(masks required)
Complete Details at:
https://www.annieblooms.com/event/store-poetry-reading-ann-farley-beth-bonness-vivienne-popperl
Saturday, Oct 8, 2022 @ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 3:00 Pm (Alaskan) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)
ABOUT THE POETS
Lauri Cruver Cherian is a Washington State native raised in Gig Harbor on a beautiful piece of beachfront property. She awoke each morning to the cry of the seagulls and the view of the bay in her front yard, which was glorious in rain or shine. Her childhood memories are rich with singing around the bonfire, boat trips with her dad, fishing and clam digging, paddle boarding in Wollochet Bay, and watching for sea lions and orcas that would often swim past her house.
Lauri has lived on the South Texas Coast for three decades. She holds a Master’s degree in Language Acquisition Education from the University of Houston and a Bachelor’s degree in Bilingual Education from Washington State University. Lauri has taught English as a Second Language for children and adults for twenty-five years and is a teacher trainer, consultant, and a workshop leader in adult ESL. She is the recipient of several teacher of the year awards including District Bilingual Teacher of the Year in Spring Branch Independent School District in Houston. (You can visit her website at https://lessonswithlauri.com for more information.)
Besides returning to the beach when she gets the chance, Lauri enjoys acting in community theater, singing, and playing the piano, traveling, and writing short stories and poetry. Her poem “Courage” dedicated to healthcare workers during the pandemic, won honorable mention in the Texas Mental Health Creative Arts Contest in 2021. Lauri and her husband have three adventuresome adult children.
You can order Lauri’s new book HERE
In 1973 Peter Kaufmann left California with his girlfriend to go to Alaska for the summer. Fifty years later they are still there. In Alaska he has worn the hats of a biologist, builder, salmon fisherman and improv teacher and performer. In 1997, in need of change, he volunteered to teach in Viet Nam for one year. That year grew into 20 years. Spending summers in Alaska and three seasons living and working in Asia, he helped communities voice their stories through drama, film, radio, television, and museum exhibitions. He was blessed to work with widely varied populations, including people living with HIV/Aids, sex workers, disabled youth, government officials, museum and television professionals and Buddhist monks. Peter’s poetry draws from both wild Alaska and urban Asia. His poems have placed in a statewide contest in Alaska, appeared in Cirque magazine, and twice been chosen for National Poetry Month. Peter’s work has been used to introduce non-profit meetings and scored with original music.
You can order Peter’s new book HERE
Leanne Grabel is a writer, illustrator, and performer in love with mixing genres. Her first collaboration was with a bongo player and sax player in the mid-70s and her most recent collaborations were with filmmaker Penny Allen and dancer/choreographer Gregg Bielemeier. She has written & produced numerous multi-media shows, including “The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression” and “Anger: The Musical.” Grabel’s graphic novel, Brontosaurus Illustrated, recently serialized in The Opiate, was published by The Opiate Books in 2022. Grabel is the 2020 recipient of the Bread & Roses Award for contributions to women’s literature in the Pacific Northwest. She and her husband started and ran Cafe Lena, a poetry hub and restaurant, throughout the 90s. Grabel is a retired special education teacher, the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of two nubbins, Ophelia and Elliot.
You can order Leanne’s new book HERE
Saturday, Sept 10, 2022 @ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)
ABOUT THE POETS
Michael Waterson tells himself he looks good on paper. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA in the sulfurous glow of Blake’s Satanic mills, Waterson got gob-smacked by language at an early age, rapt by the wizardry of Shakespeare, the Celtic spells of Yeats. Growing up Roman Catholic in a place characterized as “hell with the lid off” colored his life in ways he’s still discovering after seven decades. As a young man he headed off to a party in California and never left. Now a retired journalist, his career includes stints as a factory worker, wildland firefighter, San Francisco taxi driver and wine educator.
He earned a BA from San Francisco State University and an MFA from Mills College. His poetry has won awards and appeared in numerous online and print journals. He currently resides in Napa, California where he is Poet Laureate Emeritus. He is a seannachie (storyteller) and singer/songwriter with a local traditional Irish music band, Kith & Kin, and has had several one act plays produced around the country.
You can order Michael’s new book HERE
P.M. Draper is a baby-boomer who retired during the pandemic. Her previous book of verse, The Tao of Hibiscus was published in 2020. She won 2nd place in the Covid competition for her poem “A Time Like This” which appears here in After Pyre. She’s been a closet-poet for years, coming out in 2018 when she joined a local writers’ group. She lives in Vero Beach, Fl with her husband and Boston Terrier, Oreo.
You can order Patricia’s new book HERE
David Gonzalez is a storyteller, playwright, and performer whose poetry has been featured at Lincoln Center’s Out-of-Doors Festival, Bill Moyers’s documentary Fooling with Words, and NPR’s All Things Considered, and at universities and performing arts centers across the country. Oh Hudson, a long-form piece, was commissioned by the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center to commemorate the Quadricentennial of Hudson’s exploration. City of Dreams, a spoken-word/Latin jazz project, commissioned by The University of Maryland and La MaMa, has toured throughout the U.S. David wrote the opera libretto for Rise for Freedom, as well as numerous plays, including The Man of the House (commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts); Mariel, an Afro-Cuban musical (commissioned by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); The Boy Who Could Sing Pictures, and many more. Mr. Gonzalez has toured widely throughout the U.S. and abroad. He received his doctorate in Music Therapy from New York University and has garnered numerous awards and commissions. He is a Joseph Campbell Foundation Fellow, has extensive experience supporting communities through the arts, and is a proud recipient of the International Performing Arts for Youth “Lifetime Achievement Award for Sustained Excellence.”
You can order David’s new book HERE
Aug 13, 2022 @ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)
If button not working on your browser, you can click on the link below:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89080450851
Meeting ID: 890 8045 0851
ABOUT THE POETS
Poet and artist Cathy Cain is the author of A Shape of Sky (2021) and Bee Dance (2019), both from The Poetry Box; and Empty Space Places You (Finishing Line Press, 2018). Her honors include the Kay Snow Paulann Petersen Award for Poetry; the Edwin Markham Prize for Poetry; and a First Place from the Oregon Poetry Association poetry contest. Cain’s poetry has appeared in The Poeming Pigeon, Reed Magazine, Verseweavers, VoiceCatcher, and in /pãn| dé | mïk/ 2020: An Anthology of Pandemic Poems.
Cain taught in the public schools for over thirty years. She is the lucky wife of a sweet man, and the mother of two fine sons. She lives with her husband near Portland, Oregon.
You can order Cathy’s new book HERE
Annette Gagliardi is a Minnesota writer, author most recently of Proper Poems for Ladies…and a few naughty ones, too! She is a contributor and co-editor of Upon Waking. 58 Voices Speaking Out from the Shadow of Abuse, 2019. Annette has poetry published in Motherwell, Wisconsin Review, American Diversity Report, Origami Poems Project, Amethyst Review, Door IS A Jar, Trouble Among the Stars, Poetry Quarterly, Sylvia Magazine, and many other online and in-print magazines. Find more of her work at https://annette-gagliardi.com.
You can order Annette’s book HERE
Rachel Barton grew up in the woods of northern Indiana which has greatly influenced her poetry and provided her a sense of connection to the planet. She comes from a large family which has informed her sense of community. She was able to study literature and creative writing as an undergraduate (WVU), the visual arts as a graduate student (WVU and The VAC in Anchorage), and, much later, teaching for a master’s degree (WOU). She entered the Oregon Writing Project in 2009 and co-facilitated the OWP’s poetry intensive the following summer. She used this model of “writing within a community of writers” in the classroom, the community college, at regional conferences, and in private classes. Currently, she edits her own Willawaw Journal, an online journal for poetry and art. She also serves as associate editor for Calyx and Cloudbank magazines.
Barton’s poetry has been published in the Main Street Rag, Whale Road Review, Moon City Review, VoiceCatcher, Mom Egg Review, CIRQUE, Oregon English Journal, and in many other journals. She has published short stories in BeZine, Blue Cubicle Press, Kindred Journal, and Clackamas Literary Review. More at RachelBartonWriter.com
You can order Rachel’s new book HERE
Come hear four restive writers bring life to hallowed Portland pub space through their wily and resplendent words. Opened by the briefest of open mics and followed by the pouring of libations. No cover, but please support your venue that so kindly hosts poets and other weirdos at no charge. Vaccination required.
Michael Schein wrote Liquid Perishable Hazardous (2019) (poetry), John Surratt: The Lincoln Assassin Who Got Away (2015) (historical), The Killer Poet’s Guide to Immortality by AB Bard (2012) (hysterical), historical novels Bones Beneath Our Feet (2011); Just Deceits (2005). Schein edited Poets UNiTE! The LiTFUSE Anthology (2015). His poetry appears in many journals and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. Schein is the founder of LiTFUSE Poets’ Workshop (litfuse.us), & has taught at Port Townsend Writers Conference, Write on the Sound, and elsewhere. Spirits inhabit earth and sky. Poetry is everywhere. Write on! michaelschein.com.
Shawn Aveningo-Sanders grew up in Missouri and after a bit of globetrotting finally landed in Portland, Oregon. Her recent chapbook, What She Was Wearing, tells her #metoo story that took 30 years to reveal. Shawn’s work has appeared worldwide in over 160 literary journals and anthologies, including Calyx, Amsterdam Quarterly, American Journal of Poetry, Timberline Review, VoiceCatcher, and Poets Reading the News. She’s a Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net nominee, co-founder of The Poetry Box press, as well as managing editor for The Poeming Pigeon. Shawn is a proud mother of three and shares the creative life with her husband, Robert. (More at RedShoePoet.com and ThePoetryBox.com)
Annie Lighthart is an Oregon writer and teacher who began writing poetry after her first visit to an Oregon old-growth forest. Poems from her books Pax and Iron String have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and in various anthologies, including How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence. Annie’s work has been turned into music, used in healing and meditation projects in Ireland, England, and New Zealand, and has traveled farther than she has.
Blending music, poetry, wit and wisdom from his tangled poetic journey, Matthew Brouwer weaves together a unique and unforgettable poetry experience that has been charming audiences for over a decade. Bridging the worlds of spoken word and literary poetry, he has performed throughout the US and been featured in numerous literary, visual and performance arts showcases. He has a new chapbook The Gospel According to Matthew which you should purchase before it is buried forever by the sands of obscurity and time.
July 9, 2022 @ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)
ABOUT THE POETS
Joann Renee Boswell is a poet, photographer, teacher, director, mystic, and mother who lives in Camas, WA with her husband (a Quaker minister) and her three young children. You can call her Jo, Jojo, Jomama, or Smookles Renee. Joann received her Choose Your Own Adventure degree (B.A. in Interdisicplinary Studies with an emphasis in Theater, Music, and Writing/Literature) from George Fox University, and later returned to earn her Master of Arts in Teaching. Joann’s first book, Cosmic Pockets (Fernwood Press, 2020), is a full-length collection of poetry and photography. She’s been working on her second full-length collection in collaboration with two illustrators; it is forthcoming from Fernwood Press late in 2022.
Joann loves rainy days filled with coffee, contradictions, dystopian fiction, justice, hand holding, forest bathing, hope, and sci-fi shows. She was her high school mascot and spent a summer working at a lumber mill. Her superpower might be whimsy. Joann is the current poetry editor for Untold Volumes and edits with a team for VoiceCatcher. She has been widely published in places such as CIRQUE, otoliths, VoiceCatcher, The Poeming Pigeon, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Denial (Not a Pipe Publishing), and Our Church Too.
You can order Joann’s new book HERE
Kristin Berger is the author of the poetry collections Refugia (Persian Pony Press, 2019), Echolocation (Cirque Press, 2018), How Light Reaches Us (Aldrich Press, 2016), and For the Willing (Finishing Line Press, 2008), and a collaborative poetry and print book, Woman & Changing Man: A High Desert Myth (Nightjar Press, 2022), with Eugene, Oregon printmaker Diane Sandall.
Recipient of residencies from Playa, OSU’s Spring Creek Project (Shotpouch and H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest), and Starkey Experimental Forest and Range, Kristin’s work is influenced by Oregon’s High Desert, Cascades, Coastal Range and all the Pacific Northwest’s wild and interconnected landscapes. Kristin lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family.
You can order Kristin’s book HERE
Elaine Nussbaum lives in Scappoose, Oregon with her partner, David, three cats, five hens and a rooster named Echinacea. When she is not working as a substitute teacher at a juvenile detention facility, infusing poetry into the curriculum, she is writing in her cabin surrounded by 3 and 1/2 acres of second growth forest. Every fall, salmon spawn in the creek which runs through her front yard. In her spare time, Ms. Nussbaum enjoys cross-country skiing and sea kayaking. Currently, she and David are restoring a 37-foot sailboat, and plan to sail the inside passage to Alaska next summer.
Ms. Nussbaum holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University (2013), and a Certificate in Writing from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Boulder University (1986). Her work has appeared in Poetry Seattle, Bombay Gin, The Sun, Spilt Infinitive, Louisiana Literature, Silk Road, Thimbleberry, Artists and Climate Change, Persimmon Tree, Headline Poetry and Press, and Terrain. A chapbook of her work, Poems in the Key of D Flat was published by Overwrought Press, in 1992, and a collection of her poetry, Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest was published by Finishing Line Press, in September 2019. She also has a poem appearing in Support Ukraine (anthology by Moonstone Press, 2022)
You can order Elaine’s new book HERE
(masks recommended)
Complete Details at:
https://www.annieblooms.com/event/store-poetry-reading-ann-farley-beth-bonness-vivienne-popperl
Update: Vivenne Popperl will be unable to participate in the reading.
June 11, 2022 @ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)
ABOUT THE POETS
Angela Hansen was born and raised in the farmland of northeast Nebraska. She spent her childhood immersed in family and everything outside: the grove of trees, the crooked bridge down by the creek, and the surrounding countryside. Angela attended country school through 8th grade, graduated from Wayne High School, and received a bachelor’s degree in English Writing from Wayne State College. Her dream of writing and illustrating children’s books was overcome with the practicality of working steady jobs, which over the years included librarian, assistant manager of a bookstore, baker at a college coffee shop, paraoptometric, paraprofessional at an elementary school, and presently, running her own business as a house painter.
Angela lived in St. Louis, MO, and LaGrange Park, IL, before moving back to Nebraska. She bought an acreage outside Carroll, where she lives with her three children, four goats, and a Ridgeback mix puppy. She enjoys baking, woodworking, gardening, creating, and finding just the right word. Her poetry has been published in Nebraska Life Magazine and shared at a few readings over the years.
Angela considers her faith in God the only reason she survived over 16 years of domestic violence and why she continues to heal, to find beauty in the world, and joy in her farmer and their kids.
You can order Angela’s new book HERE
Christopher Bogart is a working poet and writer who has earned an MA in Creative Writing, and is presently working on an MFA, at Monmouth University.
In 2015, Bogart was chosen as First Runner Up for Monmouth University’s inaugural Joyce Carol Oates Award for Excellence in Fiction, Poetry, and Creative Non-Fiction. In 2017, he was chosen as one of two finalists for The Brian Turner Literary Prize for Fiction. In 2018, his chapbook about the Yuma 14, titled 14: Antología del Sonoran, was awarded third place in The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize and was published in October of 2018 by The Poetry Box. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his poem, “Abraham Morales Hernandez.”
In April of 2020, The Poetry Box published his chapbook titled Breakpoint about America in the era of Donald Trump, and a full-length book of poetry in May about the plight of Central American migrants, titled The Eater of Dreams.
On August 1, 2005, he had presented a paper on the importance of poetry in the teaching of literature and writing to the Oxford Round Table at the Oxford Union Debate Hall at Oxford University.
He is presently working on his first novel, tentatively titled The Beast, about the plight of two Central American teenagers who flee poverty and crime in search of a better life in the United States.
You can order Christopher’s book HERE
Anne Coray is the author of the novel Lost Mountain (West Margin Press) as well as three poetry collections—Bone Strings, A Measure’s Hush, and Violet Transparent. She is also the coauthor of Crosscurrents North: Alaskans on the Environment.
The recipient of fellowships from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation, she divides her time between her birthplace on remote Lake Clark (Qizhjeh Vena) and the coastal town of Homer, Alaska.
You can order Anne’s new book HERE
