Readings
& Events
I’m passionate about bringing writers together, to shine, perform, listen, and clap for one another. Over the years, I have cofounded, curated, featured in, and hosted hundreds of literary events. My monthly open mic, Saturday Night Special, has been running since 2011. All are welcome!
I’ll be headed out on tour this summer with my new book Lions Like Us. Hope to see you! Scroll down for details.
READINGS & EVENTS
SNS | 02-25-23
Featuring:
Ali Lanzetta & Truong Tran
Theme:
Light Switch
Saturday, February 25, 2023
8pm Central Time
Featuring: Ali Lanzetta & Truong Tran
Theme: Light Switch
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday February 25, 2023
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for spring. As I write this, I’m hiding out with family, hours from home, where a frozen tree came crashing, snapping the power line to our house. Across town, thousands more trees lay in icy ruins as Austonians huddle in the dark. Waiting for the lights to switch back on.
This month at SNS we’re leaning into the light. Bring me your sunshine! There are so many ways to think about a light switch, from the beginning of the universe, to the changing of the seasons where light slides newly through trees, the times of day that simmer and glow in transition, a wisp of sun settling in eyelashes, your childhood flashlight under the covers, the antique lamp’s snap into brightness, the way light teases the tips of waves, the first windows to blink awake on a hillside, captured fireflies in a jar, the spark of new love, the poet’s epiphany. Let there be light!
Want to work on the prompt together? Join me the week before SNS (on Saturday, February 18) for the first ever Saturday Night Special Write-In! Details/ sign up here.
Feel free to interpret the prompt any way you choose or to ignore it entirely. Sign up below to share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches at this month's open mic.
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
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 829 5578 8503
Passcode: 700511
iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+16694449171,,82955788503# US
Author Bios
Ali Lanzetta is a writer, educator, artist, musician, and bookseller who lives between trees, sleeps under a blanket of books, and has a soft spot for giraffes, whose hearts are over two feet long. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Verse, Switchback, Eleven Eleven, Flock, Panapoly, Gertrude, and elsewhere. Her debut book, marmalade, a collection of prose poetry and flash narrative nonfiction, is scheduled for release in March 2023 from Spuyten Duyvil Press. ali studied creative writing and teaching on the enchanted electric hilltops of San Francisco, but eventually set sail from the city to live, love, and practice the literary arts in a Vermont valley filled with birds. You can find out more about ali and her work at alilanzetta.com.
Preorder her book here: https://www.spuytenduyvil.net/marmalade.html
Truong Tran is a Vietnamese-American poet, visual artist, and teacher. He is an author of eight collections of poetry, most recently, Book of the Other (Kaya Press, 2021), as well as an artist book, and a children's book. As a visual artist Tran is best known for mixed media pieces and light installations. His work is in private collections, and has been featured in solo gallery shows as well as museum exhibitions across the Bay Area. As a teacher, Truong Tran has over twenty years experience as a professor of Creative Writing to both graduates and undergraduates, and has mentored thousands in the community.
truong-tran.com
SNS | 01-28-23
Featuring:
Toni Mirosevich & Arisa White
Theme:
Long Dark Night
Saturday, January 28, 2023
8pm Central Time
Featuring: Toni Mirosevich & Arisa White
Theme: Long Dark Night
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday January 28, 2023
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
This month at SNS, on the last Saturday of January, in the heart of midwinter, we celebrate “the long dark night,” with blackouts and snow, existential woe and holidays behind us, at the end of a (maybe/semi) sober January, with resolutions made and (maybe) broken, the smell of wood smoke welcome (or warning), winter invites us to turn inward, to hibernate and reflect, to make soup, write, and reset, to recommit to goals, and reconnect to the people and things that matter, to rest and rejuvenate. Consider, perhaps, the soul in search of fresh faith after a period of darkness, rejection, illness, failure, ennui—what lifts us up, nourishes and inspires, what light persists through the long dark night?
Want to work on the prompt together? Join me the week before SNS (on Saturday, Jan 21) for the first ever Saturday Night Special Write-In! Details/ sign up here.
Feel free to interpret the prompt any way you choose or to ignore it entirely. Sign up below to share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches at this month's open mic.
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
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 845 4394 5181
Passcode: 832676
iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+13462487799,,84543945181# US
Author Bios
Toni Mirosevich was raised in a Croatian-American fishing family in Everett, Washington. In Spell Heaven, her linked story collection recently released from Counterpoint Press, a lesbian couple moves to a coast town and unexpectedly finds a sense of belonging with a group of outsiders. Mirosevich is also the author of Pink Harvest, winner of the First Series Award for Creative Nonfiction, and five books of poetry. Her cross-genre writings have been widely anthologized and her fiction and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals. A professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University for many years, she currently resides with her wife in Pacifica, California.
Buy her book here: counterpointpress.com/books/spell-heaven
Learn more: tonimirosevich.com
Arisa White is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Colby College. Most recently, she is the author of Who’s Your Daddy, co-editor of Home Is Where You Queer Your Heart, and co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, the second book in the Fighting for Justice Series for young readers. Her poetry is widely published and her collections have been nominated for an NAACP Image Award, Lambda Literary Award, and have won the Per Diem Poetry Prize, Maine Literary Award, Nautilus Book Award, an Independent Publisher Book Award, and Golden Crown Literary Award. Currently, in development with composer Jessica Jones, Arisa is working on Post Pardon: The Opera. arisawhite.com
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SNS | 11-26-22
Featuring:
Jennifer Lewis & Zomkhonto
Theme:
Recover
Saturday, November 26, 2022
8pm Central Time
Featuring: Jennifer Lewis & Zomkhonto
Theme: Recover
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday November 26, 2022
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
Join me on Saturday after Thanksgiving for the last SNS of 2022
As we bask in the afterglow of too much food, friends and family, football and politics, and reflect on the closing year, for your November writing challenge, I invite you to consider the idea of RECOVERY, in any of its many senses.
To RECOVER is to "return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength; to regain control or possession of (something stolen or lost); to make up for."
From what have you recovered or are you still recovering from? This could be a small triumph, like recovering a lost $20 in the pocket of last year's coat, or you could be recovering from an injury or the loss of a friend, a heartbreak, the economic downturn, or a bout with Covid (in many ways we're all still trying to recover from the pandemic), some of us have recovered from depression, rejection, addictions or hangovers, even writer's block. What is the spark that gives us the hope to fight for our own recovery? How can we lift ourselves and each other up?
Feel free to interpret this prompt any way you choose or to ignore it entirely. Sign up below to share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches at this month's open mic.
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
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 812 2917 6407
Passcode: 755207
iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+13462487799,,81229176407# US
Author Bios
Jennifer Lewis is a writer, editor, and the publisher of Red Light Lit. Her debut short story collection, The New Low, was recently released in 2022, by Nomadic Press, where her short story, "New Low," was the winner of the Bindle Award. In 2020, she won the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction award for "Put a Teat in It." She received her MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University in 2015. She teaches at The Writing Salon in San Francisco. Buy her book here: https://www.nomadicpress.org/store/p/thenewlow
Mbonisi Zikhali was born in Makokoba, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. His spoken-word/storytelling name is Zomkhonto, which happens to be his bloodline’s totem. He is a spoken-word artist, story-teller, arts educator, youth mentor, qualified community services worker, grassroots community organizer and mental wellness advocate. He considers himself an afro-empath, and is driven to ensure that people find joy and healing in the power of words and story-telling. Some of the recent publications he has appeared in include winner of Off Topic Publishing's August 2022 Poetry Contest, Best New African Poets 2019 Anthology by Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Ipikai Poetry Journal’s inaugural and second edition (initiative of the Zimbabwe Poets Society) among others. His work was recently showcased at the World Poetry Slam Championships’ spoken word video presentations (September 26-30, 2022) in Brussels, Belgium. He is the current President of Artcite Windsor Inc (Canada)’s Board of Directors.
Check out a digital broadside of his work here: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/092722.pdf
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SNS | 10-29-22
Featuring:
Sara Biel & Fraser Johnson
Theme:
Trick!
Saturday, October 29, 2022
8pm – 10pm Central Time
Featuring: Sara Biel & Fraser Johnson
Theme: Trick!
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday October 29, 2022
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
It's decorative gourd season AND the 12th annual SNS Halloween Reading is happening on the last Saturday of October! Let's get festive. Wear a costume, or a hat, wig, mask, paint your face if you're feeling spicy.
Our theme this month is: TRICK. Think: mirage, disguise, card tricks, trick-or-treating, pranks, sex workers, gymnastics, sugar cereal, dog training, con artists, mistaken identity, a trick of the light. Or whatever you want.
Sign up to share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches on our optional theme.
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
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 823 2213 0882
Passcode: 939981
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android:
https://peralta-edu.zoom.us/j/82322130882?pwd=K0RDWWlWbVFqTFJLRW5UUlJwSDNhUT09
Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
Author Bios
Sara Biel, a poet, visual artist and social worker living in Oakland, CA, coedits the Colossus Press anthology series. Her poems have been published in sPARKLE & bLINK; Button Eye Review, and Beyond Words: She won honorable mention in the Streetlight 2021 poetry contest. Her chapbook Prescribed Burn will be published in 2023 by Finishing Line Press. She sees the creative process as a medium for change, healing and building community.
Fraser Johnson is the author of the newly released memoire, "WTF are Boundaries: Good Times, Bad Times, and Narcissistic Abuse." He lives in Toronto, Ontario, where he is visited by his young adult sons, two of the best people he has ever known. Outside of writing, Fraser loves nature; an avid outdoorsman, he has led camping and outdoor experiences for groups as well as designed and developed camping gear.
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SNS | 9-24-22
Featuring:
Valerie Sopher & Steven Gray
Theme:
The Blues
Saturday, September 24, 2022
8pm – 10pm Central Time
Featuring: Valerie Sopher & Steven Gray
Theme: The Blues
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday September 24, 2022
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
In honor of this month’s musical poet features, Steven Gray & Valerie Sopher, we’re celebrating The Blues—whether that means music, or something lyrical, or the color of your childhood bathroom, ocean and sky, the worst flavor of M&M, your favorite jeans, the “something blue” from your wedding, your sad post-pandemic life, your Covid Blues, the time you saw Taj Mahal live at Yoshi’s, your ekphrastic take on Picasso’s Blue Period, your jealous tribute to Maggie Nelson’s “Bluets”—let (the) BLUE(s) inspire you this month.
Sign up to share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches about the burning at this month's open mic.
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 813 9445 7915
Passcode: 980124
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81394457915?pwd=MUhxQU9maWtDVWRzOVpJNkoySVh2dz09
Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+13462487799,,81394457915# US or +16694449171,,81394457915# US
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
Author Bios
Valerie Sopher s a singing quilter from the San Francisco Bay Area who found her poetic voice during the pandemic. She did so with much help from Hollie Hardy and her San Francisco Creative Writing Institute classes. She has had some success in getting her poems out into the world, many of which were written from prompts in Hollie’s classes. Her work has appeared in Canary, Caustic Frolic, Slant, Prometheus Dreaming, Science Write Now and will soon appear in River Mouth Review and Quiet Diamonds - the Orchard Street Press Poetry Contest 2022. She was the grand prize winner in the Wingless Dreamer Dawn of the day contest.
Steven Gray is a poet and musician celebrating the new release of his album, Exile:
https://stevengray.bandcamp.com/album/exile
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SNS | 8-27-22
Featuring:
Heidi Kasa & T.A. Niles
Theme:
Opposites
Saturday, August 27, 2022
8pm – 10pm Central Time
Featuring: Heidi Kasa & T.A. Niles
Theme: Opposites
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday, August 27, 2022
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
When I was in college at SFSU studying creative writing, I took a class with the fabulous Nona Caspers. One day she started her lecture by holding up a potted plant she had brought for this purpose. "Write like this pink flower!" she commanded. Then she raised her other fist above her head, "Write like this rusty railroad spike!" I never forgot her lesson on "beauty and its opposite," how opposites can help us better understand truth.
This month at SNS, you are invited to explore the idea of opposites in your writing—day and night, hot and cold, love and indifference, acceptance and rejection, kindness vs malevolence, young vs old, virtue vs sin, truth and lies, red and blue, beauty and its opposite, or any other polarization of your choosing.
Sign up to share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches about the burning at this month's open mic.
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 5543 3334
Password: 135019
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android:
https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/96355433334?pwd=ZEhSeU52THhiNnVZQXlzVklJSFVXUT09#success
Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+13462487799,96355433334# or +12532158782,96355433334#
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
Author Bios
Heidi Kasa writes weird fiction that sometimes gives people chills. She is also a poet, though lately her poems are more like political rants. Her work has been a finalist for a Black Lawrence Press award and shortlisted for a Fractured Lit award. Kasa’s fiction chapbook, Split, is due out from Monday Night Press in August 2022. She edits nonfiction and is learning how to take good care of native Texas flowers and plants.
Buy Split here: https://www.mondaynightpress.com/split/
Find more of Kasa's work here: www.heidikasa.com
T.A. Niles is
just a crude dude spillin'
in a world that's illin'
spinnin' turnin' so fast it's burnin'
trailin smoke so thick and noxious
it can choke the righteous
into coughing up the platitudes
of the multitudes....
He’s throwin’ down on Fear
like it stole sump’n
embracing Truth
like an imaginary lover
coaxing, cajoling
but never coercing
Authenticity
from Plasticity’s clutches…
Can ya feel im?
Do you care to?
If so, you can find more of his expressions on his
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQuUXZENe-u4D0TZn1x01ew
And his blog: https://tapoetexpress.blogspot.com/
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SNS | 7-30-22
Featuring:
Richard Loranger & Daphne Gottlieb
Theme:
The Burning
Saturday, July 30, 2022
8pm – 10pm Central Time
Featuring: Richard Loranger & Daphne Gottlieb
Theme: The Burning
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday July 30, 2022
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
Hello summer! It's 106 degrees in Austin this week, but it feels like 114. The planet's getting hotter, and so are you.
This month at SNS, let's embrace the burn! Write about the hot hot heat, the sun burn, the hot seat, write about about fire, burning up the dance floor or bacon sizzling, write about friction, about the burn of rage, or skidding tires, about the burnt house or the near miss, the smokey orange sky, or better yet, your burning desire. Be the fire.
Sign up to share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches about the burning at this month's open mic.
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 923 8487 1607
Password: 280277
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android:
https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/92384871607?pwd=L0ZwejU3S1V6U2V5SU5vanBaVDJmdz09
Password: 280277
Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+13462487799,92384871607# or +16699006833,92384871607#
Sign Up to Read at SNS
The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Author Bios
Richard Loranger RICHARD LORANGER is a multi-genre writer, performer, musician, visual artist, and all-around squeaky wheel, currently residing in Oakland, CA. He is the founder of Poetea, a monthly literary conversation group. His newest book Unit of Agency, which he describes as a collection of his human struggle/protest culture/social justice/pissed-off leftie poems, came out in October, 2021 from Collapse Press (www.collapsepress.com). He’s also the author of Be A Bough Tit, Sudden Windows, Poems for Teeth, The Orange Book, and ten chapbooks, and has work in over 100 magazines and journals. You can find more about his work and scandals at www.richardloranger.com.
Daphne Gottlieb stitches together the ivory tower and the gutter just using her tongue. She is the award-winning author of eleven books including her latest, Saint 1001 (MadHat Press 2021), a collection of short stories, Pretty Much Dead, and Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in her Own Words, a collection of letters from Death Row by the “first female serial killer” to her childhood best friend. She is also the author of five books of poetry, editor of two anthologies, and, with artist Diane DiMassa, the co-creator of the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious.
Gottlieb is the winner of the Acker Award for Excellence in the Avant-Garde, the Audre Lorde Award for Poetry, the Firecracker Alternative Book Award, and is a five-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in more than 50 anthologies.
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SNS | 6-25-22
Featuring:
Ivan Hobson
Theme:
Lucky
Saturday, June 25, 2022
8pm – 10pm Central Time
Featuring: Ivan Hobson
Theme: Lucky
Hosted By: Hollie Hardy
Saturday June 25, 2022
6:00pm Pacific Time
(8:00pm Central time)
Online Event
Free Admission
Join SNS for an extra lucky open mic on the last Saturday in June.
Have you ever wished on a dandelion? Thrown I-Ching Pennies? Read a horoscope, had a tarot reading, found a 4-leaf clover? Cast a spell? Owned a happy cat charm? Do you have a dice tattoo? What about the parking gods? Are they on your side? Have you dodged a bullet? Kissed a Blarney Stone or a frog? Thrown broken dishes at a house? Been crapped on by a bird? Thrown salt or knocked on wood?
For this month's writing challenge, you are invited to write about luck. Do you believe (or unbelieve?) Are you lucky or unlucky? What's your secret to luck?
Come share your poems, stories, songs, dances, or short comedy sketches at our open mic.
Join Event on Zoom
Meeting ID: 923 8487 1607
Password: 280277
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android:
https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/92384871607?pwd=L0ZwejU3S1V6U2V5SU5vanBaVDJmdz09
Password: 280277
Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll):
+13462487799,92384871607# or +16699006833,92384871607#
Sign Up to Read at SNS
The theme is optional | Time limit is not optional
Please plan ahead and keep your reading to 3 MINUTES MAX
Author Bio
Ivan Hobson is an MFA graduate from San Francisco State University. Along with teaching English at Diablo Valley College, he also works as a shipyard machinist on Mare Island. Ivan's poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in publications including the North American Review, Oxford Poetry, The Malahat Review, as well as Ted Kooser and The Poetry Foundation’s American Life in Poetry. Ivan’s first book, Cutting Teeth, was recently released by Meadowlark Press.
More about author:
Buy book here:
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