Join us online for a love-drenched evening of literary performance and open mic readings

Featuring:
Ingrid Keir & Mona Zamfirescu

Theme: Love in Uncertain Times
(scroll down for writing prompt)

Hosted By: Hollie Hardy

Saturday, February 28, 2026
8:00pm Central time

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

SNS Open Mic Sign Up

Join Event on Zoom

Meeting ID: 839 4951 1186

Passcode: 166605

Attend

Follow SNS on Facebook

Author Bios

Ingrid Keir is a poet, curator, publisher and healer. She runs Feather Press, an independent women’s literary press based in the Bay Area, and Toward The Light Healing, an energy healing practice. She is co-founder of the WordParty, a long-running San Francisco poetry and jazz series. A former Creative Writing instructor at SFSU, Ingrid has featured at numerous Bay Area venues including the DeYoung Museum, The Beat Museum, SF Public Library, Quiet Lightning and San Francisco City Hall. She’s published the chapbooks: The Secrets of Like  (2004), Toward the Light  (2007) and a full-length collection The Choreography of Nests (2016). Other publications include: Colossus: Current, Petaluma Poetry Walk Anthology, So It Goes, Dash Literary Journal, Two Hawks Quarterly, Sparkle + Blink and Hot Tub Astronaut. Ingrid is also the editor of the brand-new Love Poetry Anthology: Tender Hearts Club, Volume One releasing this month!

Learn more: https://featherpressbooks.wordpress.com

Order the love poem anthology here:
https://telegraphhillbooks.com/products/tender-hearts-club-volume-one

Writer, painter, and photographer Mona Zamfirescu is a Professor of Mathematics at Baruch College, CUNY. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies and has been showcased at the NYC Poetry Festival. Mona is a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. She holds a PhD in Statistics from Columbia University. Currently, she is studying for an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry at CCNY, CUNY. Her debut collection, Who Looks Outside Dreams, was published by Poetry Global Network, Publishing in 2025.

Get the chapbook! https://www.poetryglobalnetwork.com/who-looks-outside-dreams

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 28**, for the monthly Write-In, a generative online workshop with Hollie Hardy.
Write-In Details/ Sign Up

February Writing Prompt: Love in Uncertain Times

We live in an era of uncertainty: news alerts, climate change, unanswered questions, and shifting ground. And yet, we find moments of joy, hope, love, friendship. A sunset, a kiss, a held hand, a thank you text, a love letter. We hold on despite the world’s precarity.

This month, we return to our annual February theme, but in a fresh context. Love in uncertain times might offer romance, or it might lean familial, communal, spiritual, political. You might consider love long-distance, post-breakup, pre-apocalypse, or self-directed. This love might be tender, anxious, funny, devoted, bewildered, or stubbornly hopeful, existing in small rituals of daily life or in the face of vast, unknowable futures.

Your challenge this month is to write a poem or short prose piece (3 minutes or less) inspired by Love in Uncertain Times.

SOME IDEAS TO GET YOU STARTED:

Write about love during a moment of instability: a move, an illness, a political season, a natural disaster, a breakup, a new beginning.
Write a piece in which love persists even though the world feels like it’s ending.
Write about desire, longing, heartbreak, hunger, regret, unrequited love, the one that got away, the imaginary lover.
Write about love on another planet or plane.
Write about love and miscommunication or missed connection: missed calls, unsent texts, words you wish you’d said, the unmet stranger.
Write about the small, domestic acts of love: saying I’m sorry, cooking a favorite meal, making the bed, running errands, bringing home flowers or donuts, fixing the roof, making the dreaded doctor appointment, waiting, staying.
Write about loving someone whose future is uncertain, or loving without guarantees, or loving someone with different political views.
Write about the tension between permanence and impermanence—what stays, what disappears, what you try to hold onto.
Write a surreal or imaginative love poem (new planets, talking birds, alternate timelines, parallel lives).
Write about loving someone across distance: time zones, borders, grief, memory.
Write an anti-love poem that argues with love, doubts love, or questions whether love is enough.
Write about the ways love shows up quietly, almost invisibly, in everyday life.

Or something else! There are as many ways to write about love as there are loves and lovers. As ever, the theme is optional—an invitation, not a requirement; feel free to interpret loosely or ignore.