Sandra Beasley
Date: Friday, December 1, 2023
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Sandra Beasley — who first visited Charlotte Lit as the second 4X4CLT poet in 2016 — is the author of Made to Explode, winner of the Housatonic Book Award; Count the Waves; I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize; and Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. She also edited Vinegar and Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. In spring 2023, she was Davidson College’s McGee Visiting Professor of Creative Writing. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Mary Szybist
Date: Friday, March 22, 2024
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Mary Szybist is the author of Incarnadine, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry. She the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and two Pushcart Prize anthologies. Her first book, Granted, won the 2004 GLCA New Writers Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A native of Williamsport, PA, she now lives in Portland, OR, where she teaches at Lewis & Clark College.
Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Date: Thursday, June 22, 2023
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), and Rocket Fantastic, winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Calvocoressi is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University; a Rona Jaffe Woman Writer’s Award; a Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, TX; the Bernard F. Conners Prize from The Paris Review; and a residency from the Civitella di Ranieri Foundation, among others. Calvocoressi’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including The Baffler, The New York Times, POETRY, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an Editor at Large at Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry Editor at Southern Cultures. Works in progress include a non-fiction book entitled, The Year I Didn’t Kill Myself and a novel, The Alderman of the Graveyard. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Date: Thursday, March 30, 2023
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of a book of nature essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, which was named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in non-fiction, and four award-winning poetry collections, most recently, Oceanic (2018). Awards for her writing include fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Council, Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for poetry, National Endowment of the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, and Best American Poetry. She is professor of English and creative writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
Erin Belieu
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2023
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Erin Belieu is the author of five poetry collections, all from Copper Canyon Press, including 2021’s Come-Hither Honeycomb. A Rona Jaffe Fellow and recent winner of the AWP George Garett prize, her poems have appeared in places such as The New Yorker, Poetry, Slate, Atlantic Monthly and the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, and have been selected for multiple appearances in the Best American Poetry anthology series. Born and raised in Omaha, NE, Belieu now lives in Houston, where she teaches in the University of Houston’s MFA/Ph.D. creative writing program.
Chen Chen
Date: Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Location: Starlight on 22nd, NoDa
Chen Chen’s second book, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, is forthcoming from BOA Editions in September 2022. His debut, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry and three editions of The Best American Poetry. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He was the 2018-2022 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University and currently teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast.
