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Midwest Writing Center presents SPECTRA
November 11, 2015
Quad-Cities Online
SPECTRA closes its fall season with award-winning poets Meg Johnson, Kyle McCord, Jennifer L. Knox, and MWC Poet-in-Residence Holly Norton on 11/19
What: Midwest Writing Center presents SPECTRA: Johnson, McCord, Knox & Norton
When: Thursday, November 19 at 8 p.m.
Where: Rozz-Tox (2108 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL)
The SPECTRA Reading Series, voted a top 10 reading series in the Midwest by LitBridge, returns to Rozz-Tox on Thursday, October 29 with three award-winning poets—Meg Johnson, Kyle McCord, and Jennifer L. Knox.
The event will also feature a set from Holly Norton, MWC’s fall Poet-in-Residence, who will also release a new limited-edition letterpress broadside at the event. Copies of the broadsides will be available for $15.
Meg Johnson is the author of the full-length poetry collection Inappropriate Sleepover (The National Poetry Review Press, 2014) which was a NewPages Editor’s Pick. Her second book, The Crimes of Clara Turlington, won the 2015 Vignette Collection Award and is forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press. Her poems have appeared in Hobart, Nashville Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Sugar House Review, Verse Daily, and others. She started dancing at a young age and worked professionally in the performing arts for many years. She is the editor of Dressing Room Poetry Journal and received her MFA in creative writing from the NEOMFA Program. She has taught writing at Iowa State University and University of Akron. Her website is: megjohnson.org and she blogs at: megjohnsonmegjohnson.blogspot.com.
Kyle McCord is the author of five books of poetry including Gentle, World, Gentler (Ampersand Books, forthcoming 2015). His third book was selected as one of five books of the year by the Poetry Foundation blog. He has work featured in AGNI, Blackbird, Boston Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly and elsewhere. He’s received grants from the Academy of American Poets, the Baltic Writing Residency, and the Vermont Studio Center. He is the founding editor of American Microreviews and Interviews. He lives and teaches in Des Moines, Iowa.
Jennifer L. Knox's new book of poems, Days of Shame and Failure, will be published by Bloof Books in October 2015. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and four times in the Best American Poetry series. She teaches at Iowa State University.
SPECTRA will start at 8 p.m., and will be free & open to the public. The Out Loud Open Mic will precede SPECTRA, running from 7-8pm. Interested performers can sign-up prior to the start of Out Loud, and will have 5 minute sets to share their original poems, stories, songs, jokes, and whatever else.
Visit the event page for this event on Facebook to read poems and watch videos of the featured poets performing their work, as well as to receive other event updates.
Please contact Ryan Collins at Midwest Writing Center if you are interested in speaking to any of the featured readers, or for more information: (563) 324-1410 | [email protected].
The 2015 season of SPECTRA manifests thanks to the generous support of the Riverboat Development Authority and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Midwest Writing Center presents SPECTRA
November 11, 2015
Quad-Cities Online
SPECTRA closes its fall season with award-winning poets Meg Johnson, Kyle McCord, Jennifer L. Knox, and MWC Poet-in-Residence Holly Norton on 11/19
What: Midwest Writing Center presents SPECTRA: Johnson, McCord, Knox & Norton
When: Thursday, November 19 at 8 p.m.
Where: Rozz-Tox (2108 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL)
The SPECTRA Reading Series, voted a top 10 reading series in the Midwest by LitBridge, returns to Rozz-Tox on Thursday, October 29 with three award-winning poets—Meg Johnson, Kyle McCord, and Jennifer L. Knox.
The event will also feature a set from Holly Norton, MWC’s fall Poet-in-Residence, who will also release a new limited-edition letterpress broadside at the event. Copies of the broadsides will be available for $15.
Meg Johnson is the author of the full-length poetry collection Inappropriate Sleepover (The National Poetry Review Press, 2014) which was a NewPages Editor’s Pick. Her second book, The Crimes of Clara Turlington, won the 2015 Vignette Collection Award and is forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press. Her poems have appeared in Hobart, Nashville Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Sugar House Review, Verse Daily, and others. She started dancing at a young age and worked professionally in the performing arts for many years. She is the editor of Dressing Room Poetry Journal and received her MFA in creative writing from the NEOMFA Program. She has taught writing at Iowa State University and University of Akron. Her website is: megjohnson.org and she blogs at: megjohnsonmegjohnson.blogspot.com.
Kyle McCord is the author of five books of poetry including Gentle, World, Gentler (Ampersand Books, forthcoming 2015). His third book was selected as one of five books of the year by the Poetry Foundation blog. He has work featured in AGNI, Blackbird, Boston Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly and elsewhere. He’s received grants from the Academy of American Poets, the Baltic Writing Residency, and the Vermont Studio Center. He is the founding editor of American Microreviews and Interviews. He lives and teaches in Des Moines, Iowa.
Jennifer L. Knox's new book of poems, Days of Shame and Failure, will be published by Bloof Books in October 2015. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and four times in the Best American Poetry series. She teaches at Iowa State University.
SPECTRA will start at 8 p.m., and will be free & open to the public. The Out Loud Open Mic will precede SPECTRA, running from 7-8pm. Interested performers can sign-up prior to the start of Out Loud, and will have 5 minute sets to share their original poems, stories, songs, jokes, and whatever else.
Visit the event page for this event on Facebook to read poems and watch videos of the featured poets performing their work, as well as to receive other event updates.
Please contact Ryan Collins at Midwest Writing Center if you are interested in speaking to any of the featured readers, or for more information: (563) 324-1410 | [email protected].
The 2015 season of SPECTRA manifests thanks to the generous support of the Riverboat Development Authority and the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
Poet Meg Johnson To Read at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, Today
September 9, 2015
Broadway World
Award-winning Iowa poet Meg Johnson will read at the Minneapolis bookstore Magers & Quinn Bookseller on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, at 7 p.m. The popular annual poetry reading event, sponsored by the Midwestern Gothic journal, invites to Minneapolis some of the most avant-garde, cutting-edge poets from across the Midwest.
Johnson is the author of poetry collection Inappropriate Sleepover (The National Poetry Review Press, 2014). She is a 2015 winner of the Vignette Collection Award and her second book, The Crimes of Clara Turlington (Vine Leaves Press), will appear in December of this year.
Johnson will read from both collections and from new work.
Poems by author Meg Johnson have appeared in a number of the nation's newest and most cutting-edge literary journals, including Midwestern Gothic, Hobart, Nashville Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Puritan, Sugar House Review, Verse Daily, and other cutting-edge poetry journals in the United States.
Midwestern Gothic, organizer of the Minneapolis event, is a national quarterly print journal that collects the very best in new Midwestern writing. In the poem "The Unfortunate Charisma" which appears in Meg Johnson's book Inappropriate Sleepover and in Midwestern Gothic's sixth issue, she writes, "my father as a young boy carves / Born To Be Wild in the boards / of the corn crib // he didn't have to tell me this / I can feel my DNA like a razor". Johnson's poem "Traveling Woman" also appears in the journals Issue 6.
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