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 | 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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