Author: Kristin Kowalski Ferragut

Thursday, April 3rd, Reading Featuring Ellen Aronofsky Cole and Julie Bloss Kelsey 7:00-8:30 pm

Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.

At Casey Community Center, 810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

Ellen Aronofsky Cole’s books include Notes from the Dry Country, (Mayapple Press, 2019) and Prognosis, (Finishing Line Press, 2011.) Journal publications include Bellevue Literary Review, Gargoyle, Little Patuxent Review, Potomac
Review, Innisfree, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Fledgling Rag, New Verse News. Ekphrastic Review and The Mid-Atlantic Review. Her work was featured on Verse Daily and nominated for Best of the Net. Ellen lives in Silver Spring with her husband Brian and a feisty parrot named Haiku.

Julie Bloss Kelsey is an internationally published and award-winning haiku poet. She is the current Secretary of The Haiku Foundation, where she serves on the Board of Directors. Julie started writing haiku in 2009, after the birth of her third child. Her published work includes a free online digital chapbook, The Call of Wildflowers (Title IX Press, 2020), and two print collections, Grasping the Fading Light: A Journey Through PTSD (Sable Books, 2023) and After Curfew (Cuttlefish Books, 2023). She lives in Germantown, Maryland with her husband, kids, a bark-happy dachshund, and four tiny fish.

Thursday, March 6th, Reading Featuring Kevin Farragher and Atira Zeoli 7:00-8:30 pm

Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.

At Casey Community Center, 810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

Kevin Farragher doesn’t have a book, hasn’t won a prize and barely has a leg to stand on. He wonders at the limits of life and language and thinks there might be overlap. The Tower of Babel is in his backyard, as is a garden gnome he calls Chomsky. His ears have heard the holy word that dwelt among the ancient trees, yet he remains steadfast in his appreciation of ambient noise.

Atira Zeoli has been writing poetry since she was three years old. Raised in the flat farmland of Poolesville, Maryland, and the mountain vistas of Northern Arizona, she was an active member of Sedona’s poetry community, earning a feature in Red Rock News (2005) and performing at Gumptionfest (2006, 2007) and the 7th Annual Slab City Slam as the sacrificial poet (2007). She won the 2007 Montgomery College Award for Creative Writing and the 2008 Danielle C. Ezrin Creative Writing Scholarship for her poem Tabula Rasa. She also interned at Potomac Review. From 2007-2008, she ran the Open Mind/Open Mic series in Germantown, MD.

She is the author of the self-published chapbook we all have belly buttons, and other notions of suffering and was a contributing writer for If I Knew, a multimedia health education initiative for young adults. Her poetry is forthcoming in the spring issue of PLENTY. Atira has led creative writing workshops in schools for many years and teaches writing classes at Riverworks Arts Center.

Thursday, February 6th, Reading Featuring Clifford Bernier and Khalil Fahie 7:00-8:30 pm

Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.

At Casey Community Center, 810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

Clifford Bernier’s The Silent Art won the Gival Press Poetry Award. He is also the author of Dark Berries and Earth Suite, each selected by the Montserrat Review as a Best Chapbook. Ocean Suite published in September 2024 and Wetlands is forthcoming. He appears in The Write Blend poetry circle collection among other print and online journals and anthologies. In addition, Mr. Bernier appears on harmonica in the Portuguese Accumulated Dust world music series and is featured on the EP Post-Columbian America. He has been featured in readings in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Washington, DC area, including the Library of Congress, the Arts Club of Washington, George Washington University (where he is a member of the Washington Writer’s Collection) and the Bethesda Writer’s Center. He has been a reader for the Washington Prize and a judge for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Poetry Out Loud recitation contest. From 2003-2008 he hosted the Poesis reading series in Arlington, Virginia and performed with the Jazzpoetry band at venues in and around Washington, DC. He has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net Award. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Khalil Fahie was born in Brooklyn, New York, and his parents are from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. His dad enjoys reading and came across The Prophet written by Kahlil Gibran. His father decided to name him after Kahlil Gibran because he found his writings to be phenomenal. Khalil’s inspiration to write has been from his wife, family, and the world that surrounds us. Khalil is musically inclined and enjoys playing music with his family. His brother Desmond makes and plays his music and continues to challenge Khalil to excel at what he loves. If you would like to check out his music, please go to the following: Linktr.ee/dfoymusic. Writing poetry allows him to unlock the unseen magic in the world. He will write what he feels and feel what he writes. Khalil feels that a part of happiness is being able to help one another through the journey called life. His goal is to continue to write and inspire those with the desire to be inspired.

Thursday, December 5th, Reading Featuring CL Bledsoe, Barbara DeCesare, and Donald Illich 7:00-8:30 pm

Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.

At Casey Community Center, 810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than twenty-five books, including the poetry collections Riceland, Trashcans in Love, Grief Bacon, The Bottle Episode, and Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe co-writes the humor blog How to Even, with Michael Gushue. He’s been published in hundreds of journals, newspapers, and websites that you’ve probably never heard of. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia with his daughter.

Poetry and fiction by Barbara DeCesare have appeared in Grain, Poetry, Alaska Quarterly, and many other journals. Her work has been adapted for song and stage. She is a graduate of the Goddard MFA program, and the author of three poetry collections: Jigsweyesore (Anti-Man), Adrift (Seventh Wave), and Silent Type (Paper Kite Press)

Donald Illich‘s work appears in such journals as Iowa Review, LIT, Nimrod, Passages North, TheSouthern Review, and Rattle. His full-length manuscript, Chance Bodies, was published in 2018 by The Word Works. A full-length poetry collection, Rescue is Elsewhere, was released in 2023 by Red Ogre Review via a Science Fiction; Fantasy Writers Association grant. A new book, Love Poems on Bar Napkins, was released in 2024 by Red Ogre Review.

Thursday, November 7th, Reading Featuring Kathleen O’Toole and Sid Gold 7:00-8:30 pm

Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.

At Casey Community Center, 810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

Kathleen O’Toole is the author of four poetry collections, most recently This Far (2019 Paraclete Press). Her poems have appeared widely in journals and magazines; awards include the 2020 Connecticut River Review Poetry Prize. She served as Poet Laureate of Takoma Park MD from 2018-2022.

Sid Gold is the author of five books of poetry, including Very Eyes (Poets’ Choice, ’23), which also includes 10 color prints of his paintings. He is a twice recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award for Poetry and in 2019 he was voted among Baltimore’s Best Poets in Baltimore Magazine‘s Annual Reader’s Poll. His work appears in three anthologies. He poems have appeared in reviews and journals for 45 years, including publications such as Poet Lore, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Gargoyle, Schuylkill Valley Journals, Free State Review and Backbone Mountain Review, among others. A native New Yorker, he has lived in Hyattsville MD for a number of years.

Thursday, October 3rd, Reading Featuring Le Hinton and Lisa J. Munson 7:00-8:30 pm

Open Mic following the Featured Readers — feel free to share one poem, one page.

At Casey Community Center, 810 S Frederick Ave, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

Poet and publisher, Le Hinton, is the author of seven collections including, most recently, Elegies for an Empire (2023) and Sing Silence (2018), both from Iris G. Press. His work has been widely published and can be found in The Best American Poetry 2014, The Baltimore Review, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Progressive magazine, Little Patuxent Review, Pleiades, The Summerset Review, and elsewhere. His poems have received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize and have been nominated for Best of the Net. His poem, “Epidemic,” won The Baltimore Review’s 2013 Winter Writers Contest. In 2014 it was honored by The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, and in 2021 it was featured on the WPSU program, “Poetry Moment.” His poem, “Our Ballpark,” can be found outside Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, incorporated into Derek Parker’s sculpture Common Thread.

Lisa J. Munson is a prize-winning poet and co-editor of the poetry journal Fledgling Rag (pub. Iris G. Press). Currently her poem the next storm received an honorable mention for the 2024 PA Poetry Society’s (PPS) 75th Anniversary Ars Poetica / Poetry Competition. Although her work recently appeared in Tony Israel’s photo exhibit “Living Roots, Artists for Climate Action” in Lancaster, PA, her poetry publication credits include The Sylvan, MiPOesias, The Delaware Poetry Review, Cape Gazette, Haggard and Halloo, and Amaranth. She has been an adjudicator for the World Artists Experiences’ Writing Project and Poetry Out Loud Regional Competition as well as a featured reader in the Lancaster, and mid-Atlantic areas. During her tenure in Maryland, she established and ran the reading series Poetry in the Park in Severna Park. Although her academic and former lives as musician, teacher, and paralegal have informed her work as a poet, her highly sensitive, intuitive, perceptive nature, and Buddhism continue to shape and influence the themes of connection, love, and profound loss found in her poetry.