Mark Leidner & Justin Marks

 November 6, 7:00PM CDT

Online Event (Register here)

Mark LEIDNER is the author of two books of poetry, Returning the Sword to the Stone (Fonograf, 2021) and Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me (Factory Hollow, 2011), a book of aphorisms The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover (Two Dollar Radio, 2011), and a short story collection Under the Sea (Tyrant Books, 2018). He also wrote two feature films: the sci-fi thriller Empathy, Inc. (2019) and the relationship comedy Jammed (2014). He lives in California and is originally from Georgia.

 

Justin MARKS’ books are, The Comedown, (Publishing Genius Press, 2021), You’re Going to Miss Me When You’re Bored, (Barrelhouse Books, 2014) and A Million in Prizes (New Issues, 2009). Recent poems appear in Conduit and Iterant. He is a co-founder of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press, and lives in New York City with his family. 

This event was made possible by generous contributions by the Creative Writing Program at the Kansas City Art Institute.

Emily Spencer & Diana Khoi Nguyen

October 16th, 7:00PM CDT

Online Event (Register here)

Emily SPENCER is a poet and author of East Walnut Hills, winner of the Zone 3 Press First Book Award in Poetry. Spencer earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was a Boston University global writing fellow. Her poems appear in the Kenyon Review, POETRY, Pleiades, and elsewhere. 

 

A poet and multimedia artist, Diana KHOI NGUYEN is the author of Ghost Of (Omnidawn 2018) and recipient of a 2021 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to winning the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and Colorado Book Award, she was also a finalist for the National Book Award and L.A. Times Book Prize. A Kundiman fellow, she is core faculty in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Nate Marshall & Kaveh Akbar

September 25, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM CDT

Online Event (Register here)

Nate MARSHALL is the author and editor of numerous works including Finna, Wild Hundreds, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, and the audio drama Bruh Rabbit & The Fantastic Telling of Remington Ellis Esq. He teaches creative writing and literature at Colorado College. Nate was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago.

Kaveh AKBAR is the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf and has received honors such as a Levis Reading Prize and multiple Pushcart Prizes. Born in Tehran, Iran, he teaches at Purdue University and in low-residency programs at Warren Wilson and Randolph Colleges. His newest collection of poetry, Pilgrim Bell, has been received with overwhelming praise - "it is a book we need now."

This event is co-sponsored and in conjunction with Race Project KC and supported with funds from the Creative Writing program at KCAI.

 

Robert Brown & Chell Navarro

April 24, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT

Online Event

Robert BROWN is a poet and multimedia artist who works with the Foundation Department at KCAI. His poems have appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review and Kansas City Ballet educational materials. He is a writer at KC Studio magazine.

Chell NAVARRO is a poet and founder and EIC of Savage Torpor Poetry. She is the author of Don’t Shoot the Augury, The Fetish of Maude Tatum, as well as her most recent collection, Sister of the Heath, which was released the week the world shut down due to the plague. Her poems appear in Bear Review, Sprung Formal, Lily Poetry Review, and forthcoming in Got Too High: An Anthology on Addiction. Navarro works freelance as a writer and copy editor. And to afford her lavish lifestyle as a poet, as a personal shopper for Instacart. She looks forward to the day she can once again hug The Lawrence Tree in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico.

Emily Pettit & Jason Teal

March 27, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT

Online Event

 

Emily PETTIT is the author of Goat in the Snow (Birds LLC) and Blue Flame (Carnegie Mellon University Press).

 

Jason TEAL is the author of We Were Called Specimens (KERNPUNKT Press, 2020). He edits Heavy Feather Review and lives in Kansas. His MFA is from Northern Michigan University. Writing appears in Sprung Formal, 3:AM, Quarterly West, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and Hobart, among others. Recently, he and others organized the 100% free to participate virtual book fair SMOL Fair, smolfair.com.

Kiki Petrosino & BJ Soloy

February 27, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT

Online Event

Kiki Petrosino is the author of four books of poetry: White Blood: a Lyric of Virginia (2020), Witch Wife (2017), Hymn for the Black Terrific (2013) and Fort Red Border (2009), all from Sarabande Books. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New York Times, FENCE, Gulf Coast, Jubilat, Tin House and on-line at Ploughshares. She teaches at the University of Virginia as a Professor of Poetry. Petrosino is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Al Smith Fellowship Award from the Kentucky Arts Council.

 

 

BJ Soloy is the author of Our Pornography and other disaster songs, selected by Ocean Vuong as winner of the Slope Editions Book Prize, and Selected Letters, out with New Michigan Press. He has work in places like FIELD, Forklift, Ohio, Colorado Review, New American Writing, and Court Green, and lives and teaches in and around Kansas City, MO.

 

KCAI Creative Writing Double-Majors Reading

JANUARY 30TH, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM CDT

Online Event

Please click on the following link to register for this reading.

Featured Readers:

Emily Mooney
Rylie Lawver
Opal Roberts-Baca