First Sunday Prose Reading and Open Mic

Presented by the Writers Guild

with featured readers

Lisa Kwong

and

Joan Hawkins

Sunday, February 4th

7:00-8:30 P.M.

Morgenstern’s

849 S Auto Mall Road

Come early to sign up for Open Mic!

Primarily known for her poetry, Lisa Kwong’s first major writing memory is of writing imitations of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series and reading the results aloud weekly to her fifth grade classmates. While she is still a fan of novels and short stories, in recent years Kwong has gravitated toward creative nonfiction, exploring topics like her educational experiences, pop culture, and Asian American issues.

Lisa Kwong is the author of a poetry chapbook, Becoming AppalAsian (Glass Lyre Press), and an Affrilachian Poet. Her poems have appeared in Best New Poets, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and other publications. She teaches at Indiana University and Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, Indiana.

Joan Hawkins is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at IU Bloomington. Her creative work and poetry have appeared in Sand, The Ryder, Avalanches of Poetry, Fevers of the Mind, Plath Profiles, n+1, and the Performing Arts Journal. A book of short memoir pieces, School and Suicide, was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022.  With jazz-collage artist Kyle Quass, she released a spoken word and sound collage CD, Pragis. A chapbook of poetry, The Burroughs Hour, was published in 2023 by Grind Stone Press.