Join us online for the final SNS of the year, an evening of literary open mic performances.
Featuring:
André Le Mont Wilson
Alexandra Steahly-Jenkins
Theme: The Leftovers
(scroll down for writing prompt)
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday, November 28, 2026
8:00pm Central Time
Online Event
Free Admission
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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
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 872 2484 6790
Passcode: 502556
Author Bios
Alexandra Steahly-Jenkins (she/her) is a queer female poet. She lives atop one of San Francisco’s many hills with her aging, single-toothed chihuahua. Alexandra has worked as an oncology nurse for over ten years and maintains her sanity by clocking as many hours on the dance-floor as possible. Her work blooms from that nocturnal underworld, reflecting on our deep longings through self-reflection on lust, hunger, and addiction. She has been previously published in Bi Women Quarterly. Her work will also be in the January 2027 issue of Pinhole Poetry.
Follow on Instagram @still.a.party.girl
André Le Mont Wilson authored Hauntings, the winner of the 2022 Newfound Prose Prize. He is widely published in literary journals and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A prompt in Hollie Hardy’s Generative Poetry workshop helped him solve a seven-time rejected manuscript, resulting in the publication of his first chapbook, Landfill, published this September by Salon de Refusés. He lives in California with his husband and teaches workshops to poets and writers with physical and developmental disabilities. Learn more at andrelemontwilson.com
Order Landfill: https://www.salon-des-refuses.com/catalog/p/wilson
Write with Friends! Register for The Write-In!
LET’S WORK ON THE THEME TOGETHER!
Join me Thursday evening, November 19, 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
November Writing Prompt: Leftovers
This is the last Saturday Night Special of the year! Thanksgiving will come and go like friends and family and inevitable late-night feasting upon cold sandwiches compiled of leftover mashed potatoes, cranberries, and dinner rolls.
Our theme this month holds space for the aftermath—the food, the feels, the lost jackets and lost people. Think: doggie bag, but also, the last person at the party, the cleanup and the hangover, the free bin at Goodwill, the lost-and-found at the movie theater, the person we left or lost, cities we moved on from, objects we threw away (or tired to), childhoods and old beliefs we’ve outgrown, the time we were picked last, or not at all.
SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:
Start with leftovers. Open the refrigerator. What do you find there? Let the contents inspire a poem that illuminates the speaker. What’s delicious or rotten? Present, missing, or surprising? What’s revealed in the choices and habits of an eater?
Stay after the party. Write about the hours after a gathering, when the dishes are stacked, the music has stopped, and everyone else has gone home. Who remains? What happens when the occasion is over?
What couldn't you throw away? Choose an object you've kept long past its usefulness: a ticket stub, a broken mug, an old letter, a child's drawing. Write about the object and the story it holds.
Consider the free bin, little library, or lost and found. Write about something discarded, unwanted, or overlooked. A piece of furniture on the curb, a thrift-store find, a broken toy. What might this object say about the person who left it behind? What might it say about the person who takes it home?
Write about the leftovers of a relationship. What remains after a friendship, romance, or other relationship ends? A habit, a shared expression, a keepsake, a ghost, a place you avoid, a song you can't listen to. Begin with one specific remnant. Or something left unsaid.
Write about being left behind. The time your mom forgot you at the mall or a parent or sibling moved out, you were the last person at the party, the last one chosen, the person waiting at the station, or someone watching the others leave. What can you notice from this vantage point?
Make a poem from scraps. Gather fragments of old letters, grocery lists, text messages, overheard conversations, or other discarded writing. Arrange them into a collage poem. Let the fragments create a story or meaning that none of them could hold alone.
Take inventory of what's left. Imagine you've reached the end of a year, a relationship, a journey, or a particular chapter of your life. What remains? What did you expect to have by now? What do you actually have? Write a poem that begins with the inventory and lets the meaning emerge. Ground abstract ideas with concrete imagery.
Or something else! As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; please feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.
INSPIRATION
Leftovers By Kathryn Simmonds
After the Dinner Party By Adrienne Su
Trash [Good you are trashing …] By Nicole Cooley
Leftover By Yuxi Lin
Introduction By Andrew Kozma
Leaving Childhood Behind By Mosab Abu Toha
Bird Left Behind By Sophie Cabot Black
Left to Itself the Heart Could Almost Melt, Mend By Jill Osier
Tomatoes By Katrina Vandenberg
After Dinner By Lisa Pegram
Bonus Essay
Left Behind: Can Poetry Comfort the Grieving? By Joy Katz