BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//The Notebooks Collective - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:The Notebooks Collective X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com X-WR-CALDESC:Events for The Notebooks Collective REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20230312T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20231105T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20240310T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20241103T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20250309T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20251102T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20260308T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20261101T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20270314T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20271107T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260324T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260324T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20251216T183824Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260311T145026Z UID:1427-1774380600-1774386000@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Lisa Allen & Melissa Fite Johnson DESCRIPTION:Two poets who have crossed paths in readings and at conferences and have found that they are writing about something that shows up differently for each of them — maternal estrangement. This conversation will cover how our work evolves as we age and how writing such a viscerally personal experience can also be universal. \n\n\n\nLisa writes: “We both write about maternal estrangement–and though our lived experiences are different\, that burning desire of what brings us to the page feels very familiar.” And Melissa adds\, “…so many of them poems now in [Lisa’s] beautiful book\, spoke to a subject I was only just starting to write about\, a subject that feels like it’s all I write about now: maternal estrangement. When Lisa asked if I would pair with her for this conversation\, I couldn’t say yes quickly enough. We have so much to say. “ \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nLisa Allen\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLisa Allen (she/her) is the author of It’s What I’ve Got Left (Lily Poetry Press). Her work can be found in Pinch\, December Magazine\, Anti-Heroin Chic\, Bear Review and MER\, among others. She has received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations and was a 2022 Best of the Net finalist for her poem “Prolapse: Etymology\,” published by South 85 Journal. Lisa holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and an MFA in Poetry\, both from the Solstice Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at Lasell University\, where she was a Michael Steinberg fellow. With Poet Rebecca Connors\, she co-founded and co-directs the online creative space The Notebooks Collective. \n\n\n\nPhoto credit: Kelly Sime Photography \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nMelissa Fite Johnson\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMelissa Fite Johnson is the author of three full-length collections\, most recently Midlife Abecedarian (Riot in Your Throat\, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares\, Pleiades\, HAD\, Whale Road Review\, SWWIM\, and elsewhere. Melissa\, a high school English teacher\, is a poetry editor for The Weight\, a journal for high school students\, and Porcupine Lit\, a journal for and by teachers. She and her husband live with their dogs in Lawrence\, KS\, where she co-hosts the Volta reading series at the Replay Lounge. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-lisa-allen-melissa-fite-johnson/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/March-FB.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260224T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260224T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20251216T183815Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251216T183815Z UID:1418-1771961400-1771966800@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Traci Brimhall & Marianne Kunkel DESCRIPTION:Frederico Garcia Lorca said “a poet must be a professor of the five senses and must open doors among them.” And what better to way to be a teacher of the senses than by looking at food as a source of inspiration? Marianne and Traci have both baked lines full of flavor and memory into their poems and plan to talk about how food and poems can both influence and have symbiotic overlap. From meals that are portals to personal history\, to the ingredients both food and poems need to make something memorable\, Traci and Marianne will discuss when they started connecting the two creative processes—cooking and writing—and how it has shaped their work. They will also talk about issues around food insecurity and in what ways art can directly address social issues like food access. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nTraci Brimhall is a professor of creative writing at Kansas State University. She is the author of five collections of poetry\, including Love Prodigal (Copper Canyon\, 2024). Her poems have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker\, The Nation\, Orion\, The New Republic\, Poetry\, The New York Times Magazine\, and Best American Poetry. She’s received fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts\, the National Park Service\, the Academy of American Poets\, and Purdue Library’s Special Collections to study the lost poem drafts of Amelia Earhart. She’s the currently the poet-in-residence at the Guggenheim museum and poet laureate for the State of Kansas. \n\n\n\nMarianne Kunkel is the author of Hillary\, Made Up (Stephen F. Austin State University Press) and The Laughing Game (Finishing Line Press)\, two anthologies\, and many poems\, including one in Best American Poetry 2025. She is an associate professor of English at Johnson County Community College and co-editor of Kansas City Review. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln\, where she was managing editor of Prairie Schooner and the African Poetry Book Fund. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-traci-brimhall-marianne-kunkel/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/february.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260120T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260120T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20251216T183803Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251216T183803Z UID:1413-1768937400-1768942800@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: M. Soledad Caballero & Catharina Coenen DESCRIPTION:We welcome M. Soledad Caballero and Catherina Coenen to The Notebooks Collective to read from their new books. In addition\, there will be a lively conversation about the thematic connections in their books including illness and the body as well as the commitment to female lineages\, in particular around ideas of memory and storytelling. More specifically they will discuss the choice of genre for each of them\, poetry and creative non-fiction respectively\, and what drove them to explore and write in these genres. Because they came to creative writing later in their professional lives\, they also hope to discuss what creative writing offers to the writing in their fields of literary studies and biology\, and the ways interdisciplinary writing and thinking intersect with creative writing. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nM. Soledad Caballero\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nM. Soledad Caballero is a Macondo\, CantoMundo\, and StoryKnife fellow\, winner of Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts’ 2019 Joy Harjo poetry prize and the 2020 SWWIM’s SWWIM-For-the-Fun-of-It contest. She’s been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. Her poems have appeared in the Missouri Review\, the Iron Horse Literary Review\, Ninth Letter\, and other venues. Her essays have been published in The Hopkins Review\, Cagibi\, and elsewhere. I Was a Bell (2021) won Red Hen Press’s 2019 Benjamin Saltman poetry prize\, was the 2022 International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry book of the year\, and was a 2022 International Latino Book Award winner. Her second collection\, Flight Plan\, was published by Red Hen September 2025. She teaches at Allegheny College. She’s an avid tv watcher and a terrible birder. \n\n\n\nPhoto by Carly Masiroff.Web: msoledacaballero.comInstagram: m.soledadcaballero \n\n\n\nCatharina Coenen\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCatharina Coenen came to the United States from Germany as a Fulbright Scholar to attend graduate school. She now teaches biology at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. Her essays have appeared in The Threepenny Review\, The American Scholar\, The Christian Science Monitor\, Best of the Net\, and other literary magazines. Catharina is the recipient of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing\, the Flash Nonfiction Prize awarded by The Forge\, the Appalachian Review’s Denny Plattner Creative Nonfiction Prize\, a Creative Nonfiction Foundation Science as Story Fellowship\, and Residencies at Hedgebrook and at Millay Arts. Her first book\, “Unexploded Ordnance”\, explores how the experiences of her mother\, grandmother\, and aunt during the bombings of World War II in Germany shaped her life and reverberate in the present. \n\n\n\nPhoto by Lydia Eckstein. Web: www.catharinacoenen.comInstagram: catharinacoenenBluesky: catharinacoenen.bsky.social URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-m-soledad-caballero-catharina-coenen/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/january.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251111T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251111T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250810T235409Z LAST-MODIFIED:20251209T185336Z UID:1363-1762889400-1762894800@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Nicole Callihan & Zoë Ryder White DESCRIPTION:Longtime poetry collaborators\, Zoë Ryder White and Nicole Callihan will read from their collaborative works and discuss their process. The two began collaborating in 1999 and have two published chapbooks–A Study in Spring\, winner of the Baltic Writing Residency Prize (2015) and Elsewhere\, winner of the Sixth Finch Chapbook Prize (2020)–as well as many other works in progress.About collaborating with Zoë\, Nicole says\, “There is no one I can write with like I write with Zoë. When we’re in the heat of a project\, it’s absolutely electric\, and I find myself checking my phone a thousand times a day to see if she’s written back. It’s like the highest form of conversation through verse and image\, sound and confession\, music and magic.” \n\n\n\nZoë [adds]… “Writing with Nicole is like a return to the primordial soup. A sort of willful stepping away from the conscious mind together\, while at the same time (lightly!) holding the reins of the runaway world\, in all its biology and industry. I think we share a similar sense of deep curiosity and delight in the word’s weirdness. Whether it’s a poem or a letter (with a real stamp!) or a text\, When N. writes\, I always want to write back.” \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWinner of the 2023 Tenth Gate Prize and a 2023 Alma Award\, Nicole Callihan has two recent poetry collections: chigger ridge (The Word Works 2024) and SLIP (Saturnalia 2025). Other books include This Strange Garment (Terrapin 2023) and the 2019 novella\, The Couples\, as well as the chapbooks The Deeply Flawed Human\, Downtown\, A Study in Spring\, and ELSEWHERE (the latter two in collaboration with Zoë Ryder White). Nicole also co-edited the Braving the Body anthology published by Harbor Editions in March 2024. Find out more at www.nicolecallihan.com.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nZoë Ryder White’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly\, Iterant\, Plume\, and Threepenny Review\, among others. Her most recent chapbook\, Via Post\, was a finalist for Tupelo Press’ Snowbound Chapbook award and won the Sixth Finch chapbook contest in 2022. Her chapbook\, HYPERSPACE\, was the editors’ choice pick for the Verse Tomaž Šalamun Prize in 2020 and is available from Factory Hollow Press. She co-authored A Study in Spring\, with Nicole Callihan. Another collaboration with Nicole\, Elsewhere\, won the Sixth Finch chapbook competition in 2019. A former elementary school teacher\, she edits books for educators about the craft of teaching.   URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-nicole-callihan-zoe-ryder-white/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/nov-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251021T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251021T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250809T222042Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250812T091608Z UID:1358-1761075000-1761080400@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Iain Haley Pollock & Nathan McClain DESCRIPTION:We welcome Iain Haley Pollock & Nathan McClain to The Notebooks Collective in October. We are thrilled to have these two brilliant poets join us to talk about craft\, creativity\, new work and more. Iain will be reading from his newest collection\, All the Possible Bodies. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nIain Haley Pollock\n\n\n\n\nIain Haley Pollock is the author of three poetry collections\, Spit Back a Boy (2011)\, Ghost\, Like a Place\, and the forthcoming All the Possible Bodies (Alice James\, September 2025).  He has received several honors for his work including the Cave Canem Poetry Prize\, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America\, a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Poetry\, the Bim Ramke Prize for Poetry\, and a nomination for an NAACP Image Award.  His poems have appeared in many literary outlets\, including African American Review\, American Academy of Poets Poem-a-Day\, American Poetry Review\, The Kenyon Review\, The New York Times Magazine\, PoetrySociety.org and The Progressive. Outside of publishing poems\, Pollock has performed his work widely\, from the Dodge Poetry Festival to libraries and art centers; he curated the Rye Poetry Path\, a public poetry installation in Rye\, NY; he serves on the editorial board at Slapering Hol Press and on the board of Tiger Bark Press; and he edits the literary journal Inkwell. Pollock directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville University in Purchase\, NY and lives in the Lower Hudson Valley. \n\n\n\n\n\nNathan is a poet\, editor\, and educator living in Amherst\, Massachusetts. He is the author of Scale (Four Way Books\, 2017) and Previously Owned (Four Way Books\, 2022)\, and his poems and prose have recently appeared\, or are forthcoming\, in Poetry Northwest\, Green Mountains Review\, Poem-a-Day\, The Common\, The Critical Flame\, and upstreet\, among others.  He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and African American Literary Arts at Hampshire College\, and serves as Poetry Editor of The Massachusetts Review. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-iain-haley-pollock-nathan-mcclain/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025-October-FB.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250916T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250916T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250809T212412Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250809T214328Z UID:1349-1758051000-1758056400@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Taylor Byas & jason b. crawford DESCRIPTION:We welcome Taylor Byas & jason b. crawford to The Notebooks Collective in September. We are thrilled to have these two brilliant poets join us to talk about craft\, friendship\, using poetry as a means to reckon with oppression and more. When asked why they want to be in conversation\, they said:Sometimes your writing friends and your “real-life” friends are two separate groups\, but with us\, we know each other deeply both on and off the page. Our friendship has spanned multiple years\, and throughout that time\, we have been privy to the evolutions of each other’s creative projects\, often playing a huge editorial role in those projects’ developments. In our new projects\, we both attempt to re-narrativize our existence and write an alternative Black subjectivity that has more agency than our current lived realities. One of us writes across time\, imagining a future world that is safe for Black queer bodies. One of us looks squarely into the faces of past artists and this current socio political environment in which women are constantly surveilled from all angles. But both of us are equally concerned with using poetry as a means to reckon with oppression\, reimagine life’s possibilities\, and access joy in a landscape that aims to produce only grief and misery. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nTaylor Byas\n\n\n\n\nDr. Taylor Byas\, Ph.D. (she/her) is a Black Chicago native who lives in Cincinnati\, Ohio\, where she is a Features Editor for The Rumpus\, an Editorial Board Member for Beloit Poetry Journal\, and an Editorial Advisor for Jackleg Press. She is the author of two chapbooks\, her debut full-length\, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times\, from Soft Skull Press\, which won the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Award\, the 2023 Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry\, and the 2024 Ohio Book Award for Poetry\, and Resting Bitch Face\, forthcoming in August 2025. She is also a co-editor of The Southern Poetry Anthology\, Vol X: Alabama from Texas Review Press\, and of Poemhood: Our Black Revival\, a YA anthology on Black folklore from HarperCollins. \n\n\n\n\njason b. crawford\n\n\n\n\njason b. crawford (They/He) born in Washington DC and raised in Lansing\, MI\, is the author of Year of the Unicorn Kidz. Their second collection\, YEET! is the winner of the Omnidawn 12st/2nd Book Prize and will be published Fall 2025. They have been published in POETRY Magazine\, Academy of American Poets\, Cincinnati Review\, Beloit Poetry Journal\, RHINO Poetry\, among others. The are a 2023 Emerging Writers Fellow for Lambda Literary and hold their MFA in Poetry from The New School. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-taylor-byas-jason-b-crawford/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2025-September-FB.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250819T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250819T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250709T222550Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250713T220702Z UID:1330-1755631800-1755637200@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Valerie Smith & Monica Lee Weatherly DESCRIPTION:We welcome Valerie Smith & Monica Lee Weatherly to The Notebooks Collective in August. We are thrilled to have these two poet-educators join us to talk about working in community\, sharing cultural histories\, and the importance of place. \n\n\n\nValerie writes\, “I am thrilled to be In Conversation with the community of writers and teachers because it underscores how we learn better together and write better together. Monica and I share cultural histories. I recognize a deep connection to family in her collection\, It Felt Like Mississippi. It is wonderful to share with others how our individual journeys influence our poems.” \n\n\n\nMonica adds\, “I am looking forward to being in conversation with Valerie because her work resonates with my love for the role of ‘place’ in poetry.  Her book\, Back to Alabama\, is not just about a geographical place\, but an emotional and spiritual space that a landscape can transport a reader to.  Valerie has a way of using her voice and memory to give a place identity.  She takes small moments and makes them matter.  We have shared creative spaces before\, in a poetry reading and workshop\, and each time\, I’ve come away with a renewed admiration for her.” \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nValerie A. Smith\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nValerie A. Smith is the author of Back to Alabama\, a deep\, transformative examination of the Black American narrative\, from Sundress Publications. She is the 2024 Solstice MFA Spotlight Poet and a 2024 ETSU Emerging Writer. Her poems appear in Ekstasis\, South Carolina Review\, Aunt Chloe\, Weber\, Obsidian\, Dogwood\, Solstice\, Oyster River Pages\, and Wayne Literary Review. She has a PhD from Georgia State University and a MA from Kennesaw State University where she teaches English. Above all\, she values spending quality time with her family. \n\n\n\nMonica Lee Weatherly\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMonica Lee Weatherly is a poet\, writer\, and Professor of English at Georgia State University (Perimeter College). She is the 2023 winner of Georgia Author of the Year for her chapbook of poetry\, It Felt Like Mississippi\, a 2023 Key West Literary Seminar Fellowship recipient\, and the 2021 winner of the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals\, including Tulane Review\, Plainsongs Magazine\, Nzuri Journal\, Merge Literary Magazine\, Obsidian\, South Florida Poetry Journal\, and Auburn Avenue. Her writing often focuses on the culture and experiences of people of color in the American South. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-valerie-smith-monica-lee-weatherly/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/aug.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250727T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250727T180000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250603T161044Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250603T161046Z UID:1323-1753632000-1753639200@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Write Two: The Prose Poem as Diptych Memoir DESCRIPTION:This is a class in dualities: two forms\, two poems. (In two hours!) \n\n\n\nThe two forms: We’ll explore the prose poem (a hybrid of prose and poetry) and the prose poem as memoir (a lyric rendering of a narrative or moment from your life). \n\n\n\nThe two poems: Taking inspiration from the diptych in art (a pair of paintings hinged together)\, we’ll discover how to bind poems by form and subject (call and response\, before and after\, shifts in perspective\, and other ways) and be mindful of how tightly or loosely poems depend on each other for meaning and impact. \n\n\n\nThis two-hour generative workshop is for writers of any level and genre who want to explore the prose poem form\, break away from linear storytelling\, and start thinking about intertextuality—the key to eventually building a series of poems or even a book-length project. Also\, once you write a diptych\, how (and where) can you submit it for publication? \n\n\n\nThis generative workshop will include lecture\, readings\, and generative writing prompts. \n\n\n\nCome ready to write and play! \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Cynthia Marie Hoffman\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of two collections of prose poetry: Exploding Head (Feb 2024) and Call Me When You Want to Talk about the Tombstones\, as well as two previous collections of lineated poetry. Her poems and prose have appeared in The Sun\, Electric Literature\, TIME\, The Believer\, and elsewhere. Recipient of fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing\, Civitella Ranieri Foundation\, and the Wisconsin Arts Board\, Cynthia lives in Madison\, WI. \n\n\n\nwww.cynthiamariehoffman.com URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/write-two-the-prose-poem-as-diptych-memoir/ CATEGORIES:Workshop/Class ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/write-two.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250722T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250722T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250603T155433Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250603T155436Z UID:1312-1753212600-1753218000@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Brandel France de Bravo & Marcela Sulak DESCRIPTION:A long-time friendship across continents. Both with roots in Washington\, D.C. and with a deep attention to the world. Join us for an In Conversation to discuss their new work and relationship with writing. \n\n\n\nMarcela says\, “What excites me about speaking to Brandel about Locomotion Cathedral is her mindful examination of the role of the I (as eye\, as conductor and mediator\, as ego\, as interlocutor) not only within a poem\, but also in the world. This attention makes a great poem! but it also feels like a necessary step in understanding our place in the natural world.” \n\n\n\nBrandel adds\, “I love talking to her about poetry because she reads voraciously\, and as a literature professor has the uncanny ability to read something of mine and recommend ten poets whose work could inform or enrich my own. Like me\, she has lived in many countries\, speaks several languages\, and has translated poetry. Our work shares an international perspective\, humor\, a willingness to incorporate prose in our poetry (we both have published many lyric essays)\, and a fascination with fairy tales and nursery rhymes.” \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Brandel France de Bravo\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBrandel France de Bravo’s third collection of poems\, Locomotive Cathedral\, was selected in the Backwaters Press contest\, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press (March 2025). She is the author of two previous poetry books: Provenance\, and the chapbook Mother\, Loose. Her poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry\, 32 Poems\, Barrow Street\, the Cincinnati Review\, The Georgia Review\, Seneca Review\, Southern Humanities Review and elsewhere. She is co-author of the parenting book\, Trees Make the Best Mobiles\, Simple Ways to Raise Your Child in a Complex World\, and editor of the bilingual anthology\, Mexican Poetry Today: 20/20 Voices. \n\n\n\nAbout Marcela Sulak\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMarcela Sulak is the author of five poetry collections\, most recently\, The Fault\, the National Jewish Book Awards finalist\, City of Sky Papers\, and the lyric memoir Mouth Full of Seeds (2020). She’s co-edited the Rose-Metal Press title Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres. A translator from the Czech\, French\, and Hebrew\, Sulak’s work has been recognized by PEN and the NEA fellowship. Sulak is managing editor of The Ilanot Review\, and she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-brandel-france-de-bravo-marcela-sulak/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/july.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250622T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250622T170000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250423T182312Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250423T182618Z UID:1301-1750608000-1750611600@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Book Celebration: Incidental Pollen by Ellen Austin-Li DESCRIPTION:Join us for a celebration of the launch of Incidental Pollen\, the debut full-length collection from Ellen Austin-Li. She will be joined by her friend and mentor\, poet Pauletta Hansel. Expect some poems and some conversation around the making of this beautiful new collection. \n\n\n\nINCIDENTAL POLLENRUNNER-UP FOR THE 2023 ARTHUR SMITH POETRY PRIZE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIncidental pollen refers to pollen that collects on bees as they forage for nectar—like the cumulative life experiences we cannot help but carry. The hive serves as a thematic thread in this collection that explores the space between past and present\, shame and redemption\, grief and resilience. Poetic forms lend meaning—like the villanelle that captures the grief-driven magical thinking of the speaker. Are recurring red fox sightings visitations from her deceased father and nephew? Trauma and loss appear in these tonally rich and imagistic poems\, but the arc ultimately centers on the search for belonging\, the attempt to recreate home. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Ellen\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEllen Austin-Li’s first full-length collection\, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist\, a 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist\, and runner-up for the Arthur Smith Poetry Prize—is forthcoming from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her two chapbooks\, Firefly (2019) and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic (2021). Her work appears in Artemis\, Thimble Literary\, The Maine Review\, Salamander\, Lily Poetry Review\, Rust & Moth\, and many other places. She’s a Best of the Net nominee and holds an MFA in poetry from the Solstice Low-Residency Program. Ellen co-founded the monthly reading series\, “Poetry Night at Sitwell’s\,” in Cincinnati\, where she lives. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Pauletta\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPauletta Hansel’s ten poetry collections include Will There Also Be Singing? (Shadelandhouse Modern Press\, 2024); Heartbreak Tree (Madville Publications\, 2022)\, which won the Poetry Society of Virginia’s 2023 North American Book Award; and Palindrome (Dos Madres Press\, 2017) winner of Berea College’s Weatherford Award in Poetry. Her writing has been featured in Oxford American\, Rattle\, Appalachian Journal\, Still: The Journal\, Verse Daily and Poetry Daily\, among others. Pauletta was Cincinnati’s first poet laureate\, and the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/book-celebration-incidental-pollen-by-ellen-austin-li/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/june-book.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250617T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250617T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250423T175246Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250423T175257Z UID:1298-1750188600-1750194000@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Jennifer Funk & Megan Pinto DESCRIPTION:Two poets interested in affairs of the heart and the abiding loneliness at the center of the human experience. Two poets who overlapped at Warren Wilson’s MFA program yet who have different styles of writing. \n\n\n\nExpect them to talk about maintaining a creative practice alongside life’s many competing demands (both in school and after it)\, what a first book changes and does not change\, and the importance of literary/poetry friendships. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Jennifer\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCalifornia born but in possession of a New England disposition\, Jennifer Funk is always trying to prove her sunniness is not a joke nor her attachment to doing things the hard way a performance. She is a graduate of Bennington College and of Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers\, and she has received support from the Bread Loaf’s Writers’ Conference as well as The Frost Place. Her work has been spotted in many of those “something something Review\,” and her debut collection of poetry\, Fantasy of Loving the Fantasy\, was published by Bull City Press in June 2023. Jennifer works as a School Adjustment Counselor in Concord\, MA\, and she lives with her husband in what had been her grandparent’s house. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Megan\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMegan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith\, her debut collection\, just out from Four Way Books. Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books\, Poets.org\, Ploughshares\, The Slowdown podcast and elsewhere. She has won the Anne Halley Prize from the Massachusetts Review and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers\, as well as scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference\, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing\, the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference and Storyknife. Megan lives in Brooklyn and holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-jennifer-funk-megan-pinto/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/june.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250601T150000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250601T170000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250402T165448Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250402T165452Z UID:1293-1748790000-1748797200@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Rumination As Route DESCRIPTION:Crafting Non-linear Personal Narratives with Poet José Angel Araguz \n\n\n\nTraditional storytelling often follows a linear path\, moving steadily from beginning to end. But what happens when we embrace digression\, repetition\, and reflection as essential tools of narrative? In this generative\, discussion-based class\, we will explore how rumination can shape and propel personal narratives\, creating compelling essays that mirror the rhythms of thought itself. Through short readings\, interactive exercises\, and guided writing prompts\, participants will experiment with ways to craft essays that spiral\, double back\, and expand outward—discovering meaning through movement rather than destination. \n\n\n\nThis class is ideal for writers at all levels interested in exploring experimental forms of nonfiction\, deepening their engagement with voice\, and crafting essays that follow the mind’s natural wanderings. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout José Angel Araguz\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJosé Angel Araguz\, Ph.D. (he/him/él) is the author most recently of the lyric memoir Ruin & Want (Sundress Publications) as well as the poetry collections Rotura (Black Lawrence Press) and La esperanza espera (Valparaiso Ediciones). His poetry and prose have appeared in Prairie Schooner\, Poetry International\, The Acentos Review\, and Oxidant | Engine among other places. He is an Assistant Professor at Suffolk University where he serves as Editor-in-Chief of Salamander and is also a faculty member of the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program at Lasell University. He blogs and reviews books at The Influence. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/rumination-as-route/ CATEGORIES:Workshop/Class ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/non-linear-personal-narratives.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250520T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250520T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250317T163149Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250317T163153Z UID:1269-1747769400-1747774800@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Richard Hoffman & January Gill O'Neil DESCRIPTION:Massachusetts poets and friends Richard Hoffman and January Gill O’Neil join The Notebooks Collective for an evening of craft\, conversation\, and literary citizenship. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Richard\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRichard Hoffman has published five books of poetry\, Without Paradise; Gold Star Road\, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Sheila Motton Award from The New England Poetry Club; Emblem; Noon until Night\, winner of the 2018 Massachusetts Book Award\, and his most recent\, People Once Real. His other books include Half the House: a Memoir; the memoir Love & Fury; Interference and Other Stories; and Remembering the Alchemists & other essays. He is Emeritus Writer in Residence at Emerson College in Boston\, and nonfiction editor of Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout January\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJanuary Gill O’Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of Glitter Road (2024)\, Rewilding (2018)\, Misery Islands (2014)\, and Underlife (2009)\, all published by CavanKerry Press. Glitter Road was a finalist for the 2024 New England Book Award. From 2012-2018\, she served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Her poems and articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine\, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series\, American Poetry Review\, The Nation\, Poetry\, and Sierra magazine\, among others. Her poem\, “At the Rededication of the Emmett Till Memorial\,” was a co-winner of the 2022 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award from the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council\, Cave Canem\, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund\, O’Neil was the 2019-2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi\, Oxford. She currently serves as the 2022-2025 board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). O’Neil earned her BA from Old Dominion University and her MFA from New York University. She lives in Beverly\, MA.chigan Notable Books)—all focus on rural Michigan culture URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-richard-hoffman-january-gill-oneil/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/may.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250422T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250422T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250130T172813Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250130T174550Z UID:1246-1745350200-1745355600@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Fleda Brown & Anne-Marie Oomen DESCRIPTION:Emotional openness. An invitation to think together. Fleda Brown and Anne-Marie Oomen aren’t just contemporaries; they’re friends and deep admirers of each other’s work.Fleda says that she can “trust Anne-Marie’s poems and prose to struggle admirably with the same issues I struggle with–how to say it\, how it was\, including the ambient sounds and textures. There is no posturing in her work.” And Anne-Marie says “Fleda’s poems invite me to think with her\, to watch the spirals of thought we all experience–but she finds a way to reveal how they just might be insights to daily life.”Both acclaimed poets and essayists\, Fleda and Anne-Marie are also both teachers\, Michganders\, and friends. They admire one another’s work because they see and listen deeply and make space for each other to explore the written word in various forms. There’s something magical about creatives who are so knowledgeable about each other’s work\, and that’s the kind of conversation this promises to be: intimate\, warm\, curious and generous. We hope you’ll join us. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Fleda\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFleda Brown’s Doctor of the World (forthcoming this March) won the Finishing Line Press Chapbook Contest for 2024. Her eleventh full-length collection\, The End of the Clockwork Universe will be out from Carnegie-Mellon University Press this fall. Previously\, Flying Through a Hole in the Storm (2021) won the Hollis Summers Prize from Ohio University Press and was an Indie finalist. Earlier poems can be found in The Woods Are On Fire: New & Selected Poems\, chosen by Ted Kooser for the University of Nebraska poetry series in 2017. Her work has appeared three times in The Best American Poetry and has won a Pushcart Prize\, the Felix Pollak Prize\, the Philip Levine Prize\, and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award\, and has twice been a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her poems have been used as texts for several prizewinning musical compositions performed at Eastman School of Music\, Yale University\, and by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble. She has won the New Letters and the Ohio State Univ/The Journal awards for creative nonfiction. Her third collection of memoir-essays\, Mortality\, with Friends was published by Wayne State University Press (2021) was an MIPA Winner and Midwest Book Award winner in memoir. She is professor emerita at the University of Delaware\, where she taught for 27 years and directed the Poets in the Schools program. She was poet laureate of Delaware from 2001-07. She now lives with her husband\, Jerry Beasley\, in Traverse City\, Michigan\, where she writes a monthly poetry column for the Record-Eagle newspaper. She is retired from the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop\, a low-residency MFA program in Tacoma\, Washington. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Anne-Marie\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAnne-Marie Oomen received the Michigan Author Award for Lifetime Achievement\, 2023-24. As Long as I Know You: The Mom Book won AWP’s Sue William Silverman Nonfiction Award (University of Georgia Press)\, Michigan Notable Book Award\, and a silver IPPY award. The Long Fields\, (Cornerstone Press)\, is her most recent essay collection. Love\, Sex and 4-H\, (Next Generation Indie Award for memoir); Pulling Down the Barn and House of Fields\, (Michigan Notable Books)—all focus on rural Michigan culture. She wrote Uncoded Women (poetry) and co-wrote the award-winning The Lake Michigan Mermaid and Lake Huron Mermaid with poet\, Linda Nemec Foster. She also edited Elemental: A Collection of Michigan Nonfiction (Michigan Notable Book). She has written seven plays\, including award-winning Northern Belles (inspired by oral histories of women farmers)\, and Secrets of Luuce Talk Tavern\, winner of the CTAM contest. She is founding editor of Dunes Review\, former president and current board member of Michigan Writers\, and serves as instructor at Interlochen College of Creative Arts. She appears at conferences throughout the country. She and her husband\, David Early\, have built their handmade home on wild acreage formerly stewarded by the tribes of the Three Fires Confederacy near Empire\, Michigan\, and beloved Lake Michigan. www.anne-marieoomen.com URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-fleda-brown-anne-marie-oomen/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/april.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250408T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250408T213000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20250130T173426Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250130T174714Z UID:1253-1744140600-1744147800@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Dear Friend: An Epistolary Poetry Class DESCRIPTION:Explore epistolary poems with poet Pauletta Hansel. \n\n\n\nPoems as letters\, letters as poems: We will read and discuss a range of letter poems including those from Pauletta’s collection Friend\, and use writing and revision prompts to help us write our own poems from this rich and varied epistolary poetry tradition. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Pauletta Hansel\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPauletta Hansel’s ten poetry collections include Will There Also Be Singing? (Shadelandhouse Modern Press\, 2024); Heartbreak Tree (Madville Publications\, 2022)\, which won the Poetry Society of Virginia’s 2023 North American Book Award; and Palindrome (Dos Madres Press\, 2017) winner of Berea College’s Weatherford Award in Poetry. Her writing has been featured in Oxford American\, Rattle\, Appalachian Journal\, Still: The Journal\, Verse Daily and Poetry Daily\, among others. Pauletta was Cincinnati’s first poet laureate\, and the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/dear-friend-an-epistolary-poetry-class/ CATEGORIES:Workshop/Class ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/dear-friend.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250318T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250318T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20241209T202237Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250130T174730Z UID:1159-1742326200-1742331600@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Cynthia Marie Hoffman & Sarah Kain Gutowski DESCRIPTION:Poets Cynthia Marie Hoffman and Sarah Kain Gutowski will read from their collected works\, with an emphasis on their newest respective collections\, both of which are cohesively themed (Cynthia’s is a memoir in prose poems\, Sarah’s is a fabulist narrative in poems).Sarah and Cynthia first met more than 20 years ago in London\, where they were both active in the open mic scene. In this In Conversation event they’ll talk about both creativity and process: the structures of their respective collections as book-length “projects\,” how their own journeys with OCD/anxiety have impacted their work; form and the relationship of form to writing in other genres (specifically how their recent collections opened the door for prose)\, and the benefits of joining forces this past year on book tour and book promotions.  \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\nAbout Cynthia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of four collections of poetry\, most recently Exploding Head\, an OCD memoir in prose poems. Essays in TIME\, The Sun\, Lit Hub\, and elsewhere. Poems in Electric Literature\, The Believer\, The Indianapolis Review\, and elsewhere. Cynthia lives in Madison\, WI.  www.cynthiamariehoffman.com. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Sarah\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSarah Kain Gutowski is the author of The Familiar\, a fabulist narrative-in-poems about female existential crisis\, and Fabulous Beast: Poems. Her poetry has appeared in various print and online journals\, including The Threepenny Review\, Painted Bride Quarterly\, and The Southern Review. With interdisciplinary artist Meredith Starr\, she is co-creator of Every Second Feels Like Theft\, a conversation in cyanotypes and poetry\, and It’s All Too Much\, a limited-edition audio project. A member of the National Book Critics Circle\, her criticism has been published by Colorado Review\, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women\, and New York Journal of Books. http://www.sarahkaingutowski.com. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-cynthia-marie-hoffman-sarah-kain-gutowski/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/march.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250313T200000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250313T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20241209T202839Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250130T174044Z UID:1190-1741896000-1741899600@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Community Hour DESCRIPTION:Calling all writers\, artists\, readers\, musicians\, and organizers! Join us for our second community hour in which will come together to share project ideas\, recommendations\, and ways to support each other going forward. The event will be facilitated and we’ll make use of breakout rooms and the chat feature! \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/march-community-hour/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/march-community.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250302T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250302T150000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20241212T181133Z LAST-MODIFIED:20250130T174514Z UID:1212-1740920400-1740927600@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Writing Persona: When a Mask Is All We Can Bear DESCRIPTION:Explore persona poems with poet Jessica Cuello. \n\n\n\nA generative course that will look attentively at poems by Ai\, Lucie Brock-Broido\, and Patricia Smith among others. We’ll explore ways to enter persona and deepen the imaginative possibilities of writing outside ourselves. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Jessica Cuello\n\n\n\nJessica Cuello’s most recent book is Yours\, Creature (JackLeg Press\, 2023). Her book Liar\, selected by Dorianne Laux for The 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize\, was honored with The Eugene Nassar Prize\, The CNY Book Award\, a finalist nod for The Housatonic Book Award\, and a longlist mention for The Julie Suk Award. Cuello is also the author of Hunt (The Word Works\, 2017) and Pricking (Tiger Bark Press\, 2016). Cuello has been awarded The 2022 Nina Riggs Poetry Prize\, two CNY Book Awards\, The 2016 Washington Prize\, The New Letters Poetry Prize\, a Saltonstall Fellowship\, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. In addition\, Cuello has published three chapbooks: My Father’s Bargain (2015)\, By Fire (2013)\, and Curie (2011). In 2014 she was awarded The Decker Award from Hollins University for outstanding secondary teaching. She is poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review and teaches French in CNY. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/writing-persona-when-a-mask-is-all-we-can-bear/ CATEGORIES:Workshop/Class ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/writing-persona.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250225T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250225T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20241209T200110Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241212T182432Z UID:1156-1740511800-1740517200@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Dzvinia Orlowsky & María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado DESCRIPTION:Multi-lingual poets Dzvinia Orlowsky and María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado will read from their respective bodies of work and discuss their poetry and creative processes. While their relationship started as one of mentor and student\, they now call one another cherished friends with a shared passion for exploring how primary languages shape identity and existence.Of Dzvinia\, María Luisa says: “I was researching MFA programs with poets as mentors who would take the cultural languages of my experiences seriously\, who would understand that some of my poems code-switched in Puerto Rican Spanish or German or Farsi were inspired by real relationships. A narrative poet\, I immediately connected with Dzvinia’s online faculty bio and the lyrical pacing of her poems. Imagine my exponential joys in working with Dzvinia as my workshop leader who startled me and my peers with her uncannily spiritual way of responding to the heat in some of our lines and her gentle weeding of words that muffled the music in a poem.”Of María Luisa\, Dzvinia says: “María Luisa’s writing continues to move me with its depth and courage\, imbued with the cultural language of her experiences and a rare sensitivity to the demands of storytelling. Her lyrical narratives delve into profound themes: grappling with familial violence\, witnessing eruptions of public and political violence\, and reflecting on the complex interplay of gender roles and cultural identity. I am drawn to her aspiration to connect with the universe on a spiritual level\, seeking bonds that transcend Immediate reality\, and I look forward to exploring in conversation how these shared ambitions shape our work.”   \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Dzvinia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDzvinia Orlowsky\, a Pushcart Prize poet\, translator\, a Four Way Books founding editor\, has authored seven poetry collections with Carnegie Mellon University Press including Bad Harvest\, a 2019 Massachusetts Book Awards “Must Read” in Poetry and her most recent\, Those Absences Now Closest. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Grant\, a New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Motton Book Award\, co-recipient of a 2016 National Endowment for the Arts\, and her first collection\, A Handful of Bees\, was reprinted as part of the Carnegie Mellon University Press Classic Contemporary Series. Her poem sequence “The (Dis)enchanted Desna” was a winner of the 2019 New England Poetry Club’s Samuel Washington Allen Prize selected by Robert Pinsky. \n\n\n\nAli Kinsella and Dzvinia’s co-translations from the Ukrainian of Natalka Bilotserkivets’s Eccentric Days of Hope & Sorrow was a finalist for the 2022 Griffin International Poetry Prize\, the 2022 Derek Walcott Poetry Prize\, ALTA’s 2022 National Translation Award and winner of the 2020-2021 AAUS Prize for Translation. They received a 2024 NEA Translation Fellowship for their translation of Halyna Kruk’s Lost in Living (Lost Horse Press\, 2024)\, and their co-translation of Oleksander Dovzhenko’s novella\, Enchanted Desna\, is forthcoming from Lost Horse Press in 2025. \n\n\n\nAbout María Louisa\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBorn in Manatí\, Puerto Rico and raised in Springfield\, MA\, María Luisa Arroyo Cruzado received a BA from Colby College and an MA from Tufts University in German\, her third language. The opportunity to work with poets Dzvinia Orlowsky and Laure-Anne Bosselaar under poet Meg Kearney’s transformational leadership led her to pursue her MFA at Pine Manor College (July 2015). Currently she is a Clark Diversity Fellow joyfully pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at Binghamton University. \n\n\n\nMaría Luisa writes poetry and prose that code-switch between American English\, Puerto Rican Spanish\, German and Farsi\, the cultural languages of her experiences. Her collections include Thought Here Would Cure Me of There (Lily Poetry Review Books\, 2024)\, Landscapes: photos & poems (MultiCreative Wisdom\, 2023)\, Resistencia: Resilience: essays & poems (Human Error Publishing\, 2023)\, Destierro Means More than Exile: a tribute to 32 women poets (2018); and Gathering Words: recogiendo palabras (Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe\, 2008). In 2024\, she curated and published Pán•o•ply\, the inaugural MultiCreative Wisdom anthology featuring creative writers who identify as women or non-binary; and as BIPOC. \n\n\n\nFor 18+ years of facilitating poetry workshops and readings\, many in partnership with the Springfield City Library\, she was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Springfield\, MA (2014-2016) and a New England Public Radio’s Arts and Humanities recipient (2016). In May 2024\, she received an honorary degree in fine arts from Smith College in recognition of her impact as a multilingual Boricua poet and intersectional feminist educator.   URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-dzvinia-orlovsky-maria-luisa-arroyo-cruzado/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/february-in-conv.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250128T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250128T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20241209T194609Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241212T181734Z UID:1153-1738092600-1738098000@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Carolyn Oliver & Hannah Larrabee DESCRIPTION:Poets Carolyn Oliver and Hannah Larrabee will read from their respective collections and discuss both creativity and craft. Like us\, Carolyn read Hannah’s collection and asked herself–more than once–how did they do that? And Hannah wants to know how Carolyn’s poems take us places beyond reach and into the warping of spacetime.These poets share a reverence for science and deep wonder for–and curiosity in–the world (both seen and unseen). Hannah says: “We’re hoping to geek out a bit about science and plan to talk through poems that explore the spellbinding world around us–here\, on Earth\, and in the cosmos.”Carolyn adds: “It’s such luck to call Hannah my friend\, and I look forward to talking about space and darkness and flowers (and perhaps a tree frog or two?) with this kind and wise and luminous poet.” \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Carolyn\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCarolyn Oliver is the author of The Alcestis Machine (Acre Books\, 2024)\, Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble (University of Utah Press\, 2022; selected for the Agha Shahid Ali Prize)\, and three chapbooks\, including\, most recently\, Night Ocean (Seven Kitchens Press\, 2023). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in TriQuarterly\, Image\, Poetry Daily\, Southern Indiana Review\, Consequence\, and elsewhere. She lives in Massachusetts.  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Hannah\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHannah Larrabee’s Wonder Tissue won the Airlie Press Poetry Prize and her new book—The Observable Universe—was longlisted for a Massachusetts Book Award. Hannah was selected by NASA to write poetry for the Webb Telescope program at Goddard Space Center and she participated in the Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard. She’s had poems and reviews in Whale Road\, EcoTheo\, Adirondack Review\, Glass Poetry Journal\, among others. Hannah lives in Salem\, Massachusetts and is an editor at Nixes Mate Review.  URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-carolyn-oliver-hannah-larrabee/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/january.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250114T200000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250114T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20241205T201554Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241216T184946Z UID:1163-1736884800-1736888400@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Community Hour DESCRIPTION:Calling all writers\, artists\, readers\, musicians\, and organizers! Join us for our first community hour in which will come together to share project ideas\, recommendations\, and ways to support each other going forward. The event will be facilitated and we’ll make use of breakout rooms and the chat feature! \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/community-hour/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/january-community-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241112T200000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241112T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240927T135422Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241101T133618Z UID:1120-1731441600-1731445200@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Celebration of Saara Myrene Raappana DESCRIPTION:The Notebooks Collective invites you to an evening of poetry and remembrance hosted by Eric Doise\, husband of late poet Saara Myrene Raappana. Eric will be joined by Lauren K. Carlson and Halley Cotton\, all of whom will read from Saara’s collected work\, Chamber After Chamber\, which was awarded the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Saara was also the author of the chapbooks A Story of America Goes Walking (Shechem Press) and Milk Tooth\, Levee\, Fever (Dancing Girl Press). \n\n\n\nA gifted poet and teacher\, Saara left a legacy of not only powerful and award-winning poetry\, but also as an educator\, mental health pioneer and animal lover. Her great warmth\, intelligence and kindness was evident to all who knew her and will be celebrated in this one-of-a-kind reading. \n\n\n\nThis event is free and all are welcome; we also invite you purchase her book. Please use the code CHAMBER at checkout to receive a 30% discount. A donor has offered to contribute $10 for every book purchased at a reading to her scholarship fund. If you already have her book\, we also invite you to make a gift in her honor by donating to her scholarship fund. \n\n\n\nThis event is virtual. RSVP to receive the Zoom link. \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout the Readers\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLauren K. Carlson is the author of the chapbook Animals I Have Killed (Comstock Review Chapbook Prize 2018). Her work has recently appeared in Crab Creek Review\, Salamander Magazine\, Terrain\, The Windhover and Waxwing. In 2021 she won the Levis Stipend from Friends of Writers for her full-length collection Steelhead (forthcoming 2025). Lauren currently serves as editor for Tinderbox Poetry Journal and holds an MFA in poetry from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHalley Cotton is the managing editor of the Birmingham Poetry Review\, contributing editor for NELLE\, and production manager for both publications. Her work has appeared in places such as The Greensboro Review\, Poetry South\, and Smokelong Quarterly\, among others. Cotton teaches in the English department at UAB. When she’s not busy kayaking or finding four-leaf clovers\, she’s studying folklore and writing/reading poetry. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEric Doise is an associate professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University. His work has appeared in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma and journals including South Central Review\, Extrapolation\, and Film Criticism. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Saara\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBorn and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan\, Saara Myrene Raappana served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in southern China before moving to Southwest Minnesota. Her newest book\, Chamber After Chamber\, won the 2023 Juniper Prize and was nominated for the National Book Award. She also wrote the chapbooks A Story of America Goes Walking (in collaboration with artist Rebekah Wilkins-Pepiton\, Shechem Press\, 2016) and Milk Tooth\, Levee\, Fever (Dancing Girl Press\, 2015). Her poem “Letter To My Teenaged Self: You Are a House\, You Are a Hammer\, You’re the Momentum of the Nail” was selected as a Best of the Net Winner by Kazim Ali. She received grants and scholarships from the Minnesota State Arts Board\, the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council\, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/celebration-of-saara-myrene-raappana/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Saara-Myrene-Raappana-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240924T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240924T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240818T222857Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240818T225511Z UID:1049-1727206200-1727211600@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Marcus Myers & Rivka Clifton DESCRIPTION:Marcus \n\n\n\nRivka and I have a unique bond as poets and co-editors. We met in 2012\, during Rivka’s first and my last year in the MFA program at UMKC. Before\, during and after we formed Bear Review\, we’ve shared work and encouraged one another. This sharing and cheering each other on\, discussing craft and aesthetics\, swapping and giving books with and to each other has led\, in some ways directly and in others indirectly\, to our creating Bear Review. While co-editing Bear Review\, we learned each of our appetites and affinities moved us to appreciate poets from very different parts of the contemporary U.S. poetic fractal. Rivka’s aesthetic choices often led us to accepting more avant garde / experimental poems\, which I appreciated or learned to appreciate\, while mine led us to poems expressive of personal experiences. I can only speak for myself\, but I definitely noticed Rivka’s tastes making an impression on me\, in particular her brave embrace of the surreal\, abject and grotesque.  \n\n\n\nRivka \n\n\n\nWhen I met Marcus\, I saw poetry as a way to escape my body. I didn’t know the term dysphoria then\, but poetry was a way for me to be other than what I was. When I read Marcus’ poetry\, I admired how deeply he looked into his own life\, how he was unafraid to face it. The more medical transitioning has aligned my body with my self-image\, the less I feel compelled to run away through poetry\, the more compelled I feel to see my experience as continuous with my self as a writer and artist. Marcus has always been a teacher for me in that regard; his poems laid the groundwork for me to be more autobiographical. Poetry feels most itself when it lands somewhere between autobiography and completely disconnected from the writer’s life. I believe having this conversation around aesthetics\, subject matter and poetic arcs will be help clarify things for me as a trans writer and may be beneficial for other writers thinking through their aesthetics as well. \n\n\n\nThis event is Free\, with a suggested donation of $5. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMarcus Myers\n\n\n\nMarcus Myers lives in Kansas City\, Missouri\, where he teaches and serves as co-founding and managing editor of Bear Review. Author of the chapbook Cloud Sanctum (2022)\, his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Common\, Contemporary Verse 2\, The Florida Review\, Fourteen Hills\, The Los Angeles Review\, Mid-American Review\, RHINO\, Salt Hill\, Southeast Review\, and elsewhere.  \n\n\n\nRivka Clifton\n\n\n\nRivka Clifton is the author of Muzzle (JackLeg Press) as well as the chapbooks MOT and Agape (from Osmanthus Press). She has work in: Pleiades\, Guernica\, Black Warrior Review\, Colorado Review\, and other magazines. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-marcus-myers-rivka-clifton/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/marcus-rivka.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240827T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240827T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240308T204748Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240827T165912Z UID:683-1724785200-1724792400@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Turning History into Folklore DESCRIPTION:Myths and folklore are rooted in history\, in humans searching to fill holes in our understanding with magic. Writers and dreamers since the very beginning of language have been doing this. It’s the reason we have mermaids and vampires\, the origins of Hamilton\, and great literary works like The Odyssey. Arguably\, every writer who writes about the past is making it mythic\, in one way or another\, as the past is not entirely knowable. \n\n\n\nIn this generative workshop\, we will challenge ourselves to write poems in which we put magic into the holes in the historical record. Afterall\, as Oscar Wilde said\, “the one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” We will\, together\, imagine surreal and interesting symbols in a story that\, like all of history\, is unknowable. We will discuss the ethics of mining true stories\, and the reality of subjective and objective “truth.” How much do we owe to the truth? How much can altering a foundational story\, like that of the founding fathers or westward expansion\, change? \n\n\n\nThere is no better time to interrogate the past than now. American history is built on myths written into our history books. What is the truth? Who gets to record and reckon with these stories? Which stories get told? I explored these questions in my recent book on the life of Annie Oakley\, America’s first superstar\, Lady Wing Shot. Together\, let’s write into empty spaces in other well-known stories that shape our understanding of history and politics. Feel free to bring any stories that haunt you\, but I will supply lots of inspiration!   \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Sara Moore Wagner\n\n\n\nSara Moore Wagner is the author of three prize winning full length books of poetry\, Lady Wing Shot\, winner of the 2023 Blue Lynx Prize (2024)\, Swan Wife (Cider Press Review Editors Prize\, 2022)\, and Hillbilly Madonna (Driftwood Press Manuscript Prize\, 2022)\, and of two chapbooks\, Tumbling After (Red Bird Chapbooks\, 2022) and Hooked Through (2017). She is also a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award recipient\, a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist\, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals and anthologies including Gulf Coast\, Smartish Pace\, Waxwing\, Beloit Poetry Journal\, and The Cincinnati Review\, among others. In 2023\, she became the Managing Poetry Editor of Driftwood Press. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/turning-history-into-folklore/ CATEGORIES:Workshop/Class ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/folklore.jpeg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240820T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240820T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240508T171054Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240820T233318Z UID:963-1724182200-1724187600@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Karen Rigby & Danika Stegeman DESCRIPTION:Join us on Tuesday\, August 20 at 7:30 PM for an In Conversation with poets Karen Rigby & Danika Stegeman. The discussion could lead anywhere\, but expect musings on second books\, ars poetica\, and more! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout the Guests\n\n\n\nKaren Rigby\n\n\n\nBorn in the Republic of Panama\, Karen Rigby is the author of Fabulosa (JackLeg Press\, 2024) and Chinoiserie (Ahsahta Press\, 2012)\, which won a 2011 Sawtooth Poetry Prize. Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship\, a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship\, and a 2023 artist opportunity grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. Her poms have been published inThe London Magazine\, Poetry Northwest\, Australian Book Review\, and other journals. She lives in Arizona. www.karenrigby.com/ \n\n\n\nDanika Stegeman\n\n\n\nDanika Stegeman’s second book\, Ablation\, was released by 11:11 Press November 1st\, 2023. Her book Pilot (2020) was published by Spork Press. She’s a 2023 recipient of a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund and recently spent a 2-week residency in Marathon\, TX outside Big Bend National Park. Her video poem\, “Then Betelgeuse Reappears” was an official selection for the 2021 Midwest Video Poetry Festival. Stegeman received her MFA in creative writing from George Mason University where she was awarded the Heritage Fellowship. She currently lives in St. Paul\, MN. Her website is www.danikastegeman.com.  URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-karen-rigby-danika-stegeman/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/karen-and-danika.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240723T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240723T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240505T232417Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240618T151822Z UID:722-1721763000-1721768400@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Eugenia Leigh & Diannely Antigua DESCRIPTION:Join us on Tuesday\, July 23 when we welcome poets Eugenia Leigh & Diannely Antigua to The Notebooks Collective for an evening of conversation about creativity and connection. We are thrilled to host this In Conversation\, in which the poets will discuss their newest books\, Bianca and Good Monster respectively\, among other things. \n\n\n\nThis is a virtual event. RSVP to receive the zoom link to join. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout the Guests\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of two poetry collections\, Bianca (Four Way Books\, 2023) and Blood\, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books\, 2014)\, winner of the Late-Night Library’s 2015 Debut-litzer Prize in Poetry selected by Arisa White\, as well as a finalist for both the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Poems from Bianca received the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine and have appeared in numerous publications including The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day\, The Nation\, Ploughshares\, Waxwing\, and the Best of the Net anthology. Her essays have appeared in TIME\, The Rumpus\, and elsewhere. Eugenia received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and serves as a Poetry Editor at The Adroit Journal and as the Valentines Editor at Honey Literary\, a BIPOC-focused literary journal and literary arts organization. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDiannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator\, born and raised in Massachusetts. Her debut collection Ugly Music (YesYes Books\, 2019) was the winner of the Pamet River Prize and a 2020 Whiting Award. Her second poetry collection Good Monster is forthcoming with Copper Canyon Press in 2024. She received her BA in English from the University of Massachusetts Lowell\, where she won the Jack Kerouac Creative Writing Scholarship\, and received her MFA at NYU\, where she was awarded a Global Research Initiative Fellowship to Florence\, Italy. She is the recipient of additional fellowships from CantoMundo\, Community of Writers\, Fine Arts Work Center Summer Program\, and was a finalist for the 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and chosen for The Best of the Net Anthology. Her poems can be found in Poem-a-Day\, Poetry\, The American Poetry Review\, Washington Square Review\, The Adroit Journal\, and elsewhere. She currently teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the University of New Hampshire as the inaugural Nossrat Yassini Poet in Residence. She hosts the podcast Bread & Poetry and is currently the Poet Laureate of Portsmouth\, New Hampshire\, the youngest and first person of color to receive the title. In 2023\, she was awarded an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship to launch The Bread & Poetry Project. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-eugenia-leigh-diannely-antigua/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/eugenia-and-diannely.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240618T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240618T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240310T235420Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240611T141835Z UID:710-1718739000-1718744400@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Jessica E. Johnson & Tyler Mills DESCRIPTION:Writers Jessica Johnson & Tyler Mills join the Notebooks Collective to discuss their new memoirs\, Mettlework and The Bomb Cloud\, which both invoke their family history and how the personal and the politic intertwine. \n\n\n\nAbout Mettlework\n\n\n\n“…The resulting journey encompasses Johnson’s early memories\, the story of the earth told in the language of geology\, bits of vivid correspondence\, a mothering manual from the early twentieth century\, and the daily challenges of personal and collective care in a lonesome-crowded Pacific wonderland. Mettlework traces intergenerational failures of homemaking\, traveling toward presence and relationship amid the remains of extractive industry and unsustainable notions of family.” \n\n\n\nAbout The Bomb Cloud\n\n\n\n“A shimmering memoir defined equally by its lyrical prose and profound historical implications\, The Bomb Cloud untangles the intersecting strands of information running through a family mystery shaped by national secrets…Extending from the poems in Mills’ Hawk Parable\, this memoir wrestles with her grandfather’s likely involvement in a top-secret bomb wing that trained in the New Mexico desert\, taking the reader to the very edge of the unknowable.” \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nAbout our Guests\n\n\n\nJessica E. Johnson writes poetry and nonfiction. She’s the author of the book-length poem Metabolics and the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other\, and is a contributor to the anthology Cascadia Field Guide: Art\, Ecology\, Poetry. Her poems\, essays\, and reviews have appeared in The Paris Review\, Tin House\, The New Republic\, Poetry Northwest\, River Teeth\, DIAGRAM\, Annulet Poetics\, The Southeast Review\, and Sixth Finch. She teaches at Portland Community College and co-hosts the Constellation Reading Series at Tin House. \n\n\n\nTyler Mills is the author of the memoir The Bomb Cloud (Unbound Edition Press 2024)\, which received a Literature Grant from the Café Royal Foundation NYC. Her poetry guidebook\, Poetry Studio: Prompts for Poets\, is also being released this year from the University of Akron Press. She is the author of the poetry books City Scattered (Tupelo Press 2022)\, Hawk Parable (University of Akron Press 2019)\, Tongue Lyre (Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award\, Southern Illinois University Press 2013)\, and co-author with Kendra DeColo of Low Budget Movie (Diode Editions 2021). A poet and essayist\, her poems have appeared in The New Yorker\, The Guardian\, The New Republic\, the Kenyon Review\, The Believer\, and Poetry\, and her essays in AGNI\, Brevity\, Copper Nickel\, River Teeth\, and The Rumpus. She teaches for Sarah Lawrence College’s Writing Institute and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center’s 24PearlStreet and lives in Brooklyn. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-jessica-johnson-tyler-mills/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/jessica-and-tyler-june.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240528T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240528T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240317T172831Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240528T134250Z UID:796-1716922800-1716930000@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:Tmesis\, Isocolons & Hyperbole\, Oh my! Revitalizing as Revision DESCRIPTION:As poets we are always looking to refresh our language and invigorate our lines.  During this class we will study  techniques and examples in mentor texts\, and we will apply them in real time to our works\, with the goal of adding to our collective poetry toolboxes and inspiring us to revisit our work with joy and excitement. \n\n\n\nPreparation: Bring a few of your poems\, stanzas\, or several lines you will use to apply new poetic techniques in real time. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Eileen\n\n\n\nEileen Cleary (she/her) is the author of Wild Pack of the Living (Nixes Mate\, 2024)\, 2 a.m. with Keats (Nixes Mate\, 2021)  and Child Ward of the Commonwealth (Main Street Rag Press\, 2019)\, which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize. She co-edited the anthology ‘Voices Amidst the Virus\,’ which was the featured text at the 2021 MSU Filmetry Festival. Cleary founded and edits the Lily Poetry Review and Lily Poetry Review Books\, and curates the Lily Poetry Salon. A multipushcart nominee\, her work is published widely in journals and anthologies. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/tmesis-isocolons-hyperbole-oh-my-revitalizing-as-revision/ CATEGORIES:Workshop/Class ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Tmesis-Isocolons-and-hyperbole.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240514T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240514T210000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240308T004227Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240317T175443Z UID:685-1715715000-1715720400@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:In Conversation: Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson DESCRIPTION:Leah Umansky & Melissa Fite Johnson join The Notebooks Collective to read from their new books & discuss poetry\, the writing life\, & more. \n\n\n\nAbout Of Tyrant \n\n\n\n“What does it mean to live in a country at war with itself–historically\, spiritually\, politically? Where does this sickness originate? In poems both personal and sweeping in scope\, Umansky opens the door to all the possible answers\, pointing outward but also in\, to the twists and turns of our collective psyche.” \n\n\n\nAbout Midlife Abecedarian\n\n\n\n“Midlife Abecedarian is a nostalgic collection that takes the reader on a journey through time. It provides a template for a life well-lived\, even if you’re only halfway through. Conjuring memories and a sense of satisfaction and comfort\, Midlife Abecedarian is a map to things remembered and things best left forgotten.” \n\n\n\n\n\n Get Tickets\n Get Tickets on Eventbrite\n \n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\nAbout\n\n\n\nLeah Umansky is the author of three collections of poetry\, most recently\, OF TYRANT (Word Works Books 2024.) She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has curated and hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011. Her creative work can be found in such places as The New York Times\, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A Day\, USA Today\, POETRY\, and American Poetry Review. Her new hybrid-memoir\, DELICATE MACHINE\, an exploration of womanhood\, hope\, and heart in the face of grief and a global pandemic is looking for a home. She can be found at www.leahumansky.com or @leah.umansky on IG. \n\n\n\nMelissa Fite Johnson is the author of three full-length collections\, most recently Midlife Abecedarian (Riot in Your Throat\, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares\, Pleiades\, HAD\, Whale Road Review\, SWWIM\, and elsewhere. Melissa\, a high school English teacher\, is a poetry editor for The Weight\, a journal for high school students\, and Porcupine Lit\, a journal by and for teachers. She and her husband live with their dogs in Lawrence\, KS\, where she co-hosts the Volta reading series at the Replay Lounge. URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-conversation-leah-umansky-melissa-fite-johnson/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/leah-and-melissa.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240416T193000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240416T213000 DTSTAMP:20260503T131106 CREATED:20240315T005606Z LAST-MODIFIED:20240416T230615Z UID:731-1713295800-1713303000@thenotebookscollective.com SUMMARY:The Notebooks Reading DESCRIPTION:In honor of National Poetry Month and to celebrate the collective impact we can have when we work together\, the Notebooks Collective is proud to host a reading featuring its past and future guests. This reading will allow us to share the brilliant words of our collective while raising money for direct aid to Gaza. Please join us! \n\n\n\nFeaturing! Anne-Marie Oomen\, Jessica Cuello\, Sarah Ghazal Ali\, Claire Schwartz\, Quintin Collins\, Sara Moore Wagner\, jason b. crawford\, Kathi Aguero\, Rebecca Kirk Connors\, Marcia Karp\, Eileen Cleary\, Lisa Allen\, Soledad Caballero\, Suzanne Frank\, Meg Kearney\, Karen Rigby\, Jessica Johnson & José Angel Araguz. \n\n\n\n\n\nAbout the Fundraiser\n\n\n\nWe have chosen to support three specific fundraisers and will split the funds donated through this event across them. These come from a past guest and from Operation Olive Branch. Suggested donations are sliding scale ranging from $5 to $20 dollars and can be submitted to us by purchasing a ticket below. If you can donate more we encourage you to do so. Simply\, up the numbers of tickets you buy. \n\n\n\nOr you can donate directly here: \n\n\n\nhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/save-my-family-from-war-and-start-a-new-life: Son working to raise funds to afford border crossing in Rafah. \n\n\n\nhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/mh3q9y-help-me-save-my-family-from-war Mom works abroad\, 3 children are trapped in Gaza. \n\n\n\nhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/medical-tent-to-help-children: Dr Rajaa operates a medical tent in Rafah where he sees children for free daily. \n\n\n\n\n\nRSVP to attend OR purchase a ticket (donation) to attend URL:https://thenotebookscollective.com/event/a-notebooks-reading/ CATEGORIES:Readings ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://thenotebookscollective.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/reading-1.png END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR