Moonstone Arts Center

Virtual Poetry Event Featuring Five Poets
2022-11-10 19:00 (America/New_York) | PA
Moonstone Poetry Reading with Millicent Borges Accardi, Margaret R. Sáraco, MM Wittle, Anne Harding Woodworth & R.G Ziemer

Thursday November 10 @ 7PM — VIRTUAL

Registration is Required. Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lduGsqzkiHdeZ-LzSwvwEPghc5xYPGBgI

Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American poet, is the author of two poetry collections: Injuring Eternity (World Nouveau) and Woman on a Shaky Bridge (Finishing Line Press chapbook). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts (NEA), the California Arts Council, Barbara Deming Foundation, Canto Mundo and Formby at Texas Tech (researching the work of writer-activist Kay Boyle).

Margaret R. Sáraco grew up in an Italian-American extended family, was awarded master’s degrees in Women’s Studies and in Mathematics, which inform her writing. Her work has appeared in anthologies and journals, has been featured at The Art and Poetry of Teaching, Havdalah Café, Gallery U, Welcome the Sabbath Bride, and others and has conducted workshops at Stockton Tour of Poetry, Save our Schools, Hudson Valley Writing Project, the American Italian Historical Association, Montclair State and New York Universities on writing, teaching, activism and music.
MM Wittle, author of Reconstruction, is a writer of all genres who is a high school and middle school teacher during the day, a college professor at night, and a book worm and writer on the weekends. Wittle’s play Family Guidance was selected for honorable mention at the 5th Annual Philadelphia Theatre Workshop’s Playwriting Competition. The Education of Allie Rose was shortlisted in the Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama. Her work has appeared in Transient, The Bond Street Review, Free Flash Fiction, The Fox Chase Review, The Four Quarters, Decades Review, Emerging Literary Journal and others.
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of eight books of poetry and four chapbooks. Her most recent book is Gender: Two Novellas in Verse (October 2022), a Literary Titan Silver Award book. Her book, Trouble, received the 2022 William Meredith Award for Poetry. An excerpt from her chapbook, The Last Gun, won the 2016 COG Poetry Award, judged by A. Van Jordan, and was subsequently animated (https://vimeo.com/193842252). Anne is a member of the Poetry Board of the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Board of Governors of the Emily Dickinson Museum.
R.G Ziemer was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, worked in the construction trades, practiced genealogy and presently teaches writing at the College of DuPage. He is active with several writing groups and enjoys sharing prose and poetry at local reading venues and open mics. Ziemer’s novel the Ghost of Jamie McVay was published in 2019.

Virtual Event: Emerging Poets
2022-11-12 14:00 | PA
Moonstone Poetry Reading with New Voices: Emerging Poets

Saturday November 12 @ 2PM — VIRTUAL

Registration Required – Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuduGqqzIiGdMlWS6MiZcP2t8f1F0h-zaD

Avik Belenje, age 15, has studied poetry at Poetry Power, he has received the Silver Key from Scholastic Arts and Writing Regional Awards and four First Place Awards from California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc.

Cydney Brown was the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate and author of Daydreaming. A Freshman at Northwestern University she has been writing poetry since 5th grade. She has been featured in The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, 6abc, Philadelphia Citizen, and Fox29 and loves that there are no limitations to writing. Her poetry explore social justice, self-image, love, and nature. Cydney won first place in The National Hip Hop workshop competition, is the Recipient of The Romero Scholarship For Excellence In Spoken Word and is a Gold Award Lifetime Member Girl Scout who is active in improving her community and is the recipient of The Good Citizenship Award. Cydney wishes to inspire people to speak their truth and share her poetry with the world.
Jules Hostetter is a poet from Pennsylvania. She currently studies creative writing at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her poems explore depression/anxiety, love, and sexuality. She loves collecting records, roller skating, and playing guitar.

王潇/Evan Wang is the inaugural Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate from Pennsylvania. His work is forthcoming or has been published in VIBE, Philadelphia Stories, National Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is an alumnus of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and an Anaphora Fellow. His work has been recognized by or featured at Wawa Welcome America, the ruth weiss foundation, Bleeding Soul Poetry, and Society of Poetry.

Virtual Poetry Event with Cheryl J. Fish, Lisa Grunberger & Alison Lubar
2022-11-13 16:00 | PA
Moonstone Poetry Presents
Stretching Forms: Poetry to Prose

Sunday November 13 @ 4PM — VIRTUAL

Registration is Required. Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMucOusrjwqGdQvZiF1EPQIBDccZrOP4A_C

Cheryl J. Fish is author of the debut novel Off the Yoga Mat, the story of three characters coming of middle age. She is also the author of recent poetry collections, Crater & Tower, and The Sauna is Full of Maids. She is co-editor of the collection A Stranger in the Village :Two Centuries of African-American Travel Literature. Her short fiction has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, Cheap Pop, Spank the Carp, Liars League, Boog City and KGB Bar Lit. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Hanging Loose, Maintenant, Terrain, Mom Egg Review, New American Writing, Reed, Postcard poems, Santa Monica Review, ISLE and Poetics for the More-than-Human-World.  Fish has been a Fulbright professor in Finland and is professor of English at BMCC/City University of New York and docent lecturer at University of Helsinki. Her website is cheryljfish.com.
Pushcart nominee, Temple University Professor, Lisa Grunberger is a first-generation American writer. Her poetry books I am dirty (Moonstone Press) and Born Knowing (Finishing Line Press) are lyrical reflections on life as a Jewish woman, a mother, and a daughter of Shoah survivors. Her book, Yiddish Yoga: Ruthie’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Position (Harper Collins) is currently being adapted as a musical. Her work is widely published and translated from The New York Times to the Crab Orchard Review. Almost Pregnant, her play about infertility and assisted reproductive technologies, is published by Smith Scripts. Alexa Talks to Rebecca won the Audience Choice Award at the Squeaky Bicycle Theatre and will soon be a short film.
Alison Lubar teaches high school English by day and yoga by night. They are a queer, nonbinary, mixed-race femme whose life work (aside from wordsmithing) has evolved into bringing mindfulness practices, and sometimes even poetry, to young people. Their debut chapbook, Philosophers Know Nothing About Love, is out now with Thirty West (May 2022); their second, sweet euphemism, is forthcoming with CLASH!, an imprint of Mouthfeel Press, in 2023. You can find out more at http://alisonlubar.com/ or on Twitter @theoriginalison.

Live Poetry Event: Luke Stromberg's The Elephant's Mouth
2022-11-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Reading Featuring Luke Stromberg’s Debut Poetry Collection

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday November 16 @ 7PM

Event will be streamed via Zoom. Registration Required– Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcofuutpz4tHtylEA7Zoqzz0WYEMBrGcYS0
The Elephant’s Mouth, Luke’s Debut Poetry Collection, Years in the Making
“Luke Stromberg is an autobiographical poet, but instead of being confined to the past, his best narratives deliver enough metaphoric lift to transmute them into poetry. I’m remembering his shadow being “a movie on the wall;” tombstones as “baby teeth;” and days that “pile up like dishes in the sink.” The Elephant’s Mouth is a noteworthy debut.” —Billy Collins (Former U.S. Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling)

Luke Stromberg’s poetry has appeared in Smartish Pace, The Hopkins Review, The New Criterion, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Think Journal, ONE ART, Cleaver, Philadelphia Stories, and elsewhere. He also serves as the Associate Poetry Editor for E-Verse Radio. For many years, he was involved in organizing the West Chester University Poetry Conference, which is now the West Chester University Poetry and Creative Arts Festival. He works as an adjunct English instructor at Eastern University and St. Joseph’s University.
WITH:

John Wall Barger

Luke Bauerlein

Ernest Hilbert

Z Murphy

Anne-Adele Wight

John Wall Barger’s poems and critical writing have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, ZYZZYVA, The Cincinnati Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry. His sixth book of poems, Smog Mother, just came out. He is a contract editor for Frontenac House, and teaches in the BFA Program for Creative Writing at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Luke Bauerlein grew up in SE PA and first met Luke Stromberg in an undergraduate poetry workshop at West Chester University. He co-founded the now extinct rock n roll band, The Late Greats, and his poems and essays have appeared in the NY Times, Rattle, BODY, Unsplendid, and elsewhere. Ernest Hilbert is the author of four collections of poetry, Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan, winner of the Poets’ Prize, and Last One Out . His fifth book, Storm Swimmer, was selected by Rowan Ricardo Phillips as winner of the 2022 Vassar Miller Prize and will appear in 2023. Z Murphy (she/they) is a multiracial multidisciplinary artist studying creative writing at the University of the Arts. Since she was little, she’s valued the art of storytelling and proceeds to tell stories in whatever way she sees fit, whether it be through writing, performance, song – Z remains constantly inspired to make new art. Z writes about race, sex, class, mental health, and about writing itself (how meta of them). She is currently a writer for the online magazine Nicki Swift, a dog dad, and a retired child. Anne-Adele Wight is the author of An Internet of Containment, The Age of Greenhouses, Opera House Arterial, and Sidestep Catapult, all from BlazeVOX. For four years she curated the multi-genre performance series Jubilant Thicket. Her work has been published internationally in print and online and includes appearances in Luna Luna, Apiary, Bedfellows, Oz Burp, Have Your Chill, and Read On 2. She lives and writes in Philadelphia.

Live Event: Celebrating Larry Robin's 80th Birthday!
2022-11-20 14:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Come Join Us As We Celebrate Larry Robin’s 80th Birthday!

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Sunday November 20 @ 2PM

“In my youth in the 60’s the motto was “never trust anyone over 30”, now my grandchildren are over 30. I am extremely lucky to have worked on the things I believe in my entire life. 52 years at Robin’s Book Store, 41 years with Moonstone. Promoting art and education. What else could one wish for? Should you want to do something for me, donate something to the Moonstone Arts Center, www.moonstoneartscenter.com. I hope to see you on the 20th. If you have any questions, please contact me.” – Larry
Picture by Sandy Robin

Join Us for Socializing and Poetry!
2pm – Doors Open
3pm – Ten Minutes of Readings

Lynn Levin
Warren Longmire
Sean Hanahan
Z Murphy
Matilda Bray
Joe Roarty

4pm – Ten Minutes of Readings

C. Todd
Lamont Steptoe
Aaren Perry
Mac Chandler
Evan Wang
Eleanor Wilner

5pm – Open Reading
Elijah Pringle Host

Live Poetry Event: David Acosta, Chris Bullard, Colin Morgan & Molly Russakoff
2022-11-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Reading with David Acosta, Chris Bullard, Colin Morgan & Molly Russakoff

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday November 23 @ 7PM

Event will be streamed via Zoom. Registration Required– Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEpdOyhrD8vHdFWcWTkXfzrI94iaoui6QyV

David Acosta, author of Miscellany, is a well-known poet, writer, and activist whose works have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies. He has served on a variety of committees and boards, including the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The AIDS Law Project. As a founding member of both the Art Emergency Coalition and the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression (which went on to successfully sue the National Endowment for the Arts during the 90s culture wars.) As a Latinx, racially mixed, indigenous, gay man, he continues to blend art and activism as he collaborates on countless projects throughout the city while producing his own art and writing.
Chris Bullard is a native Floridian who lives in Philadelphia, is author of Continued, Going Peaceably to the Obsidian Knife and Rainclouds of Y. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Wilkes University. His work has appeared in recent issues of Leveler, Muse/A Journal, The Woven Tale, Nimrod, American Journal of Poetry and The Offbeat.

Colin Morgan (known as Marc Moore in some literary circles) is the CEO of Night City Publishing, a record label based in Philadelphia, PA. Additionally, they are the lead editor and founder of Parquet Poetry magazine, a small literary and art journal also based in Philadelphia. Colin plays bass in the band Queen Mob and has been published worldwide in many elite verse and art journals, but their most important work is the unseen text of whatever they are currently writing. Follow Night City Publishing on IG: @nightcitypublishing – Submit to Parquet Poetry on IG: @parquet.poetry
Molly Russakoff has been living and writing in Philadelphia since 1979. She was a poetics student and teaching assistant in the early days of Naropa University in Boulder Co., studying with many of the Beat, Black Mountain and New York School poets. She won a Pew Fellowship in 1993. Molly currently owns Molly’s Books & Records with her husband, Joe Ankenbrand. She will be reading from her recently completed novel manuscript, Red Tape.

Live Event with Elliott batTzedek, Glen A. Mazis & Michelle Myers
2022-11-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Poetry Reading with Elliott batTzedek, Glen A. Mazis & Michelle Myers

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday November 30 @ 7PM

Event will also be streamed via Zoom. Registration Required — Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApdu-srjstH9bN8iOr3xoQ7a_AzzwN6Nbd

Elliott batTzedek’s translation manuscript of “Dance of the Lunatic” by the Israeli Jewish lesbian writer Shez won the 2012 Robert Bly Translation prize. She is the events coordinator for Big Blue Marble Bookstore, cofounder of QuillsEdge Press, and founder of Poetry Business Manager. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the journals: American Poetry Review, Massachusetts Review, Naugatuck River Review, Lambda Literary Online, and Sinister Wisdom. She blogs about poetry and translation at thisfrenzy.com.
Glen A. Mazis taught philosophy for decades at Penn State Harrisburg, retiring in 2020. He has more than 90 poems in literary journals, including Rosebud, The North American Review, Sou’wester, Spoon River Poetry Review, Willow Review, Atlanta Review, Reed Magazine and Asheville Poetry Review, and the collection, The River Bends, a chapbook, The Body Is a Dancing Star, and Bodies of Space and Time oks. He has published five philosophy books with the most recent being, Merleau-Ponty and the Face of the World: Silence, Ethics, Imagination and Poetic Ontology. He is the 2019 winner of the Malovrh-Fenlon Poetry Prize.
Michelle Myers is an award-winning poet and educator. Appearing on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam as a founding member of Yellow Rage, Michelle harnesses her experiences as a biracial Korean American woman to create work that raises awareness and builds community. Her writing has been published in Apiary, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Title Magazine, Brevity, and USA Today. Her work also has received recognition from the Leeway Foundation, Loft Literary Center, Asian Arts Initiative, and Dodge Poetry Program. Michelle currently serves on the Advisory Board of The Berrie Center, and her CCPTV show Drop the Mic has been nominated for six Emmys. Michelle’s poetry is featured in the NY Times bestseller Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now as well as My Life: Growing Up Asian in America.

Virtual Poetry Event with International Poets
2022-12-04 14:00 | PA
Virtual Event with Anuradha Bhowmik, Fiona Bolger, Rosaleen McDonagh, Michelle Myers & Ewuare X. Osayande

Sunday December 4 @ 2PM EST — VIRTUAL

Registration Required. Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUsd-moqDsiHdZ-8fulshSjDrRRGm4piBqC

Anuradha Bhowmik, Bangladeshi American, Kundiman Fellow and AWP Intro Journals Project Winner in Poetry. Her work has appeared in POETRY, the Sun, Copper Nickel, Pleiades, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. Brown Girl Chromatography: Poems – “Anuradha Bhowmik speaks for all the brown girls who ‘couldn’t have/crushes in fourth grade,’ all of us who weren’t ‘white women/wearing lingerie in the glossy Macy’s ad.’ The speaker’s journey through the minefield of popular culture, family responsibility, and maturation into an unmapped womanhood is handled with deft precision.” —Allison Joseph, author of Confessions of a Barefaced Woman
Fiona Bolger is author of Love in the Original Language from Salmon Poetry, 2022. She works as a mentor and creative facilitator between Ireland and India. Her other publications include A Compound of Words, All the Worlds Between: An Anthology from Yoda Press Delhi and Geometry of Love Between the Elements and Triptych: Three Poets, from Poetry Bus, Arklow, Ireland. She also works with Outlandish Theatre Platform.

Rosaleen McDonagh is a playwright, performer, columnist for The Irish Times and a member of Aosdána. Her plays include The Baby Doll Project, She’s Not Mine, Rings, The Prettiest Proud Boy and Mainstream. Recent commissions were Walls and Windows for the Abbey Theatre and Contentious Spaces for the Project Arts Centre. Rosaleen holds a BA, two MPhils from Trinity College and a PhD from Northumbria University. A board member of Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre and was appointed a Human Rights Commissioner. Unsettled is her first book, a collection of essays exploring racism, ableism, abuse and resistance as well as the bonds of community, family and friendship.
Michelle Myers is an award-winning poet and educator. A founding member of Yellow Rage, Michelle harnesses her experiences as a biracial Korean American woman to create work that raises awareness and builds community. Her writing has been published in Apiary, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Title Magazine, Brevity, and USA Today, has received recognition from the Leeway Foundation, Loft Literary Center, Asian Arts Initiative, and Dodge Poetry Program. Her CCPTV show Drop the Mic has been nominated for six Emmys and her poetry is featured in Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now and My Life: Growing Up Asian in America.
Ewuare X. Osayande is an award-winning poet, essayist, activist, and publisher. The author of several books including, Blood Luxury with an introduction by Amiri Baraka, Osayande’s latest book of poems is entitled Black Phoenix Uprising. In 2013, Osayande edited and published Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander, a global anthology of social justice poetry that raised thousands of dollars for both justice campaigns. Osayande is the founding editor of The Poetariat, an international journal of working-class poetry. Learn more about his work at Osayande.org.
John Lavin Host

Moonstone @ PhillyCAM with Ona Gritz
2022-12-06 18:30 | PA
Moonstone @ PhillyCAM: Virtual Interview & Reading with Ona Gritz

Tuesday December 6 @ 6:30 PM — VIRTUAL
To Attend, Visit https://phillycam.org/
And Click ‘Live TV’ Under the Watch Dropbox

Ona Gritz is an award-winning poet, essayist, children’s author, and creative writing instructor. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Utne Reader, Ploughshares, Brevity, and River Teeth, and has been widely anthologized. Recent honors include two Notable mentions in Best American Essays, a Best Life Story in Salon, and a winning entry in The Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020 project. Ona’s middle grade novel, August Or Forever, is forthcoming from Fitzroy Books in February.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Event Featuring Five Poets
2022-12-08 19:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Event with Chris Bullard, Cynthia Dewi Oka, Raya Tuffaha, Donna Wolf-Palacio & Katie Sarah Zale

Thursday December 8 @ 7PM — VIRTUAL

Registration Required. Register Below!
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUoc-yhrTkrGtVASsuWFKKJOHohW82TroZM

Chris Bullard is a native Floridian who lives in Philadelphia, is author of Continued, Going Peaceably to the Obsidian Knife and Rainclouds of Y. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Wilkes University. His work has appeared in recent issues of Leveler, Muse/A Journal, The Woven Tale, Nimrod, American Journal of Poetry and The Offbeat.

Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not a Country (Northwestern University Press, 2021), Salvage (Northwestern University Press, 2017) and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (Thread Makes Blanket Press, 2016). She is a member of the Sanctuary Advocate Coalition, which works to expand sanctuary in vision and practice through the framework of black-brown unity.

Raya Tuffaha is a Palestinian artist from Seattle, WA. Her first collection, To All the Yellow Flowers, was published in March 2020 with Golden Antelope Press. Her first chapbook, apocalypse blues, was published with Plan B Press this August. Raya is a current senior at Swarthmore College, where she studies Theatre and Peace & Conflict Studies. She specializes in solo performance and fight direction, and will move to the east coast after graduation. She hopes her work on the page & the stage serves her communities with integrity.
Donna Wolf-Palacio is author of The Architect of Elsewhere, What I Don’t Know, The Other Side, and Step Lightly.  She taught an ongoing poetry workshop at the University of the Arts and was editor/consultant of the UARTS Poetry Review.  She has published her writing in Poetry, The Pennsylvania Gazette, the Musehouse Journal, Intro, The Interpreter, Poems from the Heart: Poems about Adoption, and Voices.  She has received grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, The Leeway Foundation, and the PCA.
Katie Sarah Zale teaches writing and works on Art for Justice programs in Arizona. Her first book, The Art of Folding, was inspired by her travels to Israel and Palestine. The collection Sometimes You Do Things (Aquarius Press, Living Detroit Series) highlights the history of Detroit and celebrates its rebuilding. She lives in Tucson.

Virtual Event: Remembering The Waste Land
2022-12-11 14:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Event Remembering The Waste Land

Sunday December 11 @ 2PM — VIRTUAL

Registration Required. Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcudeGsqDwiHNGbIKB3XwIbDO4_P-84tFgv
100th Anniversary of The Waste Land

September 26th marked T.S. Eliot’s 134th birthday
Eliot’s groundbreaking poem The Waste Land was published in 1922, 100 years ago

Written in the wake of World War I, a war which turned the battlefield into a waste land, and wasted a generation of combatants and civilians — 20 million dead, 21 million wounded — the poem might be read as a civilian’s post-traumatic stress, or as ecological disaster, or emotional devastation, or spiritual drought.

Eliot’s style in the poem — fragmented, allusive, difficult, obscure…
was startling at the time, so much so that William Carlos Williams considered it a “great catastrophe” for American Poetry; and the notes Eliot appended have led many readers to think of the poem more as an exam than a lyric. Yet even as Eliot’s influence has faded, even as we question his conservatism, his attitudes toward race, his uneasiness with women, his personal demons, The Waste Land continues to signify to our own waste land, and many of us write under its shadow.
Moonstone Invites You
to “come in under the shadow of this red rock” and speak to The Waste Land, or within The Waste Land, or after The Waste Land, or against The Waste Land.
Nathalie Anderson, Host

Live Event: E-Verse Equinox Reading Series
2022-12-14 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event in Collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St
Wednesday December 14 @ 7PM

Event will also be streamed via Zoom. The registration link will be posted shortly!

Sunil Iyengar is the author of a new chapbook of poems, A Call from the Shallows (Finishing Line Press). His poems and book reviews appear in such publications as the Washington Post, The American Scholar,The New Criterion, Literary Matters, The Hopkins Review, Essays in Criticism, and Los Angeles Review of Books. He works as an arts research director in Washington, D.C.

Hugh Sheehy is the author of two short story collections, Design Flaw (Acre, forthcoming in November) and The Invisibles (Flannery O’Connor Award, University of Georgia Press). Some of his recent stories have appeared in Fence, swamp pink (as Crazyhorse), failbetter, and the final issue of The Rupture. He also reviews books, mostly novels, from time to time. He teaches writing at Ramapo College.

Luke Stromberg’s poetry has appeared in Smartish Pace, The Hopkins Review, The New Criterion, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Think Journal, ONE ART, Cleaver, Philadelphia Stories, and elsewhere. He also serves as the Associate Poetry Editor for E-Verse Radio. For many years, he was involved in organizing the West Chester University Poetry Conference, which is now the West Chester University Poetry and Creative Arts Festival. He works as an adjunct English instructor at Eastern University and St. Joseph’s University and lives in Upper Darby, PA.

John Wall Barger Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Event: New Voices Anthology 2022
2022-12-17 14:00 | PA
Moonstone’s New Voices Anthology 2022

Saturday December 17 @ 2PM — VIRTUAL

Registration Required. Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtdOGrqTovGdbz4UDH0b52ubiHSHRj8aIh

A series for emerging poets between the ages of 10 and 25. A monthly reading series and a bi-annual publication which strives to bring together younger poets from various communities. We tend to gather in our own communities, there is nothing wrong with that except we begin to sound alike, look alike, think alike. Our attempt to expand everyone’s experience, to introduce other ways of everything. Join us as contributors read their poems.

Not All Contributors Will Be Reading
Kyla Artwell
Tesana Aurora
Taylor Baker
Ijhana Bayes
Avik Belenje
Nina Braum
Domenica Brunetti
Yakov Burton
Christina Campanaro
Connor Campbell
Annie Chian
Lillien Cirino
Tori D’Amico
Ezana Demissie
Mark Doraszelski
Maura Gallagher
Ethan Garrity
Amy Goodman
Rasheeda Graham
Emma Heaton
Elijah Johnson
Julian Kennedy
Zoe Khan
Matthew Klauber
Jane Lee
Aaron Madison
Alana Maguire
Tyreea McBride
Campbell McCormack
Ryland McGinniss
Sonja Meijer
Yves-Melsein Metellus
Francisco Mojica
Joy Olree
Lindsay Pelliccia
Theo Robinson
Shawn Sandman
Blaithin Simpson
Drop Spam
Milli Straub
Charlotte Suttee
Jacob Swenson
Sebastian Trainer-Oneill
Dionna Vereen
Kevin Wallner

Live Event: Enoch, Maria Masington & LindoYes
2022-12-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event with Enoch, Maria Masington & LindoYes

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday December 21 @ 7PM

Event will also be streamed via Zoom. Registration Required — Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEudOmtqjMpGNxRsoAGpcUEeIs1nyqctIhI

Enoch is a poet, author, trauma-informed teaching artist and manga writer born and raised on the Northside of Wilmington, DE. As a mental health advocate and someone living with bi-polar disorder, his work examines the process of healing and the ways that trauma and mental health move through a family, as well as the outside forces that affect or have affected these developments. His goal is to create written works, curriculum, and platforms that deepen our emotional understanding and its cyclical relation to the conditions acting on the Black mind, body, and spirit. Enoch is the 2017 Philadelphia Fuze Grand Slam Champion and the author of two poetry collections, “The Guide to Drowning” released in 2017 and “Burned at the Roots” released in 2020.
Maria Masington is a poet, author, and spoken word artist from Wilmington, Delaware. Her poetry has appeared in over two dozen publications including The News Journal, Gargoyle, The Broadkill Review, Adanna, Earth’s Daughters, Never Forgotten: 100 Poets Remember 9/11, and by the University of Colorado. Parnilis Media released Masington’s first chapbook, Mouth Like a Sailor, in 2021. It was awarded first place by both Delaware Press Association and National Federation of Press Women. Her work and upcoming events can be found at “Maria Masington Amazon.”
LindoYes is a spoken word artist, creator of LindoYes! clothing line, and an event host who was born and raised in Uptown Philadelphia, PA. He is an unapologetically Black fusion of theatrical poetics and visual art whose work addresses the constructs of love, masculinity and social injustice. Lindo’s work has led him to opportunities across the east coast from appearing on Def Poetry Jam to featuring at various colleges such as Bucknell University, Haverford College, and UPENN as well as venues including Busboys and Poets, Spit Dat, The Drunken Retort, Urban Grind, just to name a few. His work has been featured in on the well-known poetry youtube channel, Button Poetry.

Sean Hanahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Event: Anthony Cappo, Maria James-Thiaw & Ann E. Michael
2022-12-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event with Anthony Cappo, Maria James-Thiaw & Ann E. Michael

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday December 28 @ 7PM

Event will also be streamed via Zoom. Registration Required — Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZctceCppz8iE9HhItlupBaoL-TCdkVXAuhL

Anthony Cappo, author of When You’re Deep In A Thing and My Bedside Radio, poems and other writings have appeared in THRUSH, Prelude, Entropy, The Rumpus, and other publications. “Cappo’s voice is intimate, but the arc is visceral: ‘come with me and I will show you/fissures of men.’ His poems aren’t looking for alchemy, only for what’s real, this world in which a child might ‘endure/like an Arctic explorer.’ They are true, meaning: wholehearted and ambivalent. Cappo won’t show you prefabricated emotions, rather the contraries we wrestle as we try to conjure our destinies ‘under God’s random jackhammer.’ He charts an America of absent fathers and thrift shop hand grenades, an era in which the line between common sense and paranoia is fading. When You’re Deep in a Thing isn’t just beautiful-it’s courageous and necessary.” – D. Nurkse
Maria James-Thiaw, author of Count Each Breath, is an award-winning poet, performer, and playwright. She is the author of four poetry collections and her work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies including Black Lives Have Always Mattered, and Essential Voices: A Covid19 Anthology. Poems from her play, Reclaiming My Time: An American Griot Project won the Art of Protest Award from Penn State University’s Center for American Literary Studies in 2018. Maria James-Thiaw is the founder of Reclaim Artist Collective, an organization that brings her American Griot Project programming to marginalized communities.
Ann E. Michael, author of Strange Ladies, Water-Rites, More than Shelter, The Minor Fauna, Small Things Rise & Go, and The Capable Heart, poems and essays have been widely published in many journals, including Poem, Natural Bridge, Ninth Letter, Runes, The Comstock Review, Diner, Sentence, Slant, ISLE, The Writer’s Chronicle, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts and others, as well as in numerous literary anthologies. She maintains a long-running blog, garden, and relationship with the cosmos. Find her at www.annemichael.wordpress.com

Live Event: Hosts of Other Poetry Series
2023-01-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event with Elliott batTzedek, Eileen M. D’Angelo, James Feichthaler, Joanne Leva & Robert Zell

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday January 4 @ 7PM

Event will also be streamed via Zoom. Registration required. Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYlfumgrTIjHdLPYnBWIkzwDwM2mU-lNZGy

Elliott batTzedek holds an MFA in Poetry and Poetry in Translation from Drew University. For 10 years she organized readings, writing workshops, and a poetry book group at Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Mt. Airy. Since 2021, she’s organized poetry at Main Point Books in Wayne, PA. Her work appears in: Sakura Review, American Poetry Review, Massachusetts Review, Cahoodaloodaling, Naugatuck River Review, and Poemeleon.

Eileen M. D’Angelo is Founder of the Mad Poets Society and Mad Poets Review. Since 1987, she produced over 1,500 special events, including performances, slams, readings, conferences, workshops, bonfires and literary festivals in the Delaware Valley. Twice nominated for a PA Governor’s Award in the Arts, D’Angelo also received two Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Press nominations.

James Feichthaler is a poet and essayist whose work has most recently appeared in One Art, Sortes, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and the Mad Poets Society’s Local Lyrics series. His new book The Rise of the COVFEFE, a poetical satire of these divided and uncertain times, was published in late 2020 by Parnilis Media. He is also the host of an open mic reading in Manayunk, PA called The Dead Bards of Philadelphia.

Joanne Leva is the author of Eve Heads Back and Eve Would Know, founder of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program 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.

Robert Zell has published two chapbooks: One and Reflections. His work has also appeared in Whirlwind magazine, North of Oxford, and several Moonstone Arts anthologies. He is also the host of the First Sunday reading series at the Pen and Pencil Club.

Live Event: 26th Annual Poetry Ink Anthology
2023-01-08 12:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Moonstone’s
26th Annual Poetry Ink Event

Sunday, January 8 @ 12PM
LIVE at The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street

We want you all: published poets, unpublished poets, academic poets, street poets, poets who write Sonnets, Villanelle, Haiku, Ekphrastic Poems, Concrete Poems, Epitaph, Elegy, Epigram, Limerick, Ballad, Ode, Free Verse. Join us for our 26th year of presenting 100 poets reading in alphabetical order.
You can buy the anthology here ($20 USD): https://moonstone-arts-center.square.site/product/26th-poetry-ink-anthology/400

OUR 143 CONTRIBUTORS:
Liz Abrams-Morley
Susan Anmuth
Gregory Ashe
Floi Baker
Amy Barone
Peter Baroth
Elliott batTzedek
Miriam Ben-Yoseph
Carole Bernstein
Pamela Blanding
Julia Blumenreich
Veronica Bowlan
Matilda Bray
Barbara Breitman
R. Bremner
Jamie Brown
Lisa Bruckman
Maryrose Carroll
Annie Chian
Takudzwa Chikepe
A.J. Chilson
Cathleen Cohen
Cathleen Cohen
Tiffany Cooper
Beverly Cottman
Lynda V. E. Crawford
Katharine Cristiani
ELIZABETH CUNNINGHAM
Toby Devens
Ann Ellen Dickter
Pheralyn Dove
Tom Driscoll
Carlos Dufflar
David Eberhardt
RUNETT EBO
Bill Ehrhart
Alfred Encarnacion
Richard Epstein
Sophia Falco
Katherine Falk
Maria Fama
Cheryl Fish
Peggy Fisher
Francis Flavin
BRYAN FRANCO
Gloria Fredkove
Hal Freedman
Caroline Furr
Linda Goss
Marjorie Gowdy
Neal Grace
Beejay Grob
Bob Groves
hanoch guy
MARK HAMMERSCHICK
Peggy Hammond
Sean Hanrahan
Jerri Hardesty
Annie Hartford
Faleeha Hassan
Stephen Hattrich
Jen Heller
Ditta Baron Hoeber
Jane Ibur
Jones Irwin
jack israel
Charles Jenkins
Irving Jones
Karl Kadie
Betti Kahn
Chris Kaiser
Louis Kamason
Brian Kerr
lisa konigsberg
Carthornia Kouroupos
Leonard Kress
Ed Krizek
Laurie Kuntz
Eelka Lampe
D Lang
Hiram Larew
Jim LaVilla-Havelin
Jeffrey Lee
Antoinette Libro
Josephine LoRe
Alison Lubar
Nick Lutwyche
George MacMillan
Deirdre Maher
Tawanda Manyati
Angel Martinez
John Mason
Meg McCarney
Diane McManus
Gabre Medhin
Emily Melvin
Gary Metras
Beth Morris
Daniel O’Hara
Charles O’Hay
Claire Owen
Hermond Palmer
Faith Paulsen
Jonathan Pessant
VICTORIA HUGGINS PEURIFOY
Rescue Poetix
Kate Potter
Prabha Prabhu
Dylan Ragas
Don Riggs
Patrick Rodgers
Linda Romanowski
Marco Romeo
George Schaefer
Carla Schick
Jennifer Schneider
Fereshteh Sholevar
Alyson Shore Adler
Amy Beth Sisson
Amy Small-McKinney
Megha Sood
Maggie Stearns
j.c. Sutton
Renee Szostek
Albert Tacconelli
Alexi Terris
Terry Tierney
John Timpane
J. C. Todd
Karen Paul Topham
Jim Trainer
Sebastian Trainer-Oneill
Catherine Trapani
Lois Villemaire
ynotcreations webb
Theresa Werba
DANIEL WILLIAMS
Lauren Wolffe
Nellie Wong
Samantha Wright
Theresa Wyatt
Sekai’afua Zankel
Daniel Zehner

Virtual Events: Annual Poetry Ink Anthology
2023-01-09 19:00 - 2023-01-10 19:00 | PA
Moonstone’s Virtual Annual Poetry Ink Events

In addition to Moonstone’s live Poetry Ink Event on January 8, there will be TWO VIRTUAL EVENTS: January 9 & January 10

Times and Dates
Monday, January 9 @ 7PM
Registration Link: click here!
Tuesday January 10 @ 7PM
Registration Link: click here!

January 9 Featured Contributors:
Alyson Shore Adler
E. Lynn Alexander
Nathalie Anderson
Tonita Austin
Floi Baker
Amy Barone
Elliott batTzedek
Deborah Bayer
Miriam Ben-Yoseph
Carole Bernstein
Anuradha Bhowmik
Celia Bland
Pamela Lynn Blanding-Godbolt
Julia Bluemenreich
Fiona Bolger
Veronica Bowlan
R. Bremner
Cydney Brown
Kristen Holt Browning
Anthony Cappo
Annie Chian
Cathleen Cohen
Alejandro Cortes
Lynda V.E. Crawford
Terence Culleton
Liz Cunningham
Carlos Raul Dufflar
David Ebenbach
David Eberhardt
Sophia Falco
Maria Fama
Cheryl J. Fish
Gloria Fredkove
Hal Freedman
Caroline Furr
Shotsie Gorman
Marjorie Gowdy
Neal Grace
Shannon Frost Greenstein
Jen Heller
Jennifer Hook
Jones Irwin
Maria James-Thiaw
January 10 Featured Contributors:
Charles Jenkins
Mike Jurkovic
Susan Justiniano
Chris Kaiser
Lisa Naomi Konigsberg
Jonathan Koven
Leonard Kress
Eelka Lampe
Hiram Larew
David Lawton
Josephine LoRe
Deirdre Maher
Angel L. Martinez
Michael McCarthy
Diane McManus
Matt Mitchell
D. Nurkse
Hermond Palmer
Faith Paulsen
Aaren Yeats Perry
Kenneth Pobo
Prabha Nayak Prabhu
Anna Prader
Halle Preneta
Barrett Rosser
Molly Russakoff
Margaret Saraco
George Schaefer
Carla S. Schick
Lynne Shapiro
Beth SKMorris
Fereshteh Sholevar
Megha Sood
Renée Szostek
Elaine Terranova
Terry Tierney
John Timpane
J.C. Todd
Alan Toltzis
Catherine Trapani
Raya Tuffaha
Lois Villemaire
Ken Waldman
Dan Williams
Anne Harding Woodworth

Live Event: Peter Baroth, Massimo Elijah & Glen A. Mazis
2023-01-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event with Peter Baroth, Massimo Elijah & Glen A. Mazis

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday January 11 @ 7PM

Event will also be streamed via Zoom. Registration required– register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYuc-qtrT0rGNUpSm6pNoX_JoJ016NR2VAU

Peter Baroth, writer, artist, and musician, is a graduate of Washington University and Temple Law School. His novel is Long Green (iUniverse) and his book of poetry, Lost Autographs (Moonstone Press). He has been published in Philadelphia Poets, Red Fez, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Apiary, Legal Studies Forum, Poetry Ink, and elsewhere. He won the 2009 Amy Tritsch Needle Award, a 2016 Petracca Family Award, was a finalist for the Joie de Vivre book prize, has been nominated for Best of the Net, and is on Philadelphia Stories’ editorial board. He lives in Media, PA.

Massimo Elijah is a spoken word poet and Philly native who is proud to be a part of such a thriving arts scene in his home city. He loves how art can give people freedom of expression as well as a common ground for coming together…where artist and audience remind each other how human beings are healers who are also healed by healing others.

Glen A. Mazis has more than 90 poems in literary journals, including Rosebud, The North American Review, Sou’wester, Spoon River Poetry Review, Willow Review, Atlanta Review, Reed Magazine and Asheville Poetry Review, and the collection, The River Bends in Time, a chapbook, The Body Is a Dancing Star, and Bodies of Space and Time. He taught philosophy for decades at Penn State Harrisburg, has published five philosophy books with the most recent being, Merleau-Ponty and the Face of the World: Silence, Ethics, Imagination and Poetic Ontology. He is the 2019 winner of the Malovrh-Fenlon Poetry Prize.
Open Reading Follows

Live Event: Liz Chang, Chad Frame & Mary Jo LoBello Jerome
2023-01-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event with Liz Chang, Chad Frame, and Mary Jo LoBello Jerome

Wednesday January 18 @ 7PM
Live at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom Street

Event will also be streamed via Zoom. Registration Required– Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIpcu-trzIqHdBee3AuTkKCu3tGXaMoi1cJ

Liz Chang was 2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate in Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Exit 7, Rock & Sling, Breakwater Review and Stoneboat Literary Journal, among others. Her fourth collection, a chapbook called Museum of Things, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2023. Her creative nonfiction recently appeared in Oyster River Pages, and her flash fiction has been published internationally. Chang’s translation of Claude de Burine’s work is anthologized in Paris in Our View from l’Association des Amis de Shakespeare & Company. Liz lives en les environs de Philadelphia with her family, dog, cat, and a hive of honeybees. She is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Moravian University.
Photo credit: Adrianne Matiowetz
Chad Frame is the author of Little Black Book (2022, Finishing Line Press), nominated for the Lambda Literary Award, and a chapbook, Cryptid. He is Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, PA, the Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo, a founding member of the No River Twice poetry/improv performance troupe, and Founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat. His work appears in Rattle, Pedestal, Barrelhouse, Rust+Moth, and elsewhere, on iTunes from the Library of Congress, and was sent to the moon as part of the Lunar Codex Project.

Mary Jo LoBello Jerome has a new book out, Torch the Empty Fields, which was a finalist in the Women’s Voices Competition at Finishing Line, and released in December. She is one of the Poetry Co-Editors of Schuylkill Valley Journal and a Poet Laureate of Bucks County. She edited Fire Up the Poems, an anthology of writing prompts for teachers, published in 2021. Her poems and short stories have been published widely. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, has taught writing at all levels, and has written for The New York Times, Scholastic Inc., and many other publications.
Sean Hanahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Event: Telicia Darius & 王潇/Evan Wang
2023-01-21 14:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Event with New Voices

Saturday January 21 @ 2PM — VIRTUAL

Registration Required. Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sd-igqjgqHNESm_1z3fGzzgKz5Y4BBrb3

Telicia Darius, 2022-2023 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate, is a senior at Hardy Williams Mastery Charter School in a dual enrollment program at Community College of Philadelphia. Telicia has participated in the Young Writer’s Workshop at Bard College and the Princeton University Summer Journalism Program. Telicia writes and performs in both English and French and is a member of the Hardy Williams Philly Slam League team. Telicia loves a good challenge and believes in the words of poetry. On poetry and the Poet Laureate position, Telicia says “Poetry is the writer’s ink and the laureate is the platform, giving the inaudible text a chance to speak.”
王潇/Evan Wang is the first Youth Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in Violet Indigo Blue, Etc., Philadelphia Stories, National Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is an alumnus of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio and an Anaphora Fellow. Evan has performed his work at various venues such as the Oval XP, ArtWRKD, and The Rotunda at The University of Pennsylvania. His work has been featured at and recognized by Button Poetry, Philadelphia Contemporary, and Wawa Welcome America.

Live Event: Alexa Smith & Joseph Earl Thomas
2023-01-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event with Alexa Smith and Joseph Earl Thomas

LIVE at Fergie’s Pub — 1214 Sansom St.
Wednesday January 25 @ 7PM

Event will also be streamed. Registration Required– Register Here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtcuqurjojHtLlYIEefDTD2M2u1XpBGvZS

Alexa Smith is a poet and essayist from Washington D.C. She lives in West Philadelphia, where she works in publishing and serves as Editorial Director of Apiary, a free literary magazine centering Philly-area authors and artists of all genres and backgrounds in print and online. She received her MFA from Temple University and teaches workshops in poetry, creative nonfiction and interdisciplinary writing. Her work can be found in Interim, Entropy, Memoir Mixtapes, Peach Mag, Philadelphia Stories, and elsewhere, as well as streaming on STELLA Radio and Spotify.

Joseph Earl Thomas is a writer from Frankford whose work has appeared in VQR, N+1, Gulf Coast, The Offing, and The Kenyon Review. An excerpt of his memoir, Sink, won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize and he has received fellowships from Fulbright, VONA, Tin House, Kimbilio, & Breadloaf, though he is now the Anisfield-Wolf Fellow at the CSU Poetry Center. He’s writing the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, and a collection of stories: Leviathan Beach, among other oddities. He is also an associate faculty member at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, as well as Director of Programs at Blue Stoop, a literary hub for Philly writers.

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry Reading
2023-02-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: John Wall Barger, Charles S. Carr, Sean Hanrahan, Jennifer Hook, Sean Lynch, and Alina Macneal
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Link https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckc-yvrzwqH9Cg_QQzT4paZiiDOh1XucDH

John Wall Barger’s poems and critical writing have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, ZYZZYVA, The Cincinnati Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry. His sixth book of poems, Smog Mother, just came out. He is a contract editor for Frontenac House, and teaches in the BFA Program for Creative Writing at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Charles S. Carr, author of paradise, pennsylvania, and & Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems, was The Mad Poets Review First Prize Winner for his poem Waiting To Come North For five years Charles was the host of the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub and is the host of Philly Loves Poetry, a monthly broadcast on Philly Cam. He has read poems in the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin Ireland as part of international 100,000 Poets for Peace.
Sean Hanrahan is a Philadelphian poet originally hailing from Dale City, Virginia. He is the author of the full-length collection Safer Behind Popcorn and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan and Gay Cake. His work is included in several anthologies and journals including Moonstone Featured Poets, Queer Around the World, Stonewall’s Legacy, Impossible Archetype, and Voicemail Poems. He has taught classes A Chapbook in 49 Days and Ekphrastic Poetry and hosted poetry events throughout Philadelphia.
Jennifer Hook is a California native who came to Philadelphia for the grit. Following the death of her husband and creative partner of thirty-five years, she chose poetry as an entry into the territory of loss and self-reinvention. She has read her work at 100,000 Poets for Change, Poetic Feats of Strength, The Osage Poets at the Green Line Café, Philadelphia Poetry Day, and Why Are They Called The Poetry Liberation Front?. She author of This is How He Left Me and co-host of Moonstone’s fourth Wednesday at Fergie’s.
Sean Lynch is a writer and editor who lives in South Philly. He has worked with Moonstone Arts Center since 2016. His fourth chapbook, On Violence, was published by Radical Paper Press in 2019. Poems have appeared in journals such as Hobart, Poetry Quarterly, and Apiary Magazine.

Alina Macneal is a Philadelphia-based educator/writer/poet/translator/architect and co-host of the Fourth Wednesday Moonstone poetry series at Fergie’s. Her poems have appeared in Apiary, Poems for the Writing, The World to Come, and Poetry 24. In 2015 she was a finalist for the Raynes poetry prize. She has been a member of the faculty at Drexel University for over 20 years. Since the last presidential election Alina has been translating the 1930’s political poems of the Polish poet, Julian Tuwim. As Mark Twain said, History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes

Virtual Poetry Reading and Interview: Catherine Bancroft with Charles S. Carr
2023-02-07 18:30 - 20:30 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading and Interview: Catherine Bancroft with Charles S. Carr
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
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
Catherine Bancroft, artist and writer, has shown at FireWorks Gallery, St Asaph’s Gallery, Fackenthal-Pethick Gallery, Muse Gallery, Third Street Gallery, Off the Wall Gallery, and elsewhere. She works in collage, altered books, acrylic, and mixed media. Her current Ellis Island Series in conte crayon and acrylic was inspired by photographs of early 20th century immigrants. She has written book reviews for the Philadelphia Inquirer, co-written two children’s books — Felix’s Hat and That’s Philomena — and has read her poetry at Green Line Cafe, PAFA, Big Blue Marble Bookstore, Fergie’s Pub, and other venues. The Square Where Ariadne Sleeps: Poems by Catherine Bancroft was recently selected as Number 1 in the A.V. Christie Chapbook Series from Seven Kitchens Press.
You can see her Ellis Island images at www.catherinebancroft.cullina.com.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry Reading: For the Publication of Smog Mother by John Wall Barger
2023-02-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: For the Publication of Smog Mother by John Wall Barger
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAofu-sqDwqGtX7EDkZbTxSB21412j2TIl_

What a joy to have another book by John Wall Barger. Restless, passionate, and ambitious, Smog Mother is an ecstatic travelogue whose narrator is always on the move, full of yearning and curiosity, even as he remains an outsider in each country that he visits. The poems in Smog Mother ask probing questions about love and empathy, and about what it means to be a spectator to other people’s pain. Barger is introspective and self-critical, yet far more interested in others than in himself; his eye is continually drawn to the margins of society, and to those whose lives are most in danger of being forgotten or erased. A powerful collection. – — James Arthur, author of The Suicide’s Son

This is deadly serious and absolutely precise poetry about the world in upheaval, in desire and its excess, in love and pornography, in political protest and ecological catastrophe, in the affirming flame sought but not found. Uncompromising, riveting, a kick in the conscience and the unconscious, a wake up call even at this late point in the evening, the world about to go dark, Barger writing with an infinitely bitter, sad and unforgettable pen.
— Indran Amirthanayagam, author of Ten Thousand Steps against the Tyrant
John Wall Barger’s poems and critical writing have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, ZYZZYVA, The Cincinnati Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry. His sixth book of poems, Smog Mother (Palimpsest Press), just came out. He is a contract editor for Frontenac House, and teaches in the BFA Program for Creative Writing at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Pete Dennis (they/he) is a musician, improviser, composer, visual artist, and teacher. Living in West Philadelphia, Dennis is inspired by their beautiful community and the future. Other ever present inspirations include William Parker, the works of Octavia E. Butler, their partner Abigail, and the knowledge that all vibrations carry to potential to transmit the truths of life and death. Dennis’s recorded creations are released using the project name Search for the Infinite Light and include but are not limited to Killing a Dixie Hummingbird (2019), World’s End Welcoming Committee (2021), and pastē (2022). Their most current projects and collaborations include 99 Futures, Oarsman, Mitamu, St. John’s Wort, and an ongoing poetry/bass duet performance with Abigail Swoboda. They believe that sound is the foundation of healing and would like to acknowledge all master improvisers of the past, present, and future. The ZanyThing, also known as Z Murphy, is a multiracial multimedia Creative Writing Major at UArts and one of Philly’s rising stars in the drag scene. She is a reigning pageant winner, a show producer, and regularly hosts drag shows and the country’s longest running queer open mic Out Of The Box. John Wall Barger is one of her professors and she was THRILLED and honored when he asked her to be part of his book launch for Smog Mother. She’s been a fan of his since their first class together, and is grateful for everything he’s taught and every opportunity he’s afforded her.

Live Poetry Reading: Shevaun Brannigan and Amy Saul-Zerby, with Alina Macneal and Jennifer Hook
2023-02-22 19:30 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Shevaun Brannigan and Amy Saul-Zerby, with Alina Macneal and Jennifer Hook
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link: Here

Shevaun Brannigan’s work has appeared in such journals as Best New Poets, AGNI, Slice, and Bat City Review. She is a recipient of a Barbara J. Deming Fund grant, and holds an MFA from Bennington College. In 2022, she was selected for the Giacomo Leopardi Scholarship to attend The Leopardi Writing Conference in Recanati, Italy, and also pursued independent study in Killeagh, Ireland at Greywood Arts Residency.
Amy Saul-Zerby is the author of Paper Flowers Imaginary Birds, Deep Camouflage, and Choose Your Own Beginning. Her poems have appeared in The Rumpus, The Chicago Review of Books, American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She edits Voicemail Poems.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry Reading
2023-03-01 19:30 - 21:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Reading
Wednesday March 1, 2023 – 7:30pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
Zoom Link Here
Pheralyn Dove is author of Paradoxes and Color in Motion, a book of poetry with a foreword by the late legendary drummer Max Roach. She is a poet and visual artist, lives in a state of perpetual gratitude, and is passionate about Cultural Preservation, Global African Liberation and Emotional Healing. Pheralyn states, “After many years of searching, trying to discover my way as a writer and poet, I find myself cultivating a different side of me. Photography, collage, and abstract expressionism dominate in my visual work. Ancestors, Intense Color, Movement, and Nature are also recurring themes. I am a Spiritual Dwelling. Listening to my Intuition. Obeying the Spirit. This is my life as an ever-emerging poet and artist.
g emil reutter lives and writes in Philadelphia. Seventeen collections of his poetry and fiction have been published, most recently Thunder, Lightning and Urban Cowboys a poetry collection and Selected Stories 1990-2022 both from Alien Buddha Press. He is the book review editor and site manager for North of Oxford. His work has been published widely in the small and electronic press. You can visit him at http://gereutter.wordpress.com/

Diane Sahms, a native Philadelphian, is the author of six poetry collections: Images of Being (Stone Garden Publishing, 2011), Lights Battered Edge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2015), and Night Sweat (Red Dashboard Press, 2016), Handheld Mirror of the Mind, (Kelsay Books, 2018); Covid 19 2020 – A Poetic Journal (Moonstone Press, 2021); most recently City of Shadow & Light (Philadelphia) – Alien Buddha Press. Her poems have appeared in a number of online and print publications. Diane is the Poetry Editor at North of Oxford and works as a purchasing agent. You can visit her at http://dianesahmsguarnieri.wordpress.com/ and http://www.dianesahms-guarnieri.com/

Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Interview and Reading
2023-03-07 18:30 - 20:30 | PA
Virtual Poetry Interview and Reading
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
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
Hayden Saunier’s most recent collection, A Cartography of Home, was published by Terrapin Books in 2021. Her work has been awarded the Pablo Neruda Prize, Rattle Poetry Prize, Gell Poetry Award, Keystone Award, and nominated over a dozen times for the Pushcart Prize. Her poems have been published widely in journals such as Beloit Poetry Journal, 32 Poems, Plume, Thrush, Tar River Poetry, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Hayden is an actor with extensive theatre credits as well as appearances in Mindhunter, House of Cards, Outsiders, Do No Harm and as the voice of a broken-down stove for Ikea. She is founder and director of No River Twice (poetry + improvisation) an interactive, audience-driven poetry reading/performance group based in the Philadelphia area. Find more online at www.haydensaunier.com.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry Reading
2023-03-08 19:30 - 21:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Live Poetry Reading
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
Zoom Link Here!
Eileen M. D’Angelo, twice nominated for a Pennsylvania Governor’s Award in the Arts, she received two Pushcart Prize / Best of the Small Press nominations from Verse Magazine and Schuylkill Valley Journal. Her poetry, essays and book reviews have been published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the News of Delaware County, Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century, Manhattan Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, Drexel Online Journal, Wild River Review, Philadelphia Stories, Philadelphia Poets, The Independent Review, Negative Capability, One Trick Pony, Odessa Poetry Journal, The Aurealean, Bookends, and others.
Mabel Lee is a native of Philadelphia, where she teaches middle school Spanish and participates in various literary and poetry groups. She is a language, travel, and adventure enthusiast who enjoys backpacking around the world. She believes in the transformative and connective power of poetry within and across communities and language as a bridge towards knowing and helping others. Her work has been published in Aji Magazine, The 5-2 Crime Weekly, Apiary Magazine, Metropolis, and the Sips Poetry Cards series. She is currently an editor for a new poetry and art magazine called Dark Onus Lit.
Hermond Palmer is a poet, author and song writer who has performed his work at spoken-word venues in and around Harlem, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton Graduate School of Business. He has published three books of poetry; Echoes from the Quiet that I Keep, Words to Fill the Light in You, and What the Ancestors Told Me and I Decided to Listen.
Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry Reading
2023-03-15 19:30 - 21:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link: Zoom Link Here
Adam Gianforcaro is a writer living in Wilmington, Delaware. His most recent collection, Every Living Day, was released in February with Thirty West Publishing House. His work examines queerness, mental health, climate change, and the universe at large, inviting the reader to question whether those things are so different after all. He was a runner-up in The Maine Review’s 2021 Embody Awards and a winner of Button Poetry’s 2018 Short Form Contest
Lindsay Hargrave is a poet, one quarter of the improvised music group Oarsman, the author of a poetry column in the Philly Plain Dealer and a copywriter for Temple University. Proceeds from their debut chapbook ROT (2022) benefit ARC Southeast. Read more at https://linktr.ee/Hargrave or follow @notporkroll on Twitter.
Alison Lubar teaches high school English by day and yoga by night. They are a queer, nonbinary, mixed-race femme whose life work (aside from wordsmithing) has evolved into bringing mindfulness practices, and sometimes even poetry, to young people. Their work has been nominated for both the Pushcart & Best of the Net, and they’re the author four chapbooks: Philosophers Know Nothing About Love, queer feast, sweet euphemism, and it skips a generation. You can find out more at http://www.alisonlubar.com/ or on Twitter @theoriginalison.
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows
