GAB Fest
I’m thrilled to be included in this year’s Greater Austin Book Festival! Come schmooze with local authors, buy signed books, bask in gorgeous city views from the library, and enjoy a full day of panels, workshops, and programs.
I’ll be moderating a Poetry Panel featuring Usha Akella, C. Prudence Arceneaux, Bree Bailey, KB Brookins and me from 12pm –1pm in the second floor art gallery. Scroll down for author bios!
Saturday, April 26, 2025
Book Fest
10am – 5pm
Poetry Panel
12pm – 1pm
Austin Public Library (Central)
710 W. César Chávez St.
Special Event Center (1st floor)
Art Gallery (2nd floor)
Austin, TX
Free
Author Bios
Usha Akella has authored ten books that include poetry, and two musical dramas with publishers such as Spinifex Press, Australia, Sahitya Akademi (India’s Academy of Letters), and Mantis Editores, Mexico. She earned an MSt. in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK. She is the founder of Matwaala, launched to increase the visibility of South Asian poets, and www.the-pov.com, a website of curated interviews. She was selected as one of the Creative Ambassadors for the city of Austin in 2019 & 2015. She has been hosted by numerous international poetry festivals, and laudable venues such as the Ministry of Arts and Letters, Mexico, Sahitya Akademi, JLF Houston etc., She edited and conceived Hum Aiseich Bolte! This is just how we speak, a poetry anthology on the city of Hyderabad, and a festschrift, A house of words, in honor of Keki Daruwalla.
C. Prudence Arceneaux, a native Texan, teaches English and Creative Writing, and is the Department Chair of Creative Writing, at Austin Community College, in Austin, TX. Her work has appeared in various journals, including The Academy of American Poets’ Poem- A- Day, Limestone, New Texas, Hazmat Review, Texas Observer, Whiskey Island Magazine, African Voices and Inkwell. She is the author of two chapbooks of poetry-- DIRT (2018 Jean Pedrick Prize) and LIBERTY-- and newly released collection PROPRIOCEPTION.
Bree Bailey (she/her) is a queer Latina poet, a mistress of the music of inflections, pulses, and ironic chuckles. A Jersey native now in Austin, TX, she writes with heart and humor about mental health, love, and resilience. A former educator and 2023 Write Bloody Jack McCarthy Prize winner, her debut collection, Wailing on Whisper Street, is out now and everywhere you buy books. Find her in Olney Magazine, Exposition Review, Remington Review, West Trade Review, and more. Follow @breebaileypoetry or visit breebaileypoetry.com.
KB Brookins is a Black queer and trans writer, educator, and cultural worker from Texas. KB’s chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut collection Freedom House won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s memoir Pretty (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024) won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award and the Dorothy Allison/Felice Picano Emerging Writer Award. Follow them online at @earthtokb.
Hollie Hardy is a writer, educator, and author of two books of poetry, Lions Like Us (Red Light Lit Press, 2024) and How to Take a Bullet: And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014) winner of the Annual Poetry Center Book Award at San Francisco State University. She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU and teaches private writing workshops online. She is the founder of Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets, and host of 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 Colossus, The Common, Fourteen Hills, Mixed Bag of Tricks, Passionfruit Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Austin, TX. Learn more at: holliehardy.com.