The poets will read both published work and work from soon-to-be released collections. A book signing will follow the reading.

Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is the recipient of the 2015 Barnes and Noble Writers For Writers Award, and the founder and curator of Calypso Muse and the Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series. Cheryl earned an MFA in Poetry from Stonecoast: The University of Southern Maine, and an MSW from Fordham University. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Raw Air, Night When Moon Follows, and Convincing the Body. A poetry judge for The New York Foundation for the Arts, and The Astraea Foundation, she has facilitated poetry workshops for Cave Canem, Poets & Writers, Poets House, and The Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center. Her poetry has been commissioned by Jacob’s Pillow, The Joyce Theater, and the National Endowment for the Arts for Ronald K. Brown: Evidence, A Dance Company. Her work has been published in Callaloo, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Pluck!, Killings Journal of Arts & Letters, Adrienne, and Prairie Schooner. Her fourth book Arrival, is forthcoming from Northwestern University Press in 2017.

Joy Ladin is the author of seven books of poetry, including Lambda Literary Award finalists Impersonation and Transmigration; her eighth book, Fireworks in the Graveyard, is forthcoming in fall 2018 from Headmistress Press. Her memoir of gender transition, Through the Door of Life, was a 2012 National Jewish Book Award finalist. Her work has been recognized with a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship, among other honors. She holds the Gottesman Chair in English at Yeshiva University. Her poems and essays are available at joyladin.com.

Lesléa Newman is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, children’s book writer and anthologist whose 70 books include the children’s classic, Heather Has Two Mommies and the poetry collections, Still Life with Buddy, Nobody’s Mother, Signs of Love, and October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard (novel-in-verse) which received a Stonewall Honor from the American Library Association. Ms. Newman’s literary awards include poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation; the Burning Bush Poetry Prize; and second place runner-up in the Solstice Literary Journal poetry competition. Her poetry has been published in Spoon River Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, Evergreen Chronicles, Lilith Magazine, Kalliope, The Sun, Bark Magazine, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Seventeen Magazine and others. From 2008-2010 she served as the poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts. Her most recent poetry collection, I Carry My Mother, received the 2016 Golden Crown Literary Society Poetry Award (“Goldie”) and was named a “Must-Read” title by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.