The Writers Guild at Bloomington is an association of writers committed to mutual support and the professional development of their craft. Its mission is to foster interaction among writers as well as other artists, educators, and the Monroe County public, thereby enhancing the vibrancy of the arts and the writing community in the greater Bloomington area.
Events Calendar
Love Letter(ing) Opening Night & exhibit
Feb 1 at 5 pm to 8 pm
Gather Handmade Shoppe & Co.
116 N. Walnut
Lisa Kwong will be reading plus you can read your own Love Letters!
For the month of February we will be putting Love Letters on display to commemorate . . . well, Love!
Leave your Love letter with us to put on display for the month of February, and pick back up at the end of the month if you wish! Even better, volunteer to read your Love letter at a scheduled reading to happen the night of the opening!
Your Love letters can (of course) be to anyone! Maybe you want to write a Love letter to Michelle Obama, or your partner, or your first born, or even yourself! The world is full of Love, and we want to capture it on paper!
Have a Love letter you’ve already written (or received) and would like it to be part of the exhibition? No problem! Come by the event and drop it off, and have a glass of wine while you’re at it, and just join in the fun!
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Lisa Kwong is the undergraduate lecturer for Asian American Studies at Indiana University.
Born and raised in Radford, Virginia, Ms. Kwong identifies as an AppalAsian writer. She is a distinguished creative writing alumna of Appalachian State University and earned an MFA in poetry from Indiana University. Her poems and creative nonfiction are forthcoming or have appeared in A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Best New Poets 2014, the minnesota review, Banango Street, Still: The Journal, Naugatuck River Review, Appalachian Heritage, Pluck!, The Sleuth, and other journals. Her work has also been featured on the Line Poetry Podcast. She has received poetry scholarships and fellowships from Indiana University, The Frost Place, and Sundress Academy for the Arts, where she was the 2017 Appalachian Writer-in-Residence. As an active member of the Writers Guild at Bloomington, she coordinated Fountain Square Poetry series from 2012-2018. She has also served as faculty adviser for the IU Slam Poetry Club.
First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic
Presented by the Writers Guild at Bloomington
The featured readers are: Tom Bitters, Julia Karr and Gilbert Ndahayo
SOMA Coffeehouse, 322 E Kirkwood (under the Laughing Planet; more or less across from the MCPL)
Come early to sign up for Open Mic!
Tom Bitters is a volunteer tutor in the VITAL program at the Monroe County Public Library, where he also
serves on the Friends of the Library Board. His short fiction has appeared in the Berkshire Review, Hampshire Life and more recently in the Ryder fiction issue. His ninth-grade English teacher encouraged him to write more fiction after she read a note he turned in, supposedly from his parents, excusing him from class one day.
After teaching for several years in South Korea and Russia, he returned to the U.S. in 2013 and chose to retire in Bloomington. In the early morning hours, he can usually be found at the Sample Gates Starbucks where the clerks serve him with kindness even though he doesn’t tip well.
Julia Karr is the published author of three young adult novels, various essays, and a small amount of poetry.
Her love of words started at a very young age, and has never stopped. When she was in elementary school, one of the things she was known for was reading the dictionary – for fun. She still does that. She shares her home with two crazy cats – one of whom may be the devil incarnate.
Gilbert Ndahayo is an acclaimed Rwandan filmmaker who has produced several documentaries, and 
recently published his first book, Rwanda: Coming to the Memory. The book is adapted from his 2009 documentary film, Rwanda: Beyond the Deadly Pit, for which he received an African Movie Award Academy Award Nomination.
Susan D. Gubar Lecture will be given by poet Patricia Lockwood
on March 6th at 5 pm in the Neal-Marshall Grand Hall.
In preparation for her visit, we will be holding a reading group on her acclaimed memoir Priestdaddy on Friday, February 15th from 10am-12pm at College of Arts and Humanities Institute (1211 Atwater Avenue, Bloomington).
The discussion will be led by Cathy Bowman and Stephanie Li. We welcome students, faculty, staff and members of the Bloomington community to join the conversation about this moving and often hilarious book. Bagels and coffee will be served.
Named one the Ten Best Books of 2017 by the New York Times, Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy (Riverhead Books) is an unforgettable memoir of growing up in a family with a guitar- shredding priest for a father. Lockwood’s father, a Lutheran, converted to Catholicism after watching The Exorcist in a submarine, what he claims was the “deepest conversion on record.” Having received a dispensation from the authorities, Lockwood’s father became that rare thing—a married Catholic priest—and Lockwood herself “a human loophole.” Both hilarious and deeply moving, Priestdaddy is ultimately an exploration of our divided and contradictory world, in language so exuberant that it seems to bless everything it names.
Patricia Lockwood is also the author of two collections of poetry, Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Penguin, 2014) and Balloon Pop Outlaw Black (Octopus Books, 2012). Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, London Review of Books, Tin House, and Poetry.
Spoken Word Series
Last Sunday Poetry Reading and Open Mic
Presented by the Writers Guild at Bloomington
Writer Guest Readers R. Joe Betz and Tony Brewer
Followed by an Open Mic
It’s all free!
Free parking in the back too.
Joe Betz earned his MFA from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and moved to Bloomington with his
partner eight years ago. His poems appear or are forthcoming in journals such as Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter, and Crab Orchard Review. He is an Associate Professor of English at Ivy Tech Community College-Bloomington.
First Sunday Prose Reading & Open Mic
At our NEW VENUE
Bear’s Place
1316 E 3rd St
With guest readers Kalynn Brower, Lisa Kwong, and Shana Ritter
PLEASE NOTE EARLIER TIME
(Parking in back and also free in the Jordan Lot if there’s not a special event)
Come early to sign up for Open Mic!
Kalynn Brower is a multi-media storyteller and educator. Her YA series chronicling the Bosque Family Adventures 
to Blue Grannus and Green Terra is a delight. As is the show she’s currently hosting on WFHB, Eco Report. She’s an eco-warrior and a feminist, the producer of the wonderful Stardust and Moonbeams. And a smart, witty presence in public school classrooms, where she shares her passion and her work.
Lisa Kwong is an AppalAsian writer in the Midwest, where she currently teaches courses in Asian American Studies 
and English at Indiana University. Her poems and essays are forthcoming or have appeared in A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Best New Poets 2014, the minnesota review, Banango Street, Pluck!, and other journals. Her honors include poetry scholarships and fellowships from Indiana University, The Frost Place, and Sundress Academy for the Arts, where she was the 2017 Appalachian Writer-in-Residence. Lisa will be the keynote speaker at the 17th annual Vietnamese Interacting As One (VIA-1) Conference, hosted by the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations-Midwest at IU on March 22-24. She will debut a preliminary version of her keynote at this reading.
Shana Ritter’s poetry and short stories have appeared in Lilith, Fifth Wednesday, Georgetown Review and others. 
Her chapbook, Stairs of Separation, is available from Finishing Line Press. Her new novel set in Spain in 1492 will be released this month. Shana has been a recipient of the Indiana Individual Artist Grant multiple times.
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Join us next week for a reading by poet Patricia Lockwood, who will visit IU Bloomington as the 2019 Susan D. Gubar Lecture. Lockwood will give a reading at the Neal-Marshall Grand Hall and discuss her acclaimed memoir, Priestdaddy.
Spoken Word Series
$5 cover
CHARLES CULP was born and raised in a town called Vincennes. After receiving his degree in Education
fromIndiana University in 2008, he joined Americorps. Since then he has been an advocate for non-profits and community education in Colorado, Tennessee, and now in his home state of Indiana. He is passionate about making a lasting connection with readers, and he believes every person has an opportunity to grow and thrive as they discover their passions through the never-ending, formative years of our lives.
PATSY RAHN‘s poetry and prose have been published in various journals and anthologies. Her book of poetry The Grainy Wet Soul is available through online booksellers. For more information visit her website 
at https://patsyrahn.com
She worked for many years as an actress in Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles and has given poetry readings in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Bloomington. She is a founding member and chairperson emerita of the Writers Guild at Bloomington.
PAUL SMEDBERG was born early in life and, over the years, inflated to his present size and age. He enjoys long 
walks on imaginary beaches, getting imaginary sand in his inexpensive street shoes. Blissfully married with three hominid spawn, Paul came to Bloomington so long ago that pterodactyls could be seen lazily circling the courthouse dome. He did some higher ed at the local land grant and then founded and crashed a number of small businesses in a never ending quest to avoid real work. His first volume of poetry, “Event Horizon” was self-published in the late Cenozoic era.