Moonstone Arts Center

S/He Speaks 3: Voices of Women and Trans Folx
2025-06-07 13:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | 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.

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).

Live Poetry: Sydney Coffin, Raina J. León, and Genevieve Rand
2025-08-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday August 20, 2025 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Sydney Coffin is halfway done an MFA with NYU in Paris, and taught poetry, English, journalism, wrestling and experiential arts in Philadelphia’s public schools for 20 years, English Language Learning at Job Corps, and recently became the night manager of facilities for the Fleisher Memorial Art School on Catherine Street in the Italian Market area; he has been published by Moonstone Press, Mad House Press, Yale University Press, Lobo Press, and a few other locations.
Raina J. León, PhD is Black, Afro-Boricua, and from Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). She is a mother, daughter, sister, madrina, comadre, partner, poet, writer, and teacher educator. She believes in collective action and community work, the profound power of holding space for the telling of our stories, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education. She seeks out communities of care and craft and is a member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Macondo. She is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts. She is a recipient of a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Grant.
Genevieve Rand is a variety artist whose work blends poetry, stand-up, song, and immersive art into performances that feel like sacred chaos. Her debut one-woman show iParty—part ceremony, part spectacle—will premiere this September at Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Tickets are on sale now, and this is your official invitation to enter the iParty portal.
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: George Marshall and Sophia Tempest
2025-08-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday August 27, 2025 – 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
George Marshall is a writer out of Omaha, Nebraska. He went to school for Nonfiction and works as a freelance writer and bartender. Poetry was where he found his love for writing. Outside of writing he spends time taking toilets apart to rebuild them stronger or standing in the middle of the street trying to achieve photosynthesis.
Sophia Tempest is the author of three poetry collections, INFINITE LIGHT (Bottlecap Press, 2025), WHEN I GET TO HEAVEN (Another New Calligraphy, 2022) and a lamb hangs by its own foot (Ghost City Press, 2019). She is also a coeditor for the press and journal Discount Guillotine.
Mac Chandler Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: W. D. Ehrhart, Nathalie Anderson, and Eileen M. D'Angelo
2025-09-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday September 3, 2025 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Book Launch of Smart Fish Don’t Bite by W. D. Ehrhart ($22 – Moonstone Press)
W. D. Ehrhart, author of Smart Fish Don’t Bite, is a Marine Corps veteran of both the Vietnam War and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. As the poems in this most recent collection demonstrate, he is a writer who fought in Vietnam, not a Vietnam writer.
Nathalie Anderson is the author of 5 books of poetry and manages the list-serv Lit-Philly that informs about 500 members about literary events in the Philadelphia area. She has recently retired from Swarthmore College, where she taught for 39 years, and served as Director of the Program in Creative Writing.
Eileen M. D’Angelo, author of several books, is Executive Director of Mad Poets Society, coordinated over 2000 special events in the tri-state area, twice been nominated for a PA Governor’s Award in the Arts and Pushcart Prize, and was six-term President of the Board of the Philadelphia Writers Conference.
Aaren Perry Host – Open Reading Follows

Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Reading Series: Alicia Askenase
2025-09-09 18:30 - 20:30 | virtual
Tuesday September 9, 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
Alicia Askenase is the author of several books, was a founding co-editor of the literary journal 6ix and director of the Walt Whitman Art Center Literary programs, and taught English as a Second Language in Puerto Rico, Spain, New York, and finally, Philadelphia. Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies: New Works by Philadelphia Poets, and Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, and lit journals, among them, Chain, The World, Feminist Studies, The Manhattanville Review, Paterson Literary Review, and The Painted Bride Quarterly.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry: Mac Chandler, Tim Lynch, and Amy Saul-Zerby
2025-09-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday September 10, 2025 – 7pm- LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Mac Chandler is a writer from West Philly who has been published in some places and not in others, host quarterly shows for Moonstone Arts, and is author of There Is A Thing Haunting Me I Could Grow To Love.
Tim Lynch was awarded a 2025 Individual Artist Fellowship by Delaware Division of the Arts, poems appear in Only Poems Daily, Gather, and Villain Era, and his first screenplay earned semifinalist in the ScreenCraft Horror Competition.
Amy Saul-Zerby is author of Paper Flowers Imaginary Birds, Deep Camouflage and Choose Your Own Beginning. She edits Voicemail Poems and her poems have appeared in The Rumpus, The Chicago Review of Books, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Sean Lynch Host – Open Reading Follows

Honoring Evan Wang and the Youth Poet Laureate Program
2025-09-14 17:00 | PA
Sunday September 14, 2025 – 5pm – VIRTUAL
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/YGL0FkWeS5WHQX54GffCZQ
Honoring Evan Wang and the Youth Poet Laureate Programs
Host – Joanne Leva is founder and executive director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program and founder and editor-in-chief of Tekpoet, an online poetry manuscript services company. Leva’s poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Peace Is a Haiku Song, 50 Over Fifty, Apiary, E-Verse Radio, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Rag Queen Periodical, Bucks County Writer, Transcendent Visions, and elsewhere. Honoring 王潇/Evan Wang – the 2025 National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, the first male and East Asian individual to hold this title, and author of Slow Burn, winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize and finalist for the Vinyl 45 Chapbook Prize. His work appears in POETRY Magazine, The Kenyon Review, The Journal, RHINO, Sixth Finch, Waxwing, The Margins, and elsewhere. He was the Youth Poet Laureate of Mongomery County.
The Philadelphia area has a wonderful collection of poets and poetry organizations; we especially like to welcome young people to the poetry community. Moonstone’s New Voices program publishes an anthology twice a year for poets under the age of 25, including first-time and experienced young poets alike. We’ve featured many exemplary young writers and work closely with the Youth Poet Laureate programs in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties who we are featuring today.
Professor Ethel Rackin, co-ordinates the Bucks County program, has been teaching language and literature at Bucks County Community College, also finds time to pursue her passion – writing.. She will introduce Nilüfer Betkas, a junior at Harry S. Truman High School in Bristol Township, has been named the 2025 Bucks County High School Poet of the Year. Bektas rose to the top of more than 120 entries from all over the county, judged by current Bucks County Poet Laureate Lake Angela and last year’s poet laureate Tara Tamburello.
Cheri Crow co-ordinates the Delco Young Poets Competition and Awards, the longest running youth poetry competition in the area, founded by the Mad Poets Society in 1989. Ms. Crow is dedicated to providing quality children’s services to families in the library and through outreach services. She will introduce Anika Fernandes, 11 grade student at Merion Mercy Academy
Joanne Leva, founder and executive director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program will introduce Tina Ramberg-Michael, a ninth grader at Cheltenham High School, who took first place in the poetry slam at the Delaware Valley Consortium for Equity and Excellence and has published her poetry with Young Inklings.
Yona Yurwit, co-ordinates the Philadelphia Youth program. Yona has been serving teens at the Free Library of Philadelphia for 6.5 years. Her favorite poets are Jericho Brown and Anis Mojgani. She will introduce Cydney Brown, Philadelphia’s 2020 Youth Poet Laureate and 2023’s Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate. “It’s always been the best way for me to express myself,” says Brown, who started writing poems in fifth grade, an age often marked by complicated emotions

Live Poetry: Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, Josh Dale, Cameron MacKenzie, Iheoma Nwachukwu
2025-09-17 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday September 17, 2025 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
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. Josh Dale lives in Pennsylvania and in the company of cats and nature.. Author of Duality Lies Beneath and The Light to Never Be Snuffed. Cameron MacKenzie’s work has appeared in Blackbird, Salmagundi, and The Michigan Quarterly Review, among other places. His novel, The Beginning of His Excellent and Eventful Career, chronicles the rise to power of Pancho Villa. Iheoma Nwachukwu won fellowships from the Michener Center, the Chinua Achebe Center and the Mississippi Arts Commission. Nwachukwu’s fiction interrogates what it means to yearn for a self-inside and outside one’s native landscape. His work centers immigrant narratives that thrive in settings alien to the character
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: Ebs Sanders, Michael Joseph Walsh
2025-09-24 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday September 24, 2025 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Ebs Sanders is the author of Low Ecstasies, Intimacies that did not destroy us and A Fallow Channel. Their writing has appeared in bæst, b l u s h, Discount Guillotine, Full Stop and Tripwire, among others. They co-edit the tiny and are one of ten 2025 Convent Arts fellows. Michael Joseph Walsh is the author of A Season, winner of the Georgia Poetry Prize, and Innocence, winner of the Lighthouse Poetry Series. He is co-editor of APARTMENT Poetry, and his poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in various publications.
Amy Saul-Zerby Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: Camille Llawella Ralphs, Ernest Hilbert
2025-09-28 17:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Sunday September 28, 2025 – 5pmEDT – LIVE
Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Camille Llawella Ralphs is an English poet, critic and editor. Ralphs’ first collection of poems After You Were, I Am was a book of the year in The Telegraph and The Guardian, and was widely reviewed elsewhere.Since 2020, Ralphs has been poetry editor at The Times Literary Supplement. She is the first woman to hold this role.
Ernest Hilbert is the author of the poetry collections Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan—selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize—Last One Out, and Storm Swimmer, winner of the 2022 Vassar Miller Prize.
Host – Open Reading Follows
