Moonstone Arts Center

29th Annual Poetry Ink: Virtual Reading
2025-05-19 19:00 (America/New_York) | PA
29th Annual Poetry Ink
We want everyone: published poets, unpublished poets, academic poets, street poets, poets
who write Sonnet, Villanelle, Haiku, Ekphrastic Poems, Concrete Poems, Epitaph, Elegy,
Epigram, Limerick, Ballad, Ode, Free Verse.
Join us for our 29th year of presenting 71 poets reading in alphabetical order
Monday May 19, 2025 – No matter where you live, please join us virtually
VIRTUAL at 7:00pm EDT on Zoom

Support Ukraine
2025-05-25 14:00 - 17:00 | virtual
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified over 12,600 civilian deaths as of January 2025. The war has resulted in a humanitarian crisis, as thousands of Ukrainians were internally displaced or fled abroad. From a population of 41 million, about 8 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced and more than 8.2 million have fled the country, creating Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II.
Join as poets respond!

Book launch for Jane-Rebecca Cannarella's Long Island Sad Poems(Serotonin Press)
2025-05-25 17:00 | Sueño Restaurant, 114 S 12th St, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Jane-Rebecca Cannarella is a writer and editor living in West Philadelphia. She edits HOOT Review, a magazine published on postcards, Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit, a broadside press, and was an editor for Lunch Ticket from 2015 to 2017.
Krystle Griffin is an Aquarian alien who emerged from the depths of the Delaware River. A writer, actor, artist, and Swiss army knife of all trades, trying to spin brain bees and nightmares into something shiny. Anne-Adele Wight is the author of An Internet of Containment, The Age of Greenhouses, Opera House Arterial, and Sidestep Catapult. Sean Lynch Host – Open Reading Follows

Poetry Reading by Love McTiernan, Myles Matunis, Adiah Siler
2025-05-28 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Love McTiernan feels an obsession with the natural world and thus tends to write about clouds, trees, and Earth’s other unknown beasts.
Myles Matunis work has been published by Expat Press and the Bitchin Kitsch, featured on public radio, and nominated for the Best of the Net.
Adiah Siler is an east coaster through and through and so excited to be back in Philly for the show. Mac Chandler Host, Open Reading Follows

Philly Lingo: Speaking Our Tongues, Sharp and Sweet Workshop
2025-06-01 14:00 - 17:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Come and join us in a plurilingual workshop
Where all the languages in your head are welcome. We will listen to each other, share words and ideas, read and make poems. This workshop will explore the crossing of borders both linguistic and political and the spaces between, rooted in a trauma informed, anti-racist pedagogy and will be facilitated by:
Carole Metellus is a Haitian-American writer, cultural worker long-time activist starting with Indigenous rights, to Women’s, GLBTQ, immigration, and peace and justice issues, she manifests her passion currently in her writing. Fióna Bolger is an Irish poet, mentor and creative facilitator, author of Love in the Original Language and a compound of word. Her facilitation and creative practice are polyvocal, plurilingual and co-operative. She welcomes all languages and works to create language sharing, poetry making spaces. Free and open to Everyone

A Mamafesta for Hearts and Minds Workshop - LIVE
2025-06-02 17:00 - 19:00 | Sueño Restaurant, 114 S 12th St, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
In the circle of all those who have struggled in their bedrooms or in the boardroom, in the courtroom or in the open fields, who have bellowed songs of endurance and stomped their feet in joyful defiance for brighter futures, Carole Metellus and Fióna Bolger invite us to renew our mandate to struggle and joy. Participants are invited to bring their words of resistance and to pen their sustenance to self, to community, and to nature that calls them home.We will share our ideas, listen to the words of the wise ones, and craft our mamafestas for a healing existence in these times of human distress. We hope you can join us, facilitated by:
Carole Metellus is a Haitian-American writer, cultural worker long-time activist starting with Indigenous rights, to Women’s, GLBTQ, immigration, and peace and justice issues, she manifests her passion currently in her writing. Fióna Bolger is an Irish poet, mentor and creative facilitatorShe welcomes all languages and works to create language sharing, poetry making spaces. See also: A. Stepien, Migrant Voices in the Plurilingual Poetry and Creative Practice of Fióna Bolger. ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries, 2024, Vol. 21, No. 2.
Free and open to Everyone

Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series - Live Broadcast
2025-06-03 18:30 - 20:00 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAMCan be viewed on the Phillycam website or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 In Philadelphia.
Fióna Bolger is an Irish poet, mentor and creative facilitator, author of Love in the Original Language and a compound of word, co-editor of KIN: Anthology of Roma, Traveller and Nomadic Women’s Writing. Her facilitation and creative practice are polyvocal, plurilingual and co-operative. She welcomes all languages and works to create language sharing, poetry making spaces. Charles S. Carr, Host

Poets From Around the World - LIVE
2025-06-04 19:00 - 22:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Asia – Katherine Sarwopeni Antarikso is an architect, artist, and activist was born in Jakarta.Western Europe – Fióna Bolger is a poet, mentor, creative facilitator from Ireland. Middle East – Faleeha Hassan was born and raised in Najaf, Iraq, she was the first woman in Najaf to publish a book of. Eastern Europe – Alina Macneal is a Philadelphia based educator, writer, poet, translator, architect, born in Poland.
Caribbean – Carole Metellus is a Haitian-American writer, cultural worker, and performer from the East Coast of the United States.

S/He Speaks 3: Voices of Women and Trans Folx - LIVE
2025-06-07 13:00 - 16:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Women, trans and nonbinary writers are invited to contribute to the 2025 edition of S/He Speaks anthology and to participate in an event at The Rotunda at the University of Pennsylvania on June 7, 2025. The anthology will contain poetry, essays and stories by writers who are either women, trans or non-binary identified.

S/He Speaks 3: Voices of Women and Trans Folx
2025-06-07 13:00 - 17:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States

Poetry Readings by Courtney Bambrick, Micheal Angelo Abreu, Aja Beech, Rhianna Searle, and Olga Livshin - LIVE
2025-06-08 14:00 - 17:00 | PA
Courtney Bambrick author of World Without was poetry editor at Philadelphia Stories 2010-2024. She teaches writing at Thomas Jefferson University’s East Falls campus in Philadelphia. Her own poems appear in Landlocked Magazine, Pinhole Poetry, Thimble, Invisible City, and more.
Michael Angelo Abreu, author of Gemini, is a leaf. He takes frequent walks through the Wissahickon woods, musing about life and its many particulars, such as love, happiness, suffering, and spiritual growth. Aja Beech, author of Blood/Magic, is an artist, author, and organizer who uses her art to address systemic issues related to equity for people of all abilities. Rhianna Searle, author of Hope is Shades of Purple, is the 2023 Bucks County High School Poet of the Year. She is 20-years-old and currently attends Haverford College. Olga Livshin, author of A Life Replaced: Poems with Translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman and the co-translator of Today is a Different War by the Ukrainian poet Lyudmyla Khersonska, grew up in Ukraine and Russia and came to the US as a teenager.

The Beast in the Pines: A Horror Novel Launch Party
2025-06-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
The Beast in the Pines: A Horror Novel – Launch Party
Wednesday June 11, 2025 – 7pm
Live at Ferge’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
In October of 2003, a 19 year old named Cody considers joining the Army to fight in the Iraq War so that he can escape the boredom of small town Woodville, New Jersey. He finds a mysterious book that a strange man leaves behind at his mother’s job. The book is about the Jersey Devil, a legendary demonic creature that haunts the Pine Barrens, a desolate wilderness that spans the middle of the state. The book inspires Cody to explore the Pine Barrens in search of the Jersey Devil. What he ends up finding changes his perception of reality. The Beast in the Pines is a disturbing novel that delves deep into the human psyche and bridges the gap between the psychological and supernatural horror genres.
Sean W. Lynch is a writer and editor who lives in Philadelphia. He is the author of five books of poetry including, the city of your mind, Broad Street Line, 100 Haiku, On Violence, and Halo Nest: Poems on Grief. He has been the editor of various magazines, journals, anthologies, and books, including Rocky Wilson’s The Last Bus to Camden, Chidi Ezeobi’s Remind the World: Poems from Prison, and Beyond the White Stone Lions by Lamont Steptoe. He’s worked for non-profit organizations such as Moonstone Arts Center and the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association.
C.A. Bryson is living in South Philly and has written pieces focusing on working-class issues, which have been featured in Whirlwind Press, Toho Journal, The Industrial Worker, Castlejackle, Weird Visions Society, and Bohemians FC Matchday Program. He previously contributed to a monthly labor organizing bulletin for the Teamsters Airline Division. He has a self-published chapbook which was released in 2020.
J Johnson (JJ, they/them) is the author of Janky Materiality: Artifice & Interface (punctum books, 2025), The Book / Or / The Woods (punctum books, 2021), and Trouble Songs: A Musicological Poetics (punctum books, 2018). JJ co-edits the horror poetics journal Cul-de-sac of Blood, is a staff writer at MovieJawn, and lives in Philadelphia.
Buy a copy on Ingram here.

June 25 - LIVE Poetry Reading at Fergie's Pub
2025-06-25 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday June 25, 2025 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Christian Bufo is a Philadelphia-based photographer, editor, and poet. He is a member of Poet’s Row, a collective that hosts readings and publishes physical & online poetry journals. Sophia Tempest is a poet who lives in Philadelphia. Her full length collection, WHEN I GET TO HEAVEN, was released in Ghost City Press in 2022. She also hosts Discount Guillotine’s Philadelphia reading series.
Amy Saul-Zerby Host – Open Reading Follo

Virtual Reading: Go Back Where You Came From
2025-06-29 14:00 | PA
Register @ https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85860281960?pwd=[REDACTED]
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out —because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out —because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller (1946)
First they came for the immigrants (2025)
*Sherman Alexie, a terrific writer and member of the Spokane Tribe, included this story in one of his books (I don’t remember which, all of his books are terrific). He was walking down the street in Seattle when a pick-up truck pulled up and a person leaned out and yelled “Go Back Where You Came From” and sped off. Sherman thought about it a moment and started to laugh and said “After You”.

July 2 - Live Poetry Reading at Fergie's Pub
2025-07-02 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday July 2, 2025 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Maia Brown-Jackson is a symphony of papercuts, banged-up knees, and stubborn determination. She believes in the altruism of strangers, the power of direct action, and the Oxford comma. Marion Cohen is an American poet and a mathematician, has published 32 books of poetry and prose. Robin O. Hiteshew, author of A Germantown Sequence, has been published in East Coast Literary Review, Germantown Crier, The Hive/Apiary Review, Lilliput Review, Mad Poets Review, Mickle Street Review, and others. Saskia Kercy is a scholar-activist, educator, and writer from Philly by way of Haiti, has been published across newspapers, magazines, and literary journals.

Virtual Reading: Freedom - for Who, to do What, to Whom
2025-07-08 14:00 | PA
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/j16zWU86TBajHSEsuQt1Fw
Sunday July 6, 2025 – 2pm EDT – VIRTUAL
Freedom – for Who, to do What, to Whom
Freedom has become a rallying cry for those in power who aim to exploit, to lie, and to endanger the less powerful with impunity. They demand Freedom to contaminate the earth, to deny history, to claim the Holocaust never happened and that slavery was good. They demand Freedom to deny science and abolish vaccines, to ban books and open dialogue, and to teach their version of history. What do poets think about Freedom and the state of the Union

Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
2025-07-08 18:30 | PA
Tuesday July 8, 2025
6:30pm – Live Broadcast
Can be viewed on the Phillycam website Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 In Philadelphia.
Elaine Terranova is the author of eight collections, including most recently Rinse. Her work has appeared in a number of literary magazines and anthologies. She has received the Walt Whitman Award, an NEA, a Pew Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and in 2024, the Maurice English Poetry Award.
Charles S. Carr, Host

July 9 - Live at Fergie’s Pub
2025-07-09 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday July 9, 2025 – 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Ambition Harper, the first fostercare poet in the United States a lecturer, journalist and a poetic theorist and believes that poetry can change people and change perspectives.
Emiliano Martín is the author of over a dozen titles of poetry, a former president of Pennsylvania Poetry Society, nc and former director of Latin American Guild for the Arts in Philadelphia.
Joyce Meyers, winner of Atlanta Review’s 2014 International Poetry Contest. Her poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Comstock Review, Atlanta Review, Muse Literary Journal, and Glimpse.
Open Reading Follows

VIRTUAL Reading - From Tupelo Press
2025-07-13 14:00 | PA
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/2oRlEo-zRZWnrKAQxejwFw
Sunday July 13, 2025 – 2pmEDT – VIRTUAL – From Tupelo Press –
From Tupelo Press – an independent, literary press devoted to discovering and publishing works of poetry, literary fiction, and creative nonfiction by emerging and established writers.
Mike Carlson, author of Tips to Help You Do Your Best and Cement Guitar.
Jenny Grassl, author of Magicholia, and Forever Mistaken for Ourselves.
Belle Ling, author of Nebulous Vertigo.
Spring Ulmer, author of Benjamin’s Spectacles (selected by Sonia Sanchez for Kore Press’s 2007 First Book Award.

LIVE - BETRAYED: Violence Against Women
2025-07-15 17:00 - 18:30 | Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St
Tuesday July 15, 2025 – 5pm – LIVE – BETRAYED: Violence Against Women
Central Free Library, Skyline Room (4th Floor), 901 Vine Street
Featuring Meg Groff, author of Not If I Can Help It: A Family Lawyer’s Battles for Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence and the Poor ($22.95, Rivertowns Books)
In a rare, starred review, Kirkus Reviews says: “The cases she recounts range from harrowing to infuriating: The police shrugged away potential murders as suicides, children were left unsupervised with dangerous fathers with devastating results, doctors assumed that struggling young mothers must be alcoholics. Each episode carries a tremendous punch, as well as a searing lesson about the failings of society to help those in need. . . . Despite such heavy details and subject matter, Groff balances her book with warmth and humor.” Books will be available.

Virtual Reading: Betrayed: Violence Against Women
2025-07-20 14:00 - 15:00 | virtual
Virtual Reading: Betrayed: Violence Against Women
Sunday July 20, 2025
2pm EDT – VIRTUAL
Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3RqcVPSiSfO6TwlOsIMQmg
BETRAYED – Violence Against Women, invites survivors of gender-based violence to share their stories so that we can bring awareness to this issue and challenge the culture surrounding domestic violence—a culture that overwhelmingly encourages silence and shame.
The purpose of this anthology is to uplift survivors and open up a space for them to share their stories. We hope to create a community in which we can ultimately find healing through the powerful medium of art. 50 Poets responded.
Not All Poets Will Be Reading

Nicole Abuhamada
Lisa Acerbo
Jenny Adrekedes
Virginia Alcott
Kimm Antell
Jeff Bien
Jill Bindewald
A. C. Blake
Susan Breall
Maia Brown-Jackson
Suzanne Bruce
Katerina Canyon
AJ Chilson

Candice Louisa Daquin
Nickie DeSardo
R.G. Evans
Francis Flavin
Ana Fores Tamayo
Caitlin Gille
Linda Goss
Juliana Gray
Alaina Hammond
Colleen Harris
Annie Hartford
Leah Hummel

Taylor Johnston
Kathleen Johnston
AtiyaOla Malik Kahn
Jennifer Karp
J. M. Liles
Patricia Middleton
Alison Miller
K. Molle (Carol Fisher)
Shagufta Mulla
Traci Neal
Andrea Nicki
Katie Rose
Arivana Russell

David Schast
Courtney Seymour
Miki Simic
Katherine Stairs
Pam Ward
Gail Wasserman
Erin Watson
Becky Bishop White
Kelley White
Pharoha Womack
Diana Woodcock
Samantha Wright
Otella Wruck

This program was stimulated by the publication of Not If I Can Help It: A Family Lawyer’s Battles for Justice for Victims of Domestic Violence and the Poor By Meg Groff – who will be presenting an inter-active presentation at the Free Library at 19th and Vine Street on Tuesday July 15, 2025.
“The cases she recounts range from harrowing to infuriating: The police shrugged away potential murders as suicides, children were left unsupervised with dangerous fathers with devastating results, doctors assumed that struggling young mothers must be alcoholics. Each episode carries a tremendous punch, as well as a searing lesson about the failings of society to help those in need. . . . Despite such heavy details and subject matter, Groff balances her book with warmth and humor.” – Kirkus Reviews
Buy the inspiring book @ https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/groff-meg-not-if-i-can-help-it/526
Buy the Moonstone anthology @ https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/betrayed-violence-against-women/DWSMPVY47RUGQBLCDGLBFFKM?cs=true&cst=custom

Live Poetry: Bree Bailey, Miriam Kramer, and Sheleen McElhinney
2025-07-20 14:00 - 16:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Bree Bailey, Miriam Kramer, and Sheleen McElhinney
Sunday July 20, 2025 – 2pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Bree Bailey is a queer Latina poet, a mistress of the music of inflections, pulses, and ironic chuckles. A Jersey native now in Austin, TX, she writes with heart and humor about mental health, love, and resilience. A former educator and 2023 Write Bloody Jack McCarthy Prize winner, her debut collection, Wailing on Whisper Street, is out now and everywhere you buy books. Find her in Exposition Review, West Trade Review, Remington Review, and more. Follow @breebaileypoetry or visitbreebaileypoetry.com.
Miriam Kramer is a queer, Jewish poet residing in New Jersey with her partner, daughter, and two cats. She was the winner of the 2023 Jack McCarthy Book Prize. Miriam loves stick figure drawings, bright sneakers, and embroidery. Her debut full length collection, Built by Storms, was published by Write Bloody Publishing and nominated for The Lambda Literary Prize and The New Writers Award, Great Lakes College Association. Find her on social media: miriadwords
Sheleen McElhinney is a poet living in Glenside, Pa whose work has appeared in lily Poetry Review, Bayou Magazine, Bear Review, and elsewhere. Her debut book, Every Little Vanishing, was the winner of the 2021 Write Bloody Publishing Book Award.
Sean Lynch Host – Open Reading Follows

Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania
2025-07-27 14:00 - 17:00 | virtual
Sunday July 27, 2025 2pm EDT – VIRTUAL
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/MV1XXDyjSxm5hcwx5hpxOg
Keystone Poetry: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania
Edited by Marjorie Maddox & Jerry Wemple ( $27.90 Pennsylvania State University Press)
Buy the book: https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/keystone-poetry-contemporary-poets-on-pennsylvania/527

From Philadelphia to Erie, and from the shale fields to the coal mines, Keystone Poetry celebrates the varied landscapes and voices of Pennsylvania. This collection brings together the work of 182 poets who, with keen eyes and powerful language, commemorate the hometowns, history, traditions, and culture of the Commonwealth.
Please join us as 49 of the 182 Poets in Keystone Poetry Read Their Poems:

Allison Adair
Nathalie F. Anderson
Grace Bauer
Jan Beatty
Alyse Bensel
Carole Bernstein
Chris Bullard
Geraldine Connolly
Paola Corso
Mark Danowsky
Gregory Djanikian
Daniel Donaghy
Joseph Dorazio
Christine Gelineau
S.E. Gilman
Mauricio Kilwein Guevara

Vernita Hall
Jocelyn Heath
Amanda Hodes
Erin Hoover
Chuck Joy
Kristin Kovacic
Leonard Kress
Richard Krohn
Lynn Levin
Marjorie Maddox
Sharon Fagan McDermot
Ann E. Michael
Julie L. Moore
Heather Myers
Robbi Nester
Jacqueline Osherow
John Repp
Laura Rutland
Mark Saba
Barbara Sabol
Judith Sornberger
Julie Standig
Alison Carb Sussman
Philip Terman
Elaine Terranova
Patricia Thrushart
J. C. Todd
Lee Upton
Matthew Ussia
Jeanne Murray Walker
Susan Weaver
Virginia Watts
Martin Jr. Willitts

Live Poetry: Ryan Eckes and Nycir Keen
2025-07-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday July 30, 2025 – 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Ryan Eckes is the author of Wrong Heaven Again, General Motors, Valu-Plus and Old News, as well as several chapbooks. His poems have appeared in Prolit, Protean Magazine, Tripwire, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. With Kim Gek Lin Short, he runs Radiator Press.
Nycir Keen is an active performer and spoken word artist, has been a member of the Collective Mic and is a frequent poet for the Gullah Traveling Theater.
Aaron Gadbury, Lindsay Hargrave, Warren Longmire Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry: Tyler Dunston, Maria James-Thiaw, Miho Kinnas, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Terra Oliveira
2025-08-03 14:00 - 16:00 | virtual
Sunday August 3, 2025 – 2pmEDT – VIRTUAL
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Q7Xq5kmfTySArIh_8ejLtg
Tyler Dunston, author of Octaves, is a writer and visual artist, whose poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Hawaiʻi Pacific Review, Narrative Magazine, Raleigh Review, and other journals.
Maria James-Thiaw is an award-winning poet, performer, and playwright.  She is the author of three poetry books, has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, and is the founder of Reclaim Artist Collective.
Miho Kinnas is a Japanese writer, translator and poet, author of three poetry collections, and teaches Poems of All Sizes: Japanese Poetic Forms at Writers.com and New York Writers Workshop.
E. Ethelbert Miller is a literary activist and author of several poetry collections. He was given a 2020 congressional award in recognition of his literary activism, awarded the Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award, named a Grammy Nominee Finalist for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album and was awarded the Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award.
Terra Oliveira is the author of Itinerant Songs, and the founding editor of Recenter Press. A finalist in the 2024 Sandy Crimmins National Prize for Poetry, her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Bamboo Ridge, The Common, Puerto del Sol, Protean Magazine, and more.

Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Reading Series: David Ebenbach
2025-08-05 18:30 - 20:30 | virtual
Tuesday August 5, 2025 – 6:30pm – Live Broadcast
Can be viewed on the Phillycam website Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 In Philadelphia.
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
David Ebenbach, the author of collections of fiction (Between Camelots; Into the Wilderness), poetry (We Were the People Who Moved; Autogeography) and essays (The Artist’s Torah) was born and raised in the great city of Philadelphia, home of America’s first library, first art museum, first public school, and first zoo, along with David’s very first stories and poems, though those early efforts went on to become (deservedly) less famous than, for example, the zoo. Since those days he’s lived in Ohio, Wisconsin, Philadelphia again, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Ohio again, picking up some education (formal and otherwise) along the way, and he now lives very happily in Washington, DC.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry: Phoebe Brown, Courtney LeBlanc, and Sean W. Lynch
2025-08-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday August 6, 2025 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Phoebe Brown is a poet recently published by Anthropocene Poetry, in “Impossible Task” with Another New Calligraphy, Hog River Press, and Moonstone Arts Center.
Courtney LeBlanc is the Arlington County Poet Laureate, founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press and founder of the Poetry Coven, a monthly generative workshop.
Sean W. Lynch is author of five books of, has been the editor of various magazines, journals, anthologies, and books, and worked for non-profit organizations such as Moonstone Arts Center and the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association.
Aaren Yeatts Perry Host – Open Reading Follows

National Book Lovers Day
2025-08-10 14:00 - 17:00 | virtual
Sunday August 10, 2025 – 2pm EDT – VIRTUAL – National Book Lovers Day
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/6vfdhJLjQ_q5lAr_bMgtuQ
From clay tablets to today’s eBooks, literature has played a crucial role in preserving cultures, educating the masses, and storytelling. Thanks to Johannes Gutenberg’s 15th-century printing press, anyone, not just royalty, monks or landed gentry, could read and own books.
With time, printing on woodblocks also became the go-to way of reproducing books in China. The ancient scrolls dating back to the 4th century B.C. are considered the first ‘books,’ but by today’s definition, the oldest surviving compiled book is “The Diamond Sutra” which was published in China on May 11, 868.

Live Poetry: Shaina Clingempeel, Jacqueline Jewell, Warren C. Longmire, and Lynda Gene Rymond
2025-08-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday August 13, 2025 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Shaina Clingempeel, author of in the homes that house my history, is a Philly-based poet and the owner of a small book editing business (Cypress Editorial) and literary magazine (Cypress Review). Her poems can be found in Coffin Bell, The Passionfruit Review, The Rupture, and many other places. She has a poetry MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Follow @cypresseditorial (IG, TikTok) for updates on her work and more.
Jacqueline Jewell, author of Lady Arab, is a poet, college professor, EMMY Award-winning journalist, mother, and activist. A Philadelphia area native and proud daughter of an immigrant, Jacqueline uses her poetry to amplify underrepresented and discounted voices. She has won the first-ever “Share Your Voices” award, a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Writing Contest, in honor of Black History Month at Rosemont College. Jacqueline’s poetry collection, Lady Arab, is based on a true story of her grandmother surviving genocide, her mother escaping war, and Jacqueline’s own experience with racism and misogyny as a young woman of color. The three Arab women represented in Jacqueline’s collection is more than just her family’s story, it’s the story of every Arab woman stripped of their rights, suffering from a world that has forsaken them.
Warren C. Longmire is a writer, performer and educator from the bad part of North Philadelphia. He is author of Bird/Diz: An Erased History of Bebop and you can find his work in journals including Action, Spectacle, R&R, and the American Poetry Review as well as in the anthologies Best American Poetry 2021 Anthology and A Black Philadelphia Reader. He is the former contributing editor for Apiary Magazine, the host of House Poet: Spoken Word Dance Party and the founder of _mixlit, has been a CUPSI grand slam and NPS group piece finalist, coached the Philly Pigeon and Fuze Slam Team, and has performed in venues including the Kimmel Center, The Nuyorican Poetry Cafe. Warren is currently attending the Iowa Writer’s Workshop pursuing a master’s degree in Poetry.
Lynda Gene Rymond, author of Spellbook, a member of Dr. Christopher Bursk’s Masters Poetry Workshop and is a multi-year finalist/runner-up for Bucks County Poet Laureate. Her work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, she authored the children’s books The Village of Basketeers and Oscar & the Mooncats . Lynda Gene lives and works on Goblin Farm in Applebachsville, Pa, and is the creator of the online Words Come Easy writing workshops.
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry: Julia Bouwsma, Hiram Larew, Peter E. Murphy, and Scott W. Williams
2025-08-17 14:00 - 16:00 | virtual
Sunday August 17, 2025 – 2pm EDT – VIRTUAL
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/s2XRWbF_Q2C7hQaK6Bf0PQ
Julia Bouwsma lives off-the-grid in the mountains of western Maine where she works as a poet, homesteader, editor, teacher, and small-town librarian. She is Maine’s sixth Poet Laureate and is the author of Death Fluorescence, Midden, and Work by Bloodlight. Bouwsma’s honors include a 2024 Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets and two Maine Literary Awards. Her work can be found in Ecotone, Green Mountains Review, Kenyon Review, Plume, Poetry Daily, and others. She has taught in the Creative Writing the University of Maine (Farmington), serves on the Community Advisory Board for the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and works as the Library Director for Webster Library.
Hiram Larew’s poems have received the Louisiana Literature Prize, the Washington review poetry blue ribbon, and have been nominated for four Pushcarts. His work has appeared in Poetry Scotland, Poetry South, The Brown Critique, Contemporary American Voices, Honest Ulsterman, Amsterdam Quarterly and others. He’s received an artists’ grants from Arts Councils as well as the United Nations for his Poetry X Hunger initiative which encourages poets to contribute to anti-hunger efforts, founded the Voices of Woodlawn, a powerful program of poetry, music and art that explores America’s tragic history of slavery, is a Courtesy Faculty at five U. S. universities.
Peter E. Murphy has published a dozen books of nonfiction and poetry, has appeared in hundreds of journals, anthologies and textbooks including The Sun, The Shakespeare Quarterly, Teachers & Writers Guide to Frederick Douglass, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Guernica, Harpur Palate, The Literary Review and The New Welsh Reader. For more than forty years Peter has led workshops for thousands of writers in the United States and abroad. He has been a consultant to The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Educational Testing Service, Arts Horizons, AtlantiCare Health System, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The New Jersey Councils for the Arts and the Humanities, The New Jersey Department of Education, and countless school districts from coast to coast.
Scott W. Williams (University of Buffalo Mathematics Professor Emeritus) is a traveling poet and author of short stories. He is author of The Gamblers Woods: Poetry from Baltimore’s Wilson Park, (Moonstone Press) and six other books. Scott edits the syfy poetry&flash-fiction anthology series, A Flash of Dark and A Flash of Dark vol 2, and hosts workshops of the poetic forms Ghazal, Haiku and Senryu and co-hosts the series Second Stage Writers and Poets Soup).
