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Meet Chrissy Stegman, Winner of the 2025 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize.
In 2021, Howard County Poetry and Literature Society launched the Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize in honor of its founding member, Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Now in its fifth year, contest judges evaluated many submissions for mechanics and technique, clarity, style/music for our contemporary age, imagery/sensory power, and emotional resonance. Congratulations to first place winner this year, Chrissy Stegman, and the poem “Please Be Kind, Rewind”. Read on to learn a little about the this poet and to hear the poem recited. Stegman was runner up for the 2022 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize. Congratulations to the poet!
Tell us about your poem, “Please Be Kind, Rewind.” How did you balance the gravitas of its content with its formal charm?
The formal constraints of “Please Be Kind, Rewind” are not ornamental, more they function as a kind of psychic architecture. The poem’s reversals, repetitions, and palindromic logic enact the speaker’s denial of the loss event itself. By fracturing the experience into segments, into units that can be read forward, backward, or laterally, my poem resists narrative finality. There is no single, forward-moving version of what happens. The loss is broken into parts small enough to be handled, rearranged, yet almost disguised.
Because the poem is designed to be read in reverse at its close, the reality the speaker gestures toward never fully arrives. The catastrophe is perpetually deferred. In this sense, the form becomes a strategy of hiding: the speaker is always just before the moment of recognition, always rewinding to the last place where hope still exists. The music and symmetry create a kind of inertia where transformation does not lead to release but to suspension. Grief is present everywhere, but it is never allowed to complete itself.
Talk a little bit about your process. How does the spark find you and then make its way into a poem?
The spark usually comes through language before the meaning, like in an image, a sound, a misreading, a word that tilts and becomes something else. I’m interested in what happens when words collide or misbehave, when sound begins to generate sense rather than merely accompany it. A phrase will catch because of its music or its pressure, and I’ll carry it around, letting it accrue associations. Like most poets, I’m obsessive about words, their textures, their echoes, the way one word calls another into the room.
So I play in that space. I rarely sit down determined to write a particular poem. Sometimes there’s a memory I’m curious about, but I rarely begin thinking, I need to write about this. I also write a lot of ekphrastic poetry because I’m drawn to color and to art as a medium. It’s easy to imagine a different story from a painting. I enjoy casting old scenes into new landscapes. I often think, while writing: why not? I am fascinated by transformation.
If you could turn yourself into a metaphor, what would it be and why?
This was such a fun question! I’d probably be a VHS tape that’s been recorded over too many times, weddings, footage of a farm, home movie of a dog, emergency broadcast, all bleeding into one another. A little warped for sure, a little ghost-y, but still functional. Still holding.
Tell us about a new poet or book of poems that you’ve come across that stopped you in your tracks.
Susan Leary’s Dressing the Bear stopped me immediately. The poems are intimate without being precious, emotionally astute without over-explaining themselves. What struck me first was her lyric precision and sonic control. What she does with sound is impressive work. The lines are attentive to cadence and pressure, to what repetition can hold, to how music can sharpen rather than soften emotional impact.
The book also landed with particular force for me because of its attention to loving someone who is struggling, especially when that struggle is shaped by addiction and unfolds within a family system. There is a deep, aching intelligence in the way the poems hold love alongside harm and responsibility alongside helplessness.
What are you working on next and where can we find you now?
I’m finishing a full-length manuscript while staying open to the world around me, or at least I hope! Working, looking, paying attention. Alongside that, I’ve completed a second chapbook and am currently looking for the right publisher for it. You can also find me at my website: www.chrissystegman.com
I’ve also begun exploring a 1940s Purma camera, a British camera designed to relinquish control: it rotates internally, making each exposure dependent on chance and gravity rather than intention. I’m drawn to it as a practice I’m still learning, a way of seeing that resists mastery. I’m curious about how its unpredictability might begin to inform my poems rather than simply accompany them.
In addition, I’m experimenting with stop-motion animation and linocut, interested in what happens when poems leave the page!
I’m also very aware that my creative life is inseparable from my domestic one. I’m the mother of five children, which means my days are structured around attention, interruption, negotiation, and wondering why I came into a room. Somewhere between packing lunches, locating lost shoes, and refereeing minor domestic epics, the poetry work continues.
Chrissy Stegman is a three-time Best of the Net and Pushcart-nominated poet and writer from Baltimore, Maryland. Recent work has appeared in Rattle, River Heron Review, Jake, UCity Review, Gone Lawn, Gargoyle Magazine, Stone Circle Review, Fictive Dream, Inkfish, 5 Minutes, Libre, and BULL. Her chapbook, Somewhere, Someone Is Forgetting You, was published by Alien Buddha Press. She is a 2025 MVCWI Fellow and recipient of the Idyllwyld Arts Scholarship for Poetry and a finalist in the 2025 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest.
Wilde Readers of February: Alan Britt & G. H. Mosson
HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the February edition of the Wilde Reading Series, proudly continuing its ongoing tenth season of highlighting local authors in Howard County. This month’s reading features Alan Britt and G. H. Mosson, hosted by Laura Shovan. Please join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, February 10th at 7 p.m., at 6955 Oakland Mills Rd, Suite E, Columbia MD, 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family, and students!
Our warm and welcoming open mic follows the featured authors and we hope you will let us hear from your stories, poems, or other piece. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time (about two poems) and sign up when you arrive. Books by the featured authors will be available for purchase.
Below, get to know Alan and Mosson!
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Alan: William Blake.
Mosson: My poetry generally is imagistic more than narrative, not just in voice but in lyric expression. In my most recent book of poems, Singing the Forge (2025), there are six poems based on Whistler prints, and two based on sculptures by Henry Moore, so these artists win the hat of showing up the most. My children make two brief appearances at the end.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Alan: Outside in nature.
Mosson: From 2022 through 2026, my favorite place to write has been the chair beside my bed, with the sunrise peaking through the window, or that preface hue of blackish-green-bruise.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Alan: No.
Mosson: If I write, it most often early in the morning. It’s true, I’ve likely had coffee first.
Who always gets a first read?
Alan: Myself.
Mosson: Hmm, I read my own work first, indeed.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Alan: The First Decade by Duane Locke.
Mosson: My favorite version of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is his first, 1855, which is available from Penguin Classics; while I have read it ten or more times; I surely will read it again. Well, I have just finished my second tour through the Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy, the Greek Alexandrian poet, this time translated and arranged by Daniel Mendelsohn. This particular curation is wonderful, and I plan to read it again soon, so it’s about to qualify. I could go on.
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Alan: Tough! Perhaps Robert Bly’s reading with HoCoPoLitSo at Howard Community College. (In a writing workshop at Smith Theatre in 1997, co-sponsored with Columbia Festival of the Arts. —Ed.)
Mosson: I saw Gary Snyder talk as well as read at The Guggenheim Museum in NYC in conjunction with an Asian art exhibit, and the evening was an intellectual and aesthetic highlight combining art, lived ideas, and poetry. It is hard to forget hearing Allen Ginsberg along with several others read Whitman’s entire “Song of Myself” at St. John’s Church in NYC some decades ago. These two readings immediately come to mind, for sure. Further, I saw Stanley Kunitz read at the Library of Congress, which moved me, as has Li Young-Lee, twice.
• Alan Britt has been nominated for the 2021 International Janus Pannonius Prize awarded by the Hungarian Centre of PEN International for excellence in poetry from any part of the world. Previous nominated recipients include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bernstein and Yves Bonnefoy. Alan has published 25 books of poetry and was interviewed at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem. A graduate of the Writing Seminars at John Hopkins University, he currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.
• G. H. Mosson is the author of three books and three chapbooks of poetry, including Singing the Forge (David Robert Books, 2025), Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time (Finishing Line Press, 2019), and Questions of Fire (Plain View Press, 2009). His poetry has appeared widely in periodicals, and been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize. He practices law, raises two wonderful kids, and enjoys day hikes.
His website, ghmosson.com, is a good place to start connecting, but right now he is very proud of his Baker Artist page.
Wilde Readers of January: Steven Leyva & Julia Tagliere
Happy New Year! As we enter 2026, HoCoPoLitSo invites all to the January edition of the Wilde Reading Series, proudly continuing its ongoing tenth season of highlighting local authors in Howard County. This month’s reading features Steven Leyva and Julia Tagliere, hosted by Ann Bracken. Please join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, January 13th at 7 p.m., at 6955 Oakland Mills Rd, Suite E, Columbia MD, 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family, and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for purchase.
Our warm and welcoming open mic follows the featured authors and we hope you will let us hear from your stories, poems, or other piece. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time (about two poems) and sign up when you arrive.
Below, get to know Steven and Julia!
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Steven: Probably my brother or father.
Julia: My late mother.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Steven: My office at the University of Baltimore, through coffee shops used to be where I wrote most often.
Julia: Anywhere I can scrape together a few sustained hours to focus.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Steven: Hmm … not really. At least not in the way folks imagine a causal link from ritual to practice. Certainly watching animation is a part of it but I’d do that anyway. Reading poetry is part of it but again, I’d do that even if I wasn’t going to write. Perhaps the only pre-writing ritual is remembering presently that one is alive.
Julia: I always leave notes to myself when I stop a given day’s work (“Start with this scene next” or “Flesh out this interaction” or even just “This sucks—why?”). Music also helps me sort of cross over that bridge, can put me in the mood of whatever piece or section I’m working on that day.
Who always gets a first read?
Steven: Often it’s a colleague at work, Marion Winik, or my close friend Zakia Henderson-Brown.
Julia: I have a few trusted friends blessed with marvelous literary instincts I count on to provide for thoughtful, candid feedback.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Steven: The Fellowship of the Ring.
Julia: East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Steven: A reading with Derek Walcott at 92Y in NYC.
Julia: The first I ever attended, hosted by The Inner Loop in D.C. Hearing the passion, courage, wit, and grace of those writers sharing their works, exactly as they themselves had conceived, completely electrified me. I was hooked.
• Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, The Hopkins Review, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook, which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, was published by Blair Publishing in Spring 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor, and co-director of the Klein Family Center of Communications Design.
Steven can be found online on Instagram as @sdleyva and at stevenleyva.wordpress.com.
• Julia Tagliere‘s work has appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, The Writer Magazine, and elsewhere. An alumna of the Johns Hopkins University M.A. in Writing program, Julia founded and hosts the bi-monthly MoCo Underground Writers Showcase, serves as an editor with Baltimore Review, is a 2022 Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artist and a 2025 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow, and just returned from her first Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Julia’s website is justscribbling.com; she dumped all her other social media accounts last year and is now just on Bluesky: @mocounderground.bsky.social.
Caoilinn Hughes and Cóilín Parsons Headline HoCoPoLitSo’s 48th Annual Irish Evening
HoCoPoLitSo’s annual evening of Irish music and poetry
on Saturday, February 7th, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. presents
Sisterhood, Silence, and Survival
featuring novelist and poet Caoilinn Hughes
author of The Alternatives
in conversation with Cóilín Parsons,
and music by Poor Man’s Gambit.
In-person admission available for purchase now
Limited-time discount available before New Year’s!
HoCoPoLitSo’s 48th annual Evening of Irish Music and Poetry on Saturday, February 7th, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. presents Sisterhood, Silence, and Survival, featuring Caoilinn Hughes, author of novels, short stories and poetry, reading from her work followed by a conversation moderated by Cóilín Parsons, Georgetown University Associate Professor and Director of Global Irish Studies. The evening also features music performed by Poor Man’s Gambit and Unranked; a representative of the Irish Embassy to the United States has been invited to continue the long-standing tradition of providing opening remarks.
The evening program commences at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 7th, 2026 in the Smith Theatre of the Horowitz Visual & Performing Arts Center on the campus of Howard Community College; guests may be seated starting at 7 p.m. Responsible patrons aged 21 and up are invited to partake of Irish beverages at our CASH-ONLY bar, at intermission and prior to the stage show while enjoying a performance by Unranked. Non-alcoholic drinks and light fare will be provided free to attendees. A book signing follows the reading and discussion, and books by the featured authors will be available for purchase. After intermission, Poor Man’s Gambit will play a concert of traditional Irish music.
Tickets, $50, are available now through the Horowitz Center Box Office. A reduced rate is available for educators and students. We hope you will join us for what is sure to be another unforgettable evening.
You can find more information on this year’s event, including artist biographies, as well as on the history of HoCoPoLitso’s Irish Evening on its dedicated page, here. All proceeds from the event are used to underwrite HoCoPoLitSo’s literary programs in the community, and the production of The Writing Life, a writer-to-writer talk show now seen worldwide by more than one million viewers on youtube.com/hocopolitso, and through Howard Community College’s Dragon Digital TV.
Wilde Readers of December: Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman & Emily Mitchell
HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the December edition of the Wilde Reading Series, which this year proudly opens its tenth season of highlighting local authors in Howard County. This month’s reading features Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman and Emily Mitchell, hosted by Laura Shovan. Please join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, December 9th at 7 p.m., at 6955 Oakland Mills Rd, Suite E, Columbia MD, 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.
An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems, and sign up when you arrive.
Below, get to know Khadijah and Emily!
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Khadijah: I would say, as of late, my mother tends to be featured the most in my writing. My book that I published in 2024, For the Girls Who Do Too Much, was literally a poetic memoir of sorts exploring the many ways I responded to the death of my mother in 2014 over the years while contending with the many feels associated with growing into middle-age. The second person would be my daughter. I wrote poetry to and about her even before she was born.
Emily: I suppose that in different ways my immediate family, my sister, mom, dad and husband, appear in my work a lot but not as themselves. My stories are not directly autobiographical so they are always heavily altered or composite, mixed together with other people, including people I don’t know well at all, like someone I went to middle school with, my piano teacher from when I was six or a coworker from my first job. There are situations that I’m interested in consistently, maybe, instead: people who leave their homes and travel long distances; loneliness and the search for home and community; the pain of being left out, forgotten or excluded. Those themes come back again and again whether I want them to or not.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Khadijah: I don’t have a favorite place to write. But, I do like to write when I am alone and when I feel like I am not being rushed or expected to be somewhere soon. So, the weekends, after hours and early mornings are favorite times usually.
Emily: I have a big, lovely desk that is really a mid-century dining table in my home office which is where I do my creative work. There’s a print of the Chagall painting Les Amoureux hanging over it. More than any other artist, Chagall seems to me to show in his figures how human beings are always trying to overcome our separateness from each other and I like to be reminded of that while I work. But, really, I can write anywhere as long as I don’t have distractions.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Khadijah: I have so much structure and organization in my day-to-day work as a professor, and when leading the organizations I’ve founded that I purposefully ask the universe for grace to share messages with me to give insight on how to move towards a new creative project. I often feel like my poems, songs, and plays are outputs from this channeling, particularly when writing about times in history where I wasn’t born. I listen for the messages by being observant of what is around me and catching my attention. I think about the themes that have been predominant during the week. I reflect on the feelings I have that I just can’t shake. These are the things that want to explore and find ways for them to become part of the story I will write.
Emily: I usually sit and meditate for about 15 minutes before I begin. Especially when I’m working on a longer project, this helps with managing all the uncertainty that is an unavoidable part of writing fiction, not knowing where the story is going, or who the characters are or whether I can make it work in the end. I started doing this in order to finish my second novel and it has become a necessary part of my routine since then.
Who always gets a first read?
Khadijah: My daughter and her dad, who has been my artistic partner for over 20 years, are usually the ones to read something first if it is for a book, song, or solo performance. The women in my artist collective, Liberated Muse, see things first if it is a script or song they will perform. My daughter’s notes are second to none. She has given the best feedback I’ve ever received until recently when I received feedback from Howard County Poet Laureate Truth Thomas. The two of them are really thorough writers and editors when it comes to poetry.
Emily: I have a wonderful writing group that I’ve been meeting with for more than a decade now and they are usually the first ones to see my work.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Khadijah: I have read so many books repeatedly. I didn’t realize how much a creature of habit I was until I started getting those Spotify end-of-the-year recaps that show you who you’ve listened to all year. They tell me every year that I listen to the same 5–10 people.
With books, I fear it may be the same, at least when I think about it based on my age. Anne of Green Gables was probably that book when I was a child. Kindred by Octavia Butler in my 20’s. The Alchemist. The Four Agreements. Read books like that on repeat late 20’s and 30’s. From 20s to now in my 50’s, I have some staples. Many books by Toni Morrison— Sula, Beloved and Song of Solomon. May be time to revisit them again for the tenth time.
Emily: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Khadijah: I am not sure if it was a reading, but I enjoyed the only time I saw Nikki Giovanni in person at Busboys and Poets in Washington DC 10 or 11 years ago. She was sharing so many amazing stories of her life and her relationships with people like Maya Angelou and James Baldwin.
Emily: This is tough because I’ve been to so many good ones over the years! I’m going to go with a reading by the poet Bridgit Pegeen Kelly from her book Song some years before she passed away. She was very shy and didn’t love being up at the podium but as soon as she started reading the whole room went absolutely silent, riveted by her words. I’m going to cheat and make a second pick: LaToya Watkins reading from Holler, Child, last year at University of Maryland was also just amazing, a reading that will stay with me for a long time.
• Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman is author of the published and forthcoming poetry collections Halos for Heroes, Friends and a Few People I Don’t Like (2026), A Park Stands on All of Our Graves (2025), For the Girls Who Do Too Much (2024), The Summoning of Black Joy (2023), the children’s book Mariah’s Maracas (2018) and co-editor of the book Homeschooling Black Children in the US: Theory, Practice and Popular Culture (2022). She served as the second Poet Laureate of Prince George’s County, MD from 2023–2025. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Khadijah Ali-Coleman is a multi-genre writer and founding director of Black Writers for Peace and Social Justice, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and the multidisciplinary arts group Liberated Muse. She is an associate professor in the Humanities Department at Coppin State University.
Visitors are welcome to her personal website, khadijahali-coleman.com, and to her Substack. You can also connect with her on Instagram and Facebook as @KhadijahOnline.
• Emily Mitchell is the author of The Last Summer of the World (W. W. Norton, 2007), a novel, and two short story collections, Viral (W. W. Norton, 2015), and The Church of Divine Electricity (University of Wisconsin Press, 2025). Her short fiction has appeared in Harpers’, Ploughshares, The Sun, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review and elsewhere. She serves as fiction editor of New England Review and teaches at the University of Maryland. As well as writing, she likes reading, running, biking, cooking, traveling, studying Spanish, universal healthcare, stopping climate change and, in case that all wasn’t nerdy enough, she’s recently been getting into bird-watching.
Emily invites you to read a recent interview about her new collection with the writer Allison Wyss for Adroit Journal. Her regular home on the web is emilymitchellwriter.com, and she is on Instagram as @elbmitchell.
Wilde Readers of November: Geoffrey Himes & Linda Rabben
HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the November edition of the Wilde Reading Series, which this year proudly celebrates its tenth season of highlighting local authors in Howard County. This month’s reading features Geoffrey Himes and Linda Rabben, hosted by Linda Joy Burke. Please join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, November 11th at 7 p.m., at 6955 Oakland Mills Rd, Suite E, Columbia MD, 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.
An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems, and sign up when you arrive.
Below, get to know Geoffrey and Linda!
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Geoffrey: My wife.
Linda: Too many people to name here.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Geoffrey: Anywhere—as long as the words come.
Linda: Anywhere.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Geoffrey: I always carry a notebook in my pocket, just in case.
Linda: No.
Who always gets a first read?
Geoffrey: My poetry writing group on Zoom.
Linda: Nobody always gets a first read. Sometimes my husband, sometimes a friend.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Geoffrey: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens.
Linda: Middlemarch.
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Geoffrey: Allen Ginsberg at HoCoPoLitSo.
Linda: Jan Karski, Polish diplomat who denounced German genocide during WWII, spoke at the University of Iowa about 40 years ago.
• Geoffrey Himes’ poetry has been published by Best American Poetry, December, Gianthology, Innisfree, Salt Lick and other publications. He has written about popular music and theater for the Washington Post, New York Times, Rolling Stone and many more since 1977. His book, In-Law Country: How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, was published in 2024, followed by his book, Willie Nelson: The Stories Behind the Music, in 2025. His two books of collaborative poems with Grace Cavalieri, Fables from Italy and Beyond and The Third Voice, were published in 2025. His first book of solo poems, Today I Am an Orphan: The Shorter Poems of Geoffrey Himes, is due in 2026.
Geoffrey’s podcast and most recent writing can be found at the Hard Rain & Pink Cadillacs on SubStack.
• Author, anthropologist and human rights activist Linda Rabben did research in and on Brazil for more than 30 years, worked as a researcher for Amnesty International, and coordinated a project for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Linda’s 12 published books include Book of Changes, a collection of her poems, and Through a Glass Darkly: The Social History of Stained Glass in Baltimore. She is an associate research professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland.
Linda’s home on the web is found at wordworker.net.
Wilde Readers of October: Hannah V. Sawyerr & Ronald L. Smith
HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the October edition of the Wilde Reading Series, which this year proudly opens its tenth season of highlighting local authors in Howard County. This month’s reading features Hannah V. Sawyerr and Ronald L. Smith, hosted by Laura Shovan. Please join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, September 9th at 7 p.m., at 6955 Oakland Mills Rd, Suite E, Columbia MD, 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.
An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems, and sign up when you arrive.
Below, get to know Hannah and Ronald!
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Hannah: Maya Angelou and James Baldwin show up most in my writing. The epigraph of my first novel is a James Baldwin quote and I attended a James Baldwin conference before my second novel that influenced the writing. Both my first and second novels also feature nods to Maya Angelou.
Ronald: Me.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Hannah: I love writing in coffee shops. I love people watching and it helps me become “unstuck” the way I can when I am writing alone.
Ronald: In my office, looking out at the city and the great view.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Hannah: I have particular clothing items that I love wearing while writing! Some of these items include my Morgan State University Sweatshirt, my favorite pair of sweatpants, and my DewMore Baltimore shirt.
Ronald: I have to go through all my emails first, and then look at a few news sites, and then I get to work.
Who always gets a first read?
Hannah: The person who gets the first read is often the person I think about the most while writing. My last novel was largely inspired by my days as a youth slam poet, so the first person to read the manuscript was my former slam coach, Kenneth Something.
Ronald: My editor.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Hannah: House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
Ronald: The Lord of the Rings.
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Hannah: This differs slightly from a traditional reading but I recently attended Charm City Slam in Baltimore and absolutely loved it!
Ronald: Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials books.
• Hannah V. Sawyerr was recognized as the Youth Poet Laureate of Baltimore in 2016. Her debut novel in verse All the Fighting Parts was recognized as a Morris Debut Award finalist, a Walter Dean Myers Award Honoree, a Rise Feminist Book Project Top Ten Title, and a Kirkus Best Book of the Year. Truth Is is her sophomore novel.
You can find out more about Hannah at hannahsawyerr.com, and on Instagram @hannsawyerr.
• Ronald L. Smith is an award-winning author of middle-grade novels including Black Panther: The Young Prince Trilogy, Hoodoo, Gloomtown, Where the Black Flowers Bloom, Project Mercury and more. He has also contributed to the anthologies The Hero Next Door, Hope Wins, and RECOGNIZE: An Anthology Honoring and Amplifying Black Life. A former advertising writer, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.
Ronald’s home page is strangeblackflowers.com and he can be found on Instagram @ronsmithwriter.
Happiness Hour with Ross Gay
UPDATE: 11/4/2025 — With deepest gratitude for the enthusiasm of our audience, the event is now SOLD OUT. If you were unable to purchase tickets to this event, we hope you will consider joining us at another upcoming program, such as the annual Irish Evening on February 7, 2026.
In November of 1974, Lucille Clifton joined Carolyn Kizer to headline HoCoPoLitSo’s first-ever event, reading from their work and discussing their lives as writers to adult and student audiences in Wilde Lake. For the past year, HoCoPoLitSo has celebrated the full half-century since that day, an incredible 50 years of hosting several dozen more Nobel-, Pulitzer-, and National Book Award-winners here in Howard County, from beloved staple events like HoCoPoLitSo’s Irish Evening, to more recent initiatives like our partnership in the Howard County Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate programs.
On behalf of HoCoPoLitSo’s current Board and staff, as well as all those dear friends, past and present, without whom we could never have achieved this milestone, we are deeply honored for the continuing opportunity to broaden the audience for contemporary poetry and literature, here at home and worldwide, and we hope you will join us for a special presentation of this year’s Lucille Clifton Reading Series, offered as a grand finale to HoCoPoLitSo’s 50th Anniversary Celebration at a Happiness Hour with Ross Gay on November 7, 2025.
📅 Friday, November 7
🕜 5:30 p.m. doors open, stage show at 6:30 (in-person)
📍 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia, MD 21044
Howard Community College’s Kahlert Foundation Complex, room 101
Join us in-person in the Large Meeting Room (KC 101) of Howard Community College’s newly-opened Kahlert Foundation Complex; free and ample parking directly adjoins the venue. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for an hour of light refreshments and music; a cash bar is offered for patrons aged 21 and older. Stage presentation begins at 6:30 p.m. with an introduction from the poet and former HoCoPoLitSo writer-in-residence Steven Leyva, whose filmed conversation with Ross will be available free through HoCoPoLitSo’s The Writing Life at a later date. After the show, book sales and signing is offered.
General admission is available while seating lasts for $25 per person, with discounted rates available for professional educators and currently-enrolled students. For questions or issues purchasing tickets, to request accommodations, or to discuss attendance by a larger group, please contact HoCoPoLitSo via e-mail to info@hocopolitso.org, or by phone call to (443) 518-4568.
All proceeds from the event support the live and recorded literary programs offered by HoCoPoLitSo for student and general audiences.
Ross Gay is interested in joy.
Ross Gay wants to understand joy.
Ross Gay is curious about joy.
Ross Gay studies joy.
Something like that.
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. In addition to his poetry, Ross has released three collections of essays—The Book of Delights was released in 2019 and was a New York Times bestseller; Inciting Joy was released in 2022, and his newest collection, The Book of (More) Delights was released in September of 2023.
Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, The Hopkins Review, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, was published by Blair Publishing in Spring 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor, and co-director of the Klein Family Center of Communications Design.
Earlier that day, Steven will join Ross in the recording studio of Howard Community College’s Dragon Media to record an edition of The Writing Life: the acclaimed half-hour, writer-to-writer talk show produced by HoCoPoLitSo. Their conversation joins the more than 130 pairings of great literary minds, available free, world-wide through HoCoPoLitSo’s YouTube channel.
Unranked is a four-piece American roots rock band made up of musical ruffians blending layered guitars, mandolin and violin aiming to please the human soul. Unranked blends a mix of Irish and Americana sound with beautiful harmonies creating a unique brand of music. Core members include Aaron Lubliner-Walters (mandolin/vocals), Skyle Malcom (violin/vocals), Neal Barthleme (electric guitar/vocals), and Will Hill (accoustic guitar/vocals).
HoCoPoLitSo is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (FEIN 52-1146948) registered in the state of Maryland, donations to which are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law. A copy of our current financial statement is available upon request. Documents and information submitted to the State of Maryland under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations Act are available from the Office of the Secretary of State for the cost of fees and postage.
HoCoPoLitSo is or has in the past fiscal year been supported by funds gratefully received from the Maryland State and Howard County Arts Councils; Howard County Government; Community Foundation of Howard County; Maryland Humanities; Dr. Lillian Bauder; and from other generous individual and corporate contributors. The artistic contents and opinions expressed at HoCoPoLitSo events do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of HoCoPoLitSo’s grantors, donors, or individual Board or staff members.
The 2025 Bauder Lecture, featuring Safia Elhillo & celeste doaks
On Thursday, September 18th, 2025, HoCoPoLitSo proudly presents in partnership with Howard Community College, Howard County Library System, and the Downtown Columbia Partnership, the 2025 installment of the Bauder Lecture Series, featuring a keynote from Safia Elhillo, distinguished poet and author of novel-in-verse Bright Red Fruit, followed by an in-depth conversation hosted by celeste doaks, editor, journalist, and author of American Herstory.
We hope you will join us for this free and public event, in person at the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center on the college campus, or online streamed live via Vimeo at this link. The day’s events begin with a reading, keynote and stage conversation at 12:30 p.m., followed by a brief reception; a second session follows at 6:00 p.m. HoCoPoLitSo shall offer books from both authors for purchase and signing, to in-person attendees.
In Safia Elhillo’s Bright Red Fruit, teenager Samira is determined to spend her summer exploring DC and growing as a poet—but a scandalous rumor leaves her grounded and vulnerable. Seeking solace online, she’s drawn into a secret relationship with an older poet that threatens her reputation, her community ties, and her dreams. Bright Red Fruit is a powerful coming-of-age story about navigating desire, family expectations, and the search for self.
Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, Safia Elhillo is the author of the books The January Children, Girls That Never Die, Home Is Not A Country, and Bright Red Fruit. Elhillo’s work appears in Poetry Magazine, Callaloo, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day series, among others, and in anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and The Penguin Book of Migration Literature. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019), which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 2020. Her fellowships include a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Elhillo received the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and was listed in Forbes Africa’s 2018 “30 Under 30.” Her work has been translated into several languages, and commissioned by Under Armour, Cuyana, and the Bavarian State Ballet. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
celeste doaks is the author of “Cornrows and Cornfields”, and editor of the poetry anthology “Not Without Our Laughter”. Her chapbook, “American Herstory”, was Backbone Press’s first-place winner in 2018. “Herstory” contains poems—which have been featured at the Whitney Museum of American art, Brooklyn Museum, and most recently the Smithsonian American Art Museum— about the artwork former First Lady Michelle Obama chose for the White House. Doaks is a Carolina African American Writers’ Collective (CAAWC) member and has received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Atlantic Center of the Arts, Community of Writers Squaw Valley, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Doaks is a three-time Pushcart award nominee and a creative writing professor for over a decade. Her poems, reviews, and cultural essays have appeared in multiple US and UK on-line and print publications including “Ms. Magazine”, “The Rumpus”, “The Millions”, “Huffington Post”, “Chicago Quarterly Review”, “Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora”, “The Hopkins Review, Bmore Art Magazine”, “Asheville Poetry Review” and many others.
The annual Bauder Lecture Series is made possible by a generous grant from Dr. Lillian Bauder, a community leader and Columbia resident. Each year, the Howard County Book Connection— a partnership of HoCoPoLitSo and representatives from most departments of Howard Community College— selects one book, whose author is invited to headline the lecture; HoCoPoLitSo provides for a local author to join as a special guest, moderating an on-stage writer-to-writer conversation, and audience Q&A. In addition, up to two Howard Community College students are honored with the presentation of the Don Bauder Awards, for their response to the chosen book in an essay or other creative format. The awards honor the memory of Don Bauder, late husband of Dr. Lillian Bauder and a champion of civil rights and social justice causes.
For more information, or to view recordings of past years’ lectures, please visit Howard Community College’s Bauder Lecture Series event listing, or the home page of the Howard County Book Connection.
HoCoPoLitSo, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit registered in the state of Maryland, gratefully receives funding from the Maryland State and Howard County Arts Councils; Howard County Government; Community Foundation of Howard County; Maryland Humanities; Dr. Lillian Bauder; and from other generous individual and corporate contributors.
Join Us in Welcoming the Next Howard County Youth Poet Laureate
As Mai-Anh Nguyen’s inaugural one-year term comes to a close, HoCoPoLitSo and program partners welcome one and all to attend the announcement of the second local young writer to be appointed as Howard County Youth Poet Laureate, to be presented by County Executive Calvin Ball on Wednesday, September 17th, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at Busboys and Poets in Columbia. RSVP is requested to ensure adequate seating.
The Howard County Youth Poet Laureate Program, created in partnership of HoCoPoLitSo, Howard County Arts Council, and Howard County Government through the Office of the County Executive, is an honorary one-year position selecting a young author from the Howard County area, ages 14–21, who demonstrates a passion for poetry and its power to connect our communities through local public readings and participation in civic events. Applications for this second term were accepted from January to May this year, and reviewed by an independent artistic review panel coordinated by HoCoPoLitSo and made up of local poets and educators Ashley Elizabeth, Naomi Ayala, and Sylvia Jones. Acting on the panel’s recommendation, the next Youth Poet Laureate will be formally appointed by the County Executive to act as an ambassador for literacy, arts, and youth expression.
This event is free and open to the public, but requires registration to attend: please click here to register.
HoCoPoLitSo 