“Birds are my almanac. They tune me into the seasons, and into myself.”

Priyanka Kumar is the author of Conversations with Birds. Her essays and criticism appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Huffington Post, and High Country News.

Scott Russell Sanders is the author of more than twenty books of fiction, essays, and personal narrative, including A Private History of Awe, Hunting for Hope, and The Way of Imagination. His latest book is Small Marvels: A Novel-in-Stories. 

Erin Sharkey, Naima Penniman, J. Wortham and Alexis Pauline Gumbs will discuss their relationships to ancestry, the archive and to healing with and through their relationships to land and the natural world.

The anthology where their work appears, A Darker Wilderness, is a constellation of luminary writers reflecting on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of the essays included engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots...

Please join editor Erin Sharkey and contributors Bino, Michael Kleber-Diggs, and katie robinson in collaboration with Free Black Dirt, Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, and We Are All Criminals for a very special event!

Books will be sold from Moon Palace Books.

Join Sasha Lapointe for a reading and conversation to celebrate the launch of her debut collection, Rose Quartz.

Writer and filmmaker Priyanka Kumar joins us for a conversation about her new essay collection, Conversations with Birds. 

"A bird the color of mangoes, a beachcomber with a crescent-moon bill, the owl who controls the dark side of nature: in unforgettable encounters with feathered neighbors like these, Priyanka Kumar charts the life-changing surprise and splendor that birds can bring. They open the heart. They widen the soul. For Kumar, a peripatetic filmmaker and often a stranger in a strange land, birds have revealed connection and created wholeness. How grateful I am for the chance to join this generous author’s lyrical, intimate,...

Join Claire Wahmanholm, Edgar Kunz in celebration of their books with a reading and conversation at The Ivy Bookshop. 

Join Elizabeth Metzger for a reading and conversation celebrating her collection Lying In.

Join The Lighthouse Writers Workshop for a writerly night in which attendees are encouraged to independently write 500 words in the first hour and then join us for a book release celebration for John Cotter's Losing Music. This event is free for current Lighthouse members, and guests are welcome to join for a $5 fee.

4:30–5:30 PM:  Come together and write
5:30–6:30 PM:  John Cotter's reading and conversation with Mike Henry