JESSICA COMOLA, TIM EARLEY, LESLIE ANN WHEELER

Saturday, March 7th, 7pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

 Jessica COMOLA co-hosts the Trobar Ric Reading Series in Oxford, Mississippi. Her chapbook, What Kind of Howly Divine, came out from Horseless Press in 2014. Other recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in jubilat, Caketrain, The Destroyer, Smoking Glue Gun, Dreginald and Tenderloin.

Tim EARLEY is the author of the poetry collections, Boondoggle, The Spooking of Mavens, and Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (Horse Less Press, 2014), as well as the chapbooks Catfish Poems (Delete Press, 2013) and The Center Is Barbaric The Periphery Is Without Lights (DoubleCross Press, forthcoming). His poems have appeared in Chicago Review, Colorado Review, jubilat, Conduit, Dreginald, Typo, and many other journals and anthologies. He teaches an astonishing variety of English courses at the University of Mississippi. 

Lesley Ann WHEELER's chapbook, Dream Treatment, is available from Dancing Girl Press, and her photo-essay "A Little Hell of Its Own" won the 2013 Bone Bouquet Experimental Prose contest.

ANNE BOYER BENEFIT READING

Saturday, March 8th, 7pm, The Writers Place (3607 Pennsylvania Ave. KCMO 64111) $5 suggested donation.

There is a $5 suggested donation for the event. All proceeds will go to combat the costs of Anne's treatment. The reading will be followed by live jazz performed by the Karl McComas-Reichl Trio.

Anne BOYER is a poet and an assistant professor of the liberal arts at the Kansas City Art Institute.She is the author of Anne Boyer’s Good Apocalypse, Selected Dreams with a note on phrenology, The Romance of Happy Workers, Art is War, My Common Heart, and The 2000s. Her writing has also been translated in Turkish, Greek, Dutch, and Icelandic: a chapbook called A Form of Sabotage was published in Turkey in the spring of 2013.

BRIAN FOLEY, NICK GULIG & GENE KWAK

Saturday, January 31st, 7pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Brian FOLEY is the author of The Constitution (Black Ocean, 2014). He’s authored several chapbooks including Going Attractions (Greying Ghost, 2012) & TOTEM (Fact-Simile Editions, 2014). His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Verse Daily,The Volta, Denver Quarterly, The Fanzine, Everyday Genius and elsewhere. He is the editor of Brave Men Press and currently attends the University of Denver Creative Writing PhD Program.

Nick GULIG is a poet from Wisconsin, educated at the University of Montana and the University of iowa Writers' Workshop. Currently he lives in Colorado where he is a phd candidate at the University of Denver. A 2011 Fulbright Fellow to Thailand, his first full length book, North of Order, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in the spring.

Gene KWAK has published short fiction and essays with The Rumpus, Hobart, Juked, and many others. He has a chapbook, Orphans Burning Orphans, coming out in 2015 with Greying Ghost Press and he is a fiction editor for NOÖ Journal. He is from Omaha, Nebraska.

BRUCE COVEY, TYLER GOBBLE, MEGAN KAMINSKI, TROY JAMES WEAVER & MIKE YOUNG

Saturday, November 15th, 7pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Bruce COVEY's sixth book of poetry, Change Machine, was published in 2014 by Noemi Press. He lives in Atlanta, GA, where he publishes and edits Coconut magazine and Coconut Books and till recently curated the What's New in Poetry reading series. He has taught at Emory University, Yale University, and the Atlanta College of Art and is currently Small Press Editor for Boog City.

Tyler GOBBLE is the editor-in-chief of NOÖ Journal, chapbook editor for Magic Helicopter Press, and host of Everything Is Bigger, a reading series in Austin, TX. He has plopped out some chapbooks, most recently Collected Feelings, with Layne Ransom (Forklift INK), and his first full length poetry collection, MORE WRECK MORE WRECK, is out now from Coconut Books. He’s currently a poetry fellow at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. He likes disc golf, tank tops, and bacon. More at www.tylergobble.com.

Megan KAMINSKI is the author of Desiring Map (Coconut, 2012) and seven chapbooks of poetry, most recently Wintering Prairie (dusie kollektiv and above/ground, 2014). Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Third Coast, and other journals. Her forthcoming book Deep City (Coconut, 2015) explores the body and the city as architectures in crisis. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where she teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Kansas and curates the Taproom Poetry Series. http://www.megankaminski.com/

Troy James WEAVER’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Hobart, Everyday Genius, Atticus Review, Heavy Feather Review, Short, Fast and Deadly, and elsewhere. His first book, Witchita Stories, will be published by Future Tense Books in Feb. 2015. His second book, Visions, a novel, will be published in March of 2015 by Broken River Books.

Mike YOUNG is the author of three books: Sprezzatura (2014, poems), Look! Look! Feathers (2010, stories), and We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough (2010, poems). He publishes the free online/print literary magazine NOÖ Journal, runs Magic Helicopter Press, and lives online at http://mikeayoung.tumblr.com/

MARCUS MYERS, LEAH SEWELL & RICH SMITH

Saturday, October 25th, 7pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Marcus MYERS lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where he teaches social studies to gifted & talented middle school students. A recent graduate of UMKC’s MFA program in creative writing, he is currently hard at work co-editing Bear Review, the new online journal of poetry and micro-prose, with poet Brian Clifton. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Hunger Mountain, Mid-American Review, The National Poetry Review, and Tar River Poetry. His book reviews have appeared in H_NGM_N, New Pages, Pleiades, and The Rumpus.

Leah SEWELL is assistant editor at Coconut Poetry, an MFA graduate of the University of Nebraska, and a book designer, poet, and mother. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in [PANK], Midwestern Gothic, Weave Magazine and burntdistrict. Her chapbook, Birth in Storm, was the winner of the 2012 Emerge Publications Chapbook Competition. She lives in Topeka, Kansas where she owns the quarterly lifestyle magazine, XYZ, and plays roller derby under the pseudonym "Sylvia Wrath."

Rich SMITH is the author of All Talk (Poor Claudia 2014) and Great Poem of Desire and Other Poems (Poor Claudia 2013). Recently, his poems have appeared in Tin House, Barrow Street, City Arts, Hobart, Verse Daily, Pinwheel, and elsewhere. He was born and raised in Belton, Missouri, where he worked as a janitor, a crew member at Arby’s, and as a line cook in various kitchens. He received an M.A. in Poetry from Ohio University and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Washington. Currently, he’s working on a screwball comedy screenplay called Best Club, a book-length essay about sex, cowardice, and family called King of the Babies, and a new book of poems.

BRIAN CLIFTON, KIT ROBINSON & CRISTA SIGLIN

Saturday, September 27th, 7pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Brian CLIFTON lives in Kansas City with his two pets—a pig named H1N1 (hinnie) and a cat named Tippy. He co-edits the literary magazine Bear Review. His accomplishments include: taking selfies on Mathias Svalina’s iPad, having his thesis’ Vitae be the Wikipedia summary of the 1995 film adaptation of Congo, and being published in PANK!, Juked, Booth, and other magazines.

Kit ROBINSON is the author of Determination (Cuneiform, 2010), The Messianic Trees: Selected Poems, 1976-2003 (Adventures in Poetry, 2009), and 20 other books of poetry. He has written two books in collaboration with Ted Greenwald, A Mammal of Style (Roof, 2013) and Takeaway (c_L, 2013) and is a co-author of The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, San Francisco, 1975-1980 (Mode A, 2006-2010). Robinson lives in the Bay Area, works as a freelance writer and plays tres guitar in the Afro-Cuban dance band Bahía Son.

Crista SIGLIN is from Greenfield, Iowa. She is currently a senior at the Kansas City Art Institute, and is studying painting and creative writing. Her work is an investigation of the roads to and from the Uncanny Valley.

NATHAN HOKS, VICTORIA MEYERS & ROGER REEVES

Saturday, May 3rd, 7pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Nathan HOKS is the author of two books of poetry, Reveilles and The Narrow Circle, which was a winner of the 2012 National Poetry Series and published by Penguin. He works as an editor and letterpress printer for Convulsive Editions and lives in Chicago with his family.

Victoria Ann MEYERS is interested in relativity and all things relative, relatively speaking. She was born in the wealthy white suburbs, raised amongst trailer trash, and presently thrives amongst millennial hipsters. She is a woman, feminist, photographer, poet, hedonist, brat, cynic, and often times far too facetious. She enjoys grit, grunge, lyric, smokes Virginia Slims, and occasionally snorts when she laughs. Like Sartre, she exists. And she finds it nauseating.

 Roger REEVES's poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and Tin House, among others. Kim Addonizio selected “Kletic of Walt Whitman” for the Best New Poets 2009 anthology. He was awarded a 2013 NEA Fellowship, Ruth Lilly Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation in 2008, two Bread Loaf Scholarships, an Alberta H. Walker Scholarship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and two Cave Canem Fellowships. He earned his PhD the University of Texas-Austin and is currently an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His first book is King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013).

SOMMER BROWNING, NOAH ELI GORDON, CHRISTINE NEACOLE KANOWNIK, JOSEPH KAPLAN, PAUL LEGAULT

Saturday, April 12th, 6pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Sommer BROWNING is the mother of Georgia, the roommate of Noah, the author of Either Way I'm Celebrating (Birds, LLC; 2011), and a librarian. She lives in Denver. Her website is asthmachronicles.com.

Noah Eli GORDON lives in Denver, CO. He teaches graduate courses in poetry, poetics, publishing, and nonfiction for the University of Colorado–Boulder’s MFA program, where he also directs Subito Press. His recent books include The Year or the Rooster from Ahsahta Press and The Source from Futurepeom, as well as Novel Pictorial Noise, which was selected by John Ashbery for the National Poetry Series and subsequently chosen for the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award.

Christine Neacole KANOWNIK’s We are Now Beginning to Act Wildly was published by Diez Press in 2012. You can find her work in such places as: The Huffington Post, EOAGH, H_NGM_N and The Poetry Project Newsletter. She lives in Brooklyn.

Joseph KAPLAN grew up in Brooklyn and now works as a freelance designer in St. Louis. He was formerly creative director at the L Magazine and Brooklyn Magazine. He holds a BFA in Graphic Design from RISD. His work has appeared in publications including Virginia Quarterly Review and The Third Rail. He spends most of his time hanging out with his partner Paul (Legault, who is here right now) and their dog, Laura. He and Paul are currently working on a translation of The Country Where Everything is Permitted by Sophie Podolski.

Paul LEGAULT s the author of three books of poetry: The Madeleine Poems (Omnidawn 2010), The Other Poems (Fence, 2011), and The Emily Dickinson Reader (McSweeney's, 2012). He's a Writer in Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. Paul and his partner Joseph Kaplan are currently collaborating on a translation of Sophie Podolski's The Country Where Everything is Permitted.

AMIE BARRODALE, RAUAN KLASSNIK & JENNIFER L. KNOX

Saturday, March 8th, 7pm, Irving Amphitheater (4402 Oak St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Amie BARRODALE is the fiction editor of Vice magazine. She received the Paris Review's Plimpton Discovery Prize in 2012 for her short story "William Wei." She is a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. She was raised a Buddhist and her mother ran the local chapter of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's sangha in Houston, Texas. She grew up in Texas and went to Barnard for college. She worked as a senior editor at The Onion and Vice, then spent a year in India. She currently lives in Kansas City, with her husband.

Rauan KLASSNIK's Sky Rat releases end of February, 2014. He is also the author of two Black Ocean books: Holy Land (2008) and The Moon's Jaw (2013). Rauan lives in a suburb of Seattle with his wife Edith.

Jennifer L. KNOX's new book of poems, The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway, is available from Bloof Books. Her other books, Drunk by Noon and A Gringo Like Me, are also available through Bloof. Her poems have appeared four times in the Best American Poetry series (1997, 2003, 2006, and 2011) as well as the anthologies Great American Prose Poems, From Poet to Present and Best American Erotic Poems.

She is currently at work on her first novel.

PATRICIA LOCKWOOD, BRIDGET LOWE & CLANCY MARTIN

Saturday, December 7th, 6:30pm at Walnut Laundromat
(4241 Walnut St. KCMO 64111) FREE!

Patricia LOCKWOOD’s poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the London Review of Books, Tin House, and Poetry. She is the author of Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (Octopus Books, 2012).

Bridget LOWE is the author of At the Autopsy of Vaslav Nijinsky (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2013) and lives in Kansas City, where she was born.

Clancy MARTIN is the author of the novels How to Sell and Travels in Central America, as well as the forthcoming nonfiction book Love, Lies and Marriage (FSG, 2014) and numerous books in philosophy. His writing has appeared in Harper's (where he is a contributing editor), The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The London Review of Books, GQ, Esquire, McSweeney's, BookForum, The Wall Street Journal, and many other places. He frequently speaks on NPR and the Huffington Post. A Guggenheim Fellow (2011-2012), his work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He has three daughters, Margaret, Portia and Zelly. He is a professor of philosophy at UMKC, and lives in Kansas City with his wife the writer Amie Barrodale.