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
Garrett Murphy
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
Friday, June 7, 2024
7pm
Studio Morey
5500 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA
Author Bios
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). She holds an MFA in Poetry from SFSU, teaches private writing workshops online, runs Praxis Poetry: Weekly Prompts for Poets, and hosts the monthly online reading series Saturday Night Special. 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
Melissa Anderson, a poet, piemaker, neurobiologist, and psychotherapist has been published in Critica, Croneswords, Pacific Coast, as well as Life Sciences, Brain Research Bulletin and the European Journal of Pharmacology. Writing is Life!
Tracy Artson is a poet and licensed psychologist in California. Poems published in The Passionfruit Review, Colossus Press, The Los Angeles Press, River Heron Review (Fall, 2023). Pushcart nominated by River Heron Review. www.tracyartsonpsychologist.com
Sara Biel is a social worker, corvid negotiator, and poet in Oakland, CA. She is an editor at Colossus Press and a curator with the Starting Points series. Her chapbook, Prescribed Burn was published in 2023.
Paul Corman-Roberts is the author of the Firecracker nominated poetry collection "Bone Moon Palace" (Black Lawrence Press) and the self published Graphic Chapbook "The Sincere" (Libran Apocalypse.) He is also a recovering sports addict and drummer.
Cassandra Dallett is looking for the next chapter. She is the author of multiple chapbooks and full-length books of poetry, most recently A Pretty Little Wilderness (Be About It Press). On Sunday, A Finch and Collapse (Nomadic Press), were both nominated for CA Book awards.
Justin Demeter is a queer poet and painter who lives in Oakland. He’s been published in Trans Bodies Trans Selves and in anthologies from New Words Press and Beyond the Veil Press. Find his art at justindemeterart.com
Born in Melbourne, Natasha Dennerstein holds an MFA from San Francisco State. She has had several books of poetry published and her work has appeared in many journals in the USA, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Forthcoming this summer is Apps Poetica from The Los Angeles Press.
Yume Kim is a poet, essayist, educator, and author of Reserve the Right. She is now working on a new manuscript, which includes poems calling out the racist hypocrisy that still exists in academia.
Alexandra Kostoulas is the founder and executive director of SF Creative Writing Institute. She writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She believes her best work is yet to come.
Karen Marker is an Oakland based writer who is grateful she has teachers like Hollie who inspire her to build a life around writing and reading poetry and get some of her work published.
Garrett Murphy is an Oakland-based poet and author who has often been considered a "political and human nature satirist." His most recent publication is MURPHY'S LOG, a compilation of newer and previously published works.
In the first grade, a teacher told Riley O’Connell to “get her nose out of a book and get a life”—advice which she did not heed. Since then, Riley has gone on to have poems published around the world.
Drew Sage has been writing poetry since 1978. His style consists of an amalgamation of hip hop-like wordplay and iambic pentameter with a special emphasis on rhyming based on manipulated enunciation. He performs in up to 7 East Bay open mics a week.
Elisa Salasin wanders the hills with camera and pen when she isn’t wrestling spreadsheets for the good of the world. Her chapbook, She Watches Wild Horses, is a personal guidebook for sailing straight into the storm and coming out the other side shining.
Maw Shein Win's full-length collection Percussing the Thinking Jar (Omnidawn) is forthcoming in October, 2024. She teaches poetry in the MFA Program at USF and is a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse, a literary community. mawsheinwin.com
When she’s not taking classes from Hollie, Valerie Sopher sings, plays guitar and gets her hands dirty with fabric and thread. Her first chapbook, Day for Night, is available from The Orchard Street Press.
Kimi Sugioka, is a mother, educator, songwriter, and author of two books of poetry; most recently Wile & Wing (Manic D Press). She is the poet laureate of Alameda, California, and believes that creating community through art is a revolutionary act.
Vagabond Empire is a new multidisciplinary art project by Sam Prestianni that reimagines the Great American Songbook for a post-pandemic America. Check out the debut album at thevagabondempire.com and a poetry-painting collaboration at reneekirbyart.com/works-in-progress.html