Literary Night: Readings on the Main Stage
Join nonprofits Yellow Arrow Publishing and the Highlandtown Arts & Entertainment District and Highlandtown Main Street in celebrating local writers at the first ever Literary Night, our August 2 takeover of the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk. From 5 to 9 PM, participate in hands-on writing activities and a scavenger hunt, and meet dozens of local authors, writers, and small presses spread throughout Highlandtown’s participating galleries, shops, and eateries!
From 6 to 8 PM, join us for food and drinks as we listen to local writers read their work from our main stage at Rooftop Hot. Learn about each featured writer below.
There is plenty of free and paid parking in Highlandtown, so come on down to 339 S Conkling Street in Baltimore from 5 to 9 PM and join us for a memorable night of literature!
Jean P. Pula was raised in the Fell's Point neighborhood, living her entire life in Southeast Baltimore. She grew up in a lively and artistic household with her parents, 5 siblings, plus an aunt and uncle. Jean writes in her spare time, which never seems to be enough. She lives in the Canton neighborhood with her significant other, as well as an overly enthusiastic dog and a cat who rules with an iron paw.
Jean will emcee on the main stage in addition to sharing a reading of her own work.
Jessica Gregg is the editor of Baltimore Style magazine and also oversees Baltimore's Child and Washington Family magazines. She is a Baltimore booster, proud rowhouse dweller, the mother of two teenagers, and an avid poetry reader. Her poetry collection "News from this Lonesome City" will be published this year by Finishing Line Press.
Kerry Graham lives, teaches, writes and runs in East Baltimore. Her vignettes have appeared, or are forthcoming, in borrowed solace, The Citron Review, Crack the Spine, and Gravel. She is a regular contributor to Role Reboot, and runs a collaborative weekly newsletter called In This Together.
Born and raised in Gary, Indiana, Nikita C. Anderson holds an M.A. degree in English from Morgan State University, with a concentration in Screenwriting and Cinematic Storytelling and an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. She currently resides in Baltimore, MD.
Sherry Burton Ways, an award winning Author, Speaker, Designer, Certified Design Psychology Coach, Certified Feng Shui Consultant, Certified Interior Color Consultant, Certified Interior Environment Coach, and Certified Color Therapist. Her mission is to use her creative gifts to inspire and educate people and organizations to create peaceful and productive interior environments.
Sherry is the author of the award winning, Amazon Best Selling book, Feel Good Spaces: A Guide to Decorating Your Home for the Body, Mind and Spirit (2012). The book also was a winner of the "How-To" Category at the 2013 National Green Book Festival. Ways has also contributed to two other books: The Art & Science of Loving Yourself: 'Cause Your Business Should Complete You, Not Deplete You, edited by Margo DeGange and Simply Color for Everyday Living, edited by Diantha Harris. www.sherryburtonways.com
Shunda Colvin is a southern fiction writer currently based in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her MFA from the University of Baltimore. When she’s not working as a web content editor, she’s planning her next road trip.
Bailey Drumm is an MFA graduate from the University of Baltimore’s Creative Writing and Publishing Arts program. She writes short stories, book reviews, and creative non-fiction. Her written work has been published in Grub Street, and artwork featured as the cover art of Welter. Bailey-Drumm.square.site
Marylou Fusco grew up in the wilds of New Jersey and knew she was a writer for nearly forever. She has her M.A in English from Temple University and has worked as a GED instructor, ghost tour guide and general assignment reporter. Her fiction has appeared in Carve, Swink, So to Speak, Rumble and Philadelphia Stories magazine. She lives with her family in Baltimore and is completing a novel.
Rissa Miller is a working artist living in Maryland. She loves early morning light filtering through stained glass, hot green tea in antique teacups, huge salads picked fresh from the garden and walks in the woods. She studied writing at New York University/Tisch School of the Arts and photojournalism at Western Kentucky University. Several years as an editor at the Baltimore Sun instilled her with a love of the city. She’s sure she can feel the pulse of Baltimore’s gritty telltale heart each time she walks the streets of Remington, Fells, Highlandtown and every other inch of Charm City. When she’s not writing, Rissa finds her way to local theater, loves baking vegan cupcakes, and as often as possible, gets lost in libraries. She works as Senior Editor for the Vegetarian Journal. Goodnight, Poet is her second chapbook.
Sara Palmer wrote her first poem in second grade. Since then, poetry has been a vehicle for self-expression, healing, and enjoyment. During her career as a psychologist, Sara specialized in helping people cope with physical disability, chronic illness, and caregiving. She co-authored three books published by the Johns Hopkins University Press Health Book series (Spinal Cord Injury: A Guide for Living; When Your Spouse Has a Stroke: Caring for Your Partner, Yourself and Your Relationship; and Just One of the Kids: Raising a Resilient Family When One of Your Children Has a Physical Disability), and is the solo author of another book in that series, Living with HHT: Understanding and Managing Your Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (2017). Now retired from psychology, Sara recently re-engaged in imaginative writing through classes offered by Yellow Arrow Publishing, the Writers’ Center and Everyman Theater. This is her first public poetry reading.
Eva Quintos Tennant is a DC/MD-based writer, photographer and creative director. The youngest daughter of Filipino-American parents, she is a graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of Maryland and earned her MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. She and her husband share their home with two rambunctious rescue collies and a lifetime collection of books. Her work has appeared in Welter, River River, and other publications. Pain of the Littlest Finger, her thesis short story collection, is available at eqtennant.com. Follow her on Twitter @picasandprose
Ali J. Varden is an author based in Maryland. She recently graduated with her Bachelors in English from the University of Montevallo and has since been internationally published for her short stories by Vine Leaves Press and Sigma Tau Delta. When she isn’t giving herself unrealistic deadlines for her first novel, she can usually be found either drinking way more coffee than is good for her, telling her anxious cat everything’s going to be okay, or getting lost in bookstores with her husband. If you’d like to learn more about her upcoming YA Fantasy novel, Anomalous, visit her website at www.alijvarden.com and sign up for her newsletter! Or visit her on Twitter (@AJVarden) and Instagram (@VardenWrites).
b.a.w. lives, writes, and designs in Baltimore City where she tries her best and minds her business. Her writing is inspired by black women, bizarre news headlines, and early 2000s TV dramedies. When not writing about dead bodies, she’s partial to reading modern romance novels and listening to podcasts. No matter where she is, when it is, or what she’s doing, there’s a 99.9% chance that she is tired. You can follow her online at bawthewriter.com.
Tracy Dimond co-curates Ink Press Productions. A 2016 Baker Artist Award finalist, she is the author of four chapbooks, including: TO TRACY LIKE / TO LIKE / LIKE, I WANT YOUR TAN, Grind My Bones Into Glitter, Then Swim Through The Shimmer, and Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today. She collaborated with Amanda McCormick on the performance, DID YOU COVER UP? a blend of I WANT YOUR TAN and Amanda McCormick’s & THE GREEN. She works in library events. She holds her MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore.
Amanda McCormick is an experiential performer & writer whose work has appeared in a variety of forms & mediums over the past decade. She is the founder of Ink Press Productions in Baltimore where she explores publishing as its own artistic medium and means to connect. She received her MFA from University of Baltimore where she now teaches. Amanda is the author of several books including & THE GREEN, a feminist retelling of growth and loss, taken from the source text Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, and AMANDA, a project of poetry that deals with the physical, experienced, and internalized selfhood of the artist-human who navigates society and the natural world in a slant framework of love and existence.