Across Your Breasts, poem by Adrienne Rich

Wild Tongue, poem by Rebecca Seiferle

November Philosophers, by Katie Ford

Chinese Silence No. 14, poem by Timothy Yu

Tarragon, Are You a Wild Boar?, poem by Vi Khi Nao

Rats, short prose by Matthew Sweeney

SNS | 2-24-24

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

Featuring: Roanna Flowers & SG Huerta

Theme: Love (scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday February 24, 2023
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: 897 8202 8736

Passcode: 447624

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Author Bios

Roanna Flowers is a comedy writer in Austin, Texas. She has written several award-winning comedic short films, one of which appeared in over 30 festivals world-wide including the Cannes Short Film Corner. Last November, her short story "These Boots. Or The Bitches of Eastwick" appeared in the short story anthology "Mixed Bag of Tricks," a collection of stories by women, about women, published by a woman-owned small press. She is a former student of Amanda Eyre Ward’s, author of "The Jetsetters," and a member of the Writers’ League of Texas. She has a B.A. in English Literature with a specialization in early British Literature and a surprisingly handy minor in Latin. roannaflowers.com

SG Huerta is a queer Xicanx writer from Dallas. They are the poetry editor of Abode Press and marketing co-director for Split Lip Magazine. SG is the author of two poetry chapbooks, The Things We Bring with Us (Headmistress Press) and Last Stop (Defunkt Magazine), and the forthcoming nonfiction chapbook GOOD GRIEF (fifth wheel press 2025). Their work has appeared in Barrelhouse, Honey Literary, Infrarrealista Review, and elsewhere. They live in Central Texas with their partner and two cats. sghuertawriting.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 17, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

February Writing Prompt:

The theme of love is simple, classic, eternal, and offers a myriad of entry points. There’s romantic love, hungry love, familial love, friendship love, pet love, monster love, lost love, twisted love, unrequited love, self love. There’s new love and seasoned love. Fleeting and forever love.

Tell us a love story; sing us a love song; write us a love poem; compose a love letter.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Write about desire using metaphors about food, eating, or drinking. 

• Write a letter poem to a lover or friend about the terribly urgent, wonderful things you must tell them. 

• Write about your/or a character’s best, worst, or ideal date.

• Write a list poem repeating the word "because" or "reasons"

  because of my love for you____
  because I think of you____
  because you are mine____ 
  reasons I love you____

• Write about lost or unrequited love, about breaking up, missing or remembering someone. 

• Write a love story from the point of view of a mythical creature

• Write a how-to poem or essay about love

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

FOR INSPIRATION:

Love Sonnet XI, by Pablo Neruda
Having a Coke with You, by Frank O’Hara
The Friend, by Marge Piercy
To Love as Aswang, by Barbara Jane Reyes
What the Living Do, by Marie Howe
A Bronze God, or a Letter on Demand, Clifton Gachagua
What I Might Carry in the Small Cave of My Mouth +
How to Write a Love Letter by MK Chavez

Sign up for the February Write-In Workshop

A Writer’s Party Online Open Mic

This open mic is the culmination of a multi-day event billed as a free alternative to AWP including online and in-person events in Philly. Join Q&As, workshops, readings, music, a book fair, and more!
Open to all: Feb 8 - Feb 11. RSVP to individual events and panels here

Featuring:

Norm Maddox
Hollie Hardy
Kelechi Ubozoh
Natasha Dennerstein
Tongo Eisen-Martin

Hosted By: K.R. Morrison

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Sunday, February 11, 2023
5pm Central/ 6pm Eastern

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Advanced Registration Required
Click here to RSVP

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Free

Red Light Lit Austin

Join us for an evening of poetry, prose, live music, burlesque, and more on the theme of love.

Featuring:

Hollie Hardy
&
local Austin poets and performance artists (tba)

Hosted By: Loria Mendoza

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Saturday, Feb 10, 2024
10 pm

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Stinson Hall
10203 Old Manchaca Rd
Austin, TX

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RSVP on Eventbrite
$20 suggested donation
(no one turned away)

SNS | 1-27-24

Join me online for the first SNS of 2024, an evening of literary performance and open mic reading

Featuring: Maxine Chernoff & Marisa Crawford

Theme: Simultaneity (scroll down for prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday January 27, 2023
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: 897 8202 8736

Passcode: 447624

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Author Bios

Maxine Chernoff was Dept. Chair and Creative Writing Professor at SFSU. She is the author of twenty books of poetry, most recently Light and Clay and Under the Music, both by MadHat Press of Massachusetts. She is winner of the 2009 PEN Translation Award with Paul Hoover for their translation of Hoelderlin and a 2013 NEA Fellow in poetry. In 2016 she was a visiting writer at the American Academy in Rome and in 2013 she was a visiting professor of Creative Writing at Exeter U in England. Also a fiction writer, her story collection Signs of Devotion was one of the 1993 NYT’s books of the year.

Marisa Crawford is the author of the poetry collections The Haunted House, Reversible, and, most recently, DIARY (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023). She is the editor of The Weird Sister Collection (Feminist Press, forthcoming 2024), and co-editor, with Megan Milks, of We Are The Baby-Sitters Club: Essays & Artwork from Grown-Up Readers. Marisa is co-host of the 90s rock podcast All Our Pretty Songs. She lives in New York.

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

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

January Writing Prompt:

Simultaneity: the quality of existing or occurring at the same time; happening at once

“What sense it makes for these two mornings to exist side by side in the world where we live, should this be framed as a question, would not be answerable by philosophy or poetry or finance or by the shallows or the deeps of her own mind, she fears.” ~from Anne Carson’s short story “1=1”

For this month’s theme, I was inspired by a recent episode of The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, in which the speaker in Carson’s story tries to reconcile going for a swim in a beautiful lake while refugees are drowning in the Mediterranean. I was struck by the universality of this challenge—babies are born while others die, we eat while others starve, we are warm in our homes while others sleep outside, while planes crash and bombs drop, we drink our coffee and read the headlines, while the rich and powerful ruin the world. I think there’s something deeply human in these juxtapositions.

But simultaneity doesn’t require opposites, just concurrence. One can hum in the shower while washing one’s hair, dreaming of pancakes, listening to George Winston. One can invite friends over and they can all talk at once.

So, this is your January challenge, should you choose to accept it: write into the idea of simultaneity.

Tell us a story; sing us a song; write us a poem.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Make a list of “where you were when” moments

• Let more than one thing arrive at once (or in layers) into your poem or story and allow meaning (or its lack) to arise in the juxtaposition—these might be big ideas, or small observations—a child crying, a cardinal on a branch in a snowstorm

• Perhaps begin with dailiness or interiority and then move outward into the world

• If you want to go more speculative/sci-fi, you might consider alternate realities (watch Everything Everywhere All at Once for inspiration)

• Or something else!

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

FOR INSPIRATION:

Teju Cole Reads Anne Carson on The New Yorker Fiction Podcast
The Children poem by Donald Revell
Simultaneously poem by Kimberly Grey
Emotional Intelligence poem by Pimone Triplett

Sign up for the January Write-In Workshop

SNS | 11-25-23

This is it! Don’t miss it! The last SNS of 2023. Join me online in your post-Thanksgiving afterglow, for an evening of literary performance and open mic reading.

Featuring: S.C. Says & Jeffrey Bryant

Theme: Reflection

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday November 25, 2023
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: 861 3916 9297

Passcode: 730944

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Author Bios

Andre Bradford, a.k.a. S.C. Says, is an Austin-based slam poet who has been performing slam poetry since 2013. He's toured and featured at venues and universities across the country, and his work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Write About Now, The Edge radio, The Culture Trip, and Blavity. He is a two time Austin Poetry Slam Champion, the 2022 Texas Grand Slam Champion, and is the author of the poetry collection Golden Brown Skin. He also once popped a bag of popcorn without burning a single kernel, which is arguably one of his greatest achievements. His poetry covers a gamut of topics ranging from being mixed race, to social justice, to mental health awareness, to never settling in relationships. Slam poetry is an art form he loves due to its raw vulnerability and its ability to cultivate transparency and dialogues into many different walks of life.
Learn more at: scsayspoetry.com

Jeffrey Bryant is a queer poet/writer who lives in Los Angeles. He has been or will be published in the Los Angeles Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, Poetic Diversity, the New Verse News, Poetrysuperhighway.com, and in the forthcoming November issue of Synchroniciti Magazine. His work has also appeared in the anthologies The Coiled Serpent from Tia Chucha Press; the 2020 Altadena Literary Review from Shabda Press; Shadowplay Literary Journal from the University of Arkansas and Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts from Mystic Boxing Commission Press.

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

Write-In Details/ Sign Up

November Writing Prompt:

As the year winds down and folds inward, towards food, friends and family, leaves turn to gold, days are shorter and colder—it’s a good time for gratitude, rest and reflection. What has this year meant to you? This life? Where are you going? Where have you been? This month’s theme of REFLECTION invites a multitude of interpretations.

Tell us a story; sing us a song; write us a poem.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

• Reflection as contemplation, as serious thought. Reflect inward on the self, or outward on the world. What matters? What have you learned or achieved? What do you long for? What are you surprised about? What is one good thing? One regret?

• Reflection as self-portrait or ars poetica

• Reflection as mirror— moonlight reflecting in river, cityscape reflecting sky; music reflecting a generation, children reflecting our best and our worst, war in the Middle East reflected in violence in the U.S., but also illuminating our humanity

• Reflection as social commentary on literal reflection—how do we see ourselves clearly in a time when image is so profuse, so filtered and polished?

• Perhaps try a palindrome or mirror 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)

• The truth is, most writing is reflective in some way, so this theme is wide open. To find your own way in, perhaps start by journaling or brainstorming about the year, then expand out, moving backwards or forward in time until you find a subject that speaks to this moment of reflection or an important past reflection or epiphany.

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

FOR INSPIRATION:

Mirror poem by Rita Dove
Myth poem by Natasha Trethewey
Reflections poem by Yusef Komunyakaa
Reflections on the Ruin of the Asylum at Saint-Rémy poem by Priscilla Atkins
I Make Promises Before I Dream poem by Tongo Eisen-Martin
Mirrored flash fiction by Jennifer Hudak
Mirror poem by Silvia Plath

Sign up for the November Write-In Workshop

Mixed Bag of Tricks Launch Party

Join us for an evening of fiction and fun to celebrate the release of Mixed Bag of Tricks, a new short story anthology of women writers. We’ll have readings by authors, books signings, and a Q&A hosted by the Writers’ League of Texas. Plus free drinks and snacks!

Featuring:

Roanna Flowers
Ilene Haddad
Hollie Hardy
Heidi Kasa
Annie Williams

Hosted by: Britta Jensen

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Saturday, November 18, 2023
6:30 pm

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Alienated Majesty Books
613 West 29th Street
Austin, TX 78705

Free Event

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Other ways to preorder Mixed Bag of Tricks

*Sixty percent of profits from the sale of this book will benefit the Writers’ League of Texas, the largest literary arts organization in Texas, a statewide nonprofit offering programs and services to writers.

SNS | 10-28-23

Join us online for the 13th Annual SNS Halloween Reading & Costume Party!

Featuring: Jan Steckel & E.C. Barrett

Theme: Monsters & Ghosts

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

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Saturday October 28, 2023
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: 840 9660 9338

Passcode: 564897

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Author Bios

Jan Steckel’s debut fiction collection Ghosts and Oceans was released this month on Zeitgeist Press. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) won two Rainbow Awards. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her creative prose and poetry have appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, Canary, Assaracus and elsewhere. She lives in Oakland, California.
Get your copy of Ghosts and Oceans at:
https://www.zeitgeist-press.com/index.php/product/ghosts-and-oceans/
Or, for a signed copy, send $24 via PayPal @Jansteckel or Venmo @Jan-Steckel

E.C. Barrett (they/she) writes folk horror, fabulism, and dark speculative fiction. They are, or have been, an academic, journalist, bookseller, editor, critic, and linocut artist. A Clarion West graduate, E.C. has words in Baffling Magazine, Split Lip, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere, and she serves as the book reviews editor for Reckoning. E.C. is queer, neurodivergent, and enjoys more maker hobbies than is entirely practical. ecbarrett.com

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October Writing Prompt:

For the 13th Annual Saturday Night Special Halloween Open Mic, we’re taking up some classic, spooky themes: Monsters & Ghosts.

Tell us a story; sing us a song; write us a poem.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

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

• 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…

• 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!)

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

FOR INSPIRATION:

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
Jane Goodall and Bruce Springsteen Contemplate their Childlessness poem by John Dudek
All Souls poem by Michael Collier
Windigo poem by Louise Erdrich
Ghost poem by Cynthia Huntington
Field of Skulls poem by Mary Karr
Monster in the Lake poem by Martín Espada
Monster poem by Jason Irwin
The Witch Has Told You a Story poem by Ava Leavell Haymon

No Write-In this month!
Join me in Oakland, CA for Half Century Salon live in person on Friday, October 20!