Plum City Reading Series is Literary Cleveland's new regular reading series bringing the country's most interesting and groundbreaking authors to Cleveland. Plum City aims to highlight the work of independent publishers while thoughtfully curating celebratory evenings of literature and community.
Join us for our second 2024 reading in partnership with Kundiman Midwest featuring local poet Philip Metres, author of the newly-released Fugitive/Refuge, alongside incredible visiting authors Helene Achanzar, Asha Thanki, and Jess Yuan.
This installment of the Plum City Reading Series will take place Wednesday June 12th at 7 pm at Loganberry Books (13015 Larchmere in Cleveland), to be immediately followed by an afterparty at the Literary Cleveland Offices (13002 Larchmere).
NOTE: In keeping with our mission, to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, the registration fee for this event is "Pay What You Can." We believe every writer, reader, storyteller, and literary enthusiast who wants to attend a Literary Cleveland event should be able to have that experience. "Pay What You Can" registration allows comfortable, affordable participation for everyone. We have suggested fees—you can pay one of them, or pay what you can. Your participation is the priority for us.
Helene Achanzar is a poet and editor whose writing has appeared in Sixth Finch, Quarterly West, Georgia Review, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2022 New England Review Award for Emerging Writers, her work has been supported by Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Mastheads. She is a senior editor for Poetry Northwest, Midwest Regional Chair for Kundiman, and Director of Programs at the Chicago Poetry Center.
Philip Metres is the author of ten books, including Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon 2020). His other works include The Sound of Listening (essays), Pictures at an Exhibition (poems), the translation I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky, and Sand Opera. His work has garnered fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as six Ohio Arts Council grants, the Hunt Prize, the Adrienne Rich Award, two Arab American Book Awards, the Watson Fellowship, the Lyric Poetry Award, the Alice James Award, the Creative Workforce Fellowship, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University.
Asha Thanki is the author of the novel A Thousand Times Before, forthcoming 2024 from Viking Books. An essayist and fiction writer, Asha’s work has appeared in The Southern Review, Platypus Press’ wildness, The Common, Catapult, Hyphen, and more. She is the winner of the 2019 Arkansas International Emerging Writers Prize and fourth prizewinner of Zoetrope: All Story’s 2020 Short Fiction Competition. A Kundiman fellow, Asha has received a Randall Kenan Scholarship at Sewanee Writers Conference, Fiction Scholarship with Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature (Speculative Literature Foundation). She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota.
Jess Yuan is a poet, educator, and architect. She is the author of Slow Render (2024), winner of the Airlie Prize, and Threshold Amnesia (2020), selected by Justin Phillip Reed as winner of the Yemassee Chapbook Contest. Jess has received fellowships from Kundiman and Miami Writers Institute, and her poems appear in Best New Poets, Tupelo Quarterly Review, jubilat, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, and elsewhere. Jess received her BA in Architecture from Yale and Master in Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and has taught architectural studios at Wentworth and Boston Architectural College. She is a licensed architect in Massachusetts and Certified Passive House Consultant. Jess is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins; she and her spouse split their time between Boston (Massachusett, Pawtucket, and Naumkeag land) and Baltimore (Susquehannock and Piscataway land).
Presented in collaboration with Kundiman Midwest.
Plum City Reading Series is Literary Cleveland's new regular reading series bringing the country's most interesting and groundbreaking authors to Cleveland. Plum City aims to highlight the work of independent publishers while thoughtfully curating celebratory evenings of literature and community.
Join us for our second 2024 reading in partnership with Kundiman Midwest featuring local poet Philip Metres, author of the newly-released Fugitive/Refuge, alongside incredible visiting authors Helene Achanzar, Asha Thanki, and Jess Yuan.
This installment of the Plum City Reading Series will take place Wednesday June 12th at 7 pm at Loganberry Books (13015 Larchmere in Cleveland), to be immediately followed by an afterparty at the Literary Cleveland Offices (13002 Larchmere).
NOTE: In keeping with our mission, to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, the registration fee for this event is "Pay What You Can." We believe every writer, reader, storyteller, and literary enthusiast who wants to attend a Literary Cleveland event should be able to have that experience. "Pay What You Can" registration allows comfortable, affordable participation for everyone. We have suggested fees—you can pay one of them, or pay what you can. Your participation is the priority for us.
Helene Achanzar is a poet and editor whose writing has appeared in Sixth Finch, Quarterly West, Georgia Review, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2022 New England Review Award for Emerging Writers, her work has been supported by Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Mastheads. She is a senior editor for Poetry Northwest, Midwest Regional Chair for Kundiman, and Director of Programs at the Chicago Poetry Center.
Philip Metres is the author of ten books, including Shrapnel Maps (Copper Canyon 2020). His other works include The Sound of Listening (essays), Pictures at an Exhibition (poems), the translation I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky, and Sand Opera. His work has garnered fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as six Ohio Arts Council grants, the Hunt Prize, the Adrienne Rich Award, two Arab American Book Awards, the Watson Fellowship, the Lyric Poetry Award, the Alice James Award, the Creative Workforce Fellowship, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University.
Asha Thanki is the author of the novel A Thousand Times Before, forthcoming 2024 from Viking Books. An essayist and fiction writer, Asha’s work has appeared in The Southern Review, Platypus Press’ wildness, The Common, Catapult, Hyphen, and more. She is the winner of the 2019 Arkansas International Emerging Writers Prize and fourth prizewinner of Zoetrope: All Story’s 2020 Short Fiction Competition. A Kundiman fellow, Asha has received a Randall Kenan Scholarship at Sewanee Writers Conference, Fiction Scholarship with Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the A.C. Bose Grant for South Asian Speculative Literature (Speculative Literature Foundation). She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota.
Jess Yuan is a poet, educator, and architect. She is the author of Slow Render (2024), winner of the Airlie Prize, and Threshold Amnesia (2020), selected by Justin Phillip Reed as winner of the Yemassee Chapbook Contest. Jess has received fellowships from Kundiman and Miami Writers Institute, and her poems appear in Best New Poets, Tupelo Quarterly Review, jubilat, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, and elsewhere. Jess received her BA in Architecture from Yale and Master in Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and has taught architectural studios at Wentworth and Boston Architectural College. She is a licensed architect in Massachusetts and Certified Passive House Consultant. Jess is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins; she and her spouse split their time between Boston (Massachusett, Pawtucket, and Naumkeag land) and Baltimore (Susquehannock and Piscataway land).
Presented in collaboration with Kundiman Midwest.
