HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the November edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Heidi Mordhorst and Victoria Adams-Kennedy, hosted by Ann Bracken. Join us at the Columbia Art Center on Tuesday, November 14th at 7 p.m., at 6100 Foreland Garth, 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. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance by calling the Columbia Arts Center at (410)-730-0075.
Below, get to know Heidi and Victoria!
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Heidi: They show up often, my mom and my dad. They do not mean to, but they do.
Victoria: It’s not just one; It’s my mother and her seven sisters. I learned so much from watching them and eavesdropping on their conversations. Their distinct personalities make them perfect subjects.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Heidi: I have a comfy sofa in a pleasant room in our new 1925 house in East Silver Spring.
Victoria: The Last Resort Artist Retreat in Baltimore. It’s a serene environment with beautiful artwork.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Heidi: Only the one, and it’s not exactly intentional or consistent: as I’m waking, or as I’m brushing my teeth, or as I’m shampooing, or as I’m pointing a hot noisy hairdryer at my head, something will come to me. Most recently a poem title: A Revision Is Required.
Victoria: I’m inspired by character traits that are most often attributed to members of my family or my childhood community. There were lots of colorful characters in my neighborhood. I draft characters who are composites of those people and their circumstances. Then the story comes and I sit down to write.
Who always gets a first read?
Heidi: Most often the trusted members of my critique group. They are fans, but they ask me hard questions as well, which generally carry the message, “You have made this way more complicated than it needs to be.”
Victoria: One of my aunts or a member of Zora’s Den, my writers’ group I founded in 2017.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Heidi: Hmmmm. I rarely pick up an adult title more than once (although there are poems I never get tired of)—but there are many books written for young readers that I return to again and again. A recent favorite is GREEN ON GREEN by Dianne White, illustrated by Felicita Sala.
Victoria: The first to come to mind is Indigo by Beverly Jenkins. It is one of many.
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Heidi: I’m a relative newbie to public readings. I haven’t been to many live readings and I’ve read at very few! I did have a memorable time hearing Lucille Clifton read at the Dodge Poetry Festival one year—but which year?
Victoria: A reading by Terry McMillan at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore City. She was engaging through her work and her commentary. And she had command of the room with humor and insight.
• Heidi Mordhorst is the author of two collections of poetry for young readers and contributions to
journals and anthologies for both adults and children, most recently Poetry by Chance and Dear
Human on the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the US. She taught in public schools for
35 years and recently served on the NCTE Excellence in Poetry Award Committee. She now offers
multi-arts poetry programming for young writers through WHISPERshout Writing Workshop.
Heidi can be found online at her blog, my juicy little universe, on Facebook and Bluesky, and at the homepage of her youth writing workshop, WHISPERshout.
• Victoria Adams-Kennedy writes about the complexities of Black Love. Her first novel, Sometimes
Love, was published in 2017 by Brown Girls Books. She is the founder of Zora’s Den, a group for
black women writers for which she co-edited The Fire Inside, Volumes I & II. Victoria holds an MFA
in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. Her work has appeared in
midnight & indigo and TORCH Literary Arts.
Victoria can be reached at Facebook or Instagram, both under the account @victoriaadamskennedy.
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