For a Special 10th Season Finale

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the June edition of the Wilde Reading Series, now concluding its tenth season of highlighting local writers in Howard County. This month’s reading features the long-time series hosts Ann Bracken, Linda Joy Burke, and Laura Shovan, each themselves a celebrated author in their own right, for a special season finale presentation, with our deepest gratitude to our audiences for enabling this historic milestone. Whether you have attended since the beginning or this would be your first time out, we hope you will join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, June 9th at 7 p.m., at 6955 Oakland Mills Rd, Suite E, Columbia MD, 21045.

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 (or hear a little more from) Ann, Linda Joy, and Laura!

Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?

Ann: I don’t know that anyone shows up consistently.

Linda Joy: When I answered this question in 2022 I said “the collective. Of course like most young poets I showed up the most in the beginning, but then as losses occurred both in the body personal and the body politic the collective dominated.” That’s still true these days.

Laura: My younger self shows up in my writing for children and young adults, but also in my poetry for adults. She has a lot of unfinished business and I’m glad to have writing as a place to let her have her say.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Ann: Wherever I am when the muse visits me.

Linda Joy: These days my favorite place is where ever I can stop and either dictate or physically sit down and write. I’ve been dictating a lot of work while sitting with my cat at the top of my staircase.

Laura: I have an office at our house, but I most often write at our dining room table. Our beagle Arthur keeps me company.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Ann: I usually read over what I’ve written before to get me into the headspace to continue previous work.

Linda Joy: If I am purely driven by inspiration, then I am going to get it in where I can. I write what asks to be written, and then take space from that work for a day, a week, a decade … and then edit. The ritual comes in then as I get quiet, detached from outside noise and media. Depending on my mood I may plug into some music that matches the vibe of what I’m working on.

Laura: I’ve tried them all. Candles, getting up early, tea, prayers or incantations, writing at the same time every day. The only thing that works for me is sitting down and getting started.

Who always gets a first read?

Ann: My critique partner, Patricia, is usually the first to see my new work.

Linda Joy: I sometimes share new work with a poetry group I belong to. I also will share with writerly friends and colleagues (depending on topic, genre, intent and our history).

Laura: My first reader depends on the genre I’m working in. For children’s books, my author friends Bridget Hodder, Nancy Krulik, and Casey Lyall. For poetry, it’s often the people in my February Poetry Challenge group.

What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?

Ann: I think Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is one of the finest books ever written. I’ve read it three times.

Linda Joy: I wrote previously about rereading books between library visits during my childhood days. As an adult reader— there are many books that I would read for a second time, through my older, wiser eyes. When I paired down my library many of the books I kept were books I wanted to read again. What comes to mind in the moment are three books: All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou, Malidoma Somé’s Of Water and the Spirit and Elizabeth Heich’s The Initiation.

Laura: If I love a book, I will read the heck out of it, sometimes obsessively. I read Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion every year or so. Same with Diana Wynne Jones’s book Howl’s Moving Castle, the source of the Studio Ghibli movie by the same name. When I’m teaching novels-in-verse, I reread Long Way Down (Jason Reynolds), Red White and Whole (Rajani LaRocca), Take a Sad Song (Ona Gritz), and The Poet X (Elizabeth Acevedo).

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Ann: About a month ago, I attended a reading with Tim Seibles that was truly inspiring and exceptional, but Grace Cavalieri and Ada Limon are right up there as well.

Linda Joy: The poet Sekou Sundiata was the first I thought of again, his reading here in Columbia during one of the Columbia Festival of the Arts, HoCoPoLitSo-sponsored readings stands out. Another brilliant poet gone too soon.

Laura: I attended the very first Dodge Poetry Festival in 1986, when I was a high school senior. I’d never been to a poetry reading before. I remember that the day began with Galway Kinnell reading in a small church before the sun had burned off the morning mist. Sonia Sanchez was another poet who made an impression on me. At a later Dodge Festival, Taha Muhammad Ali and his translator Peter Cole read his poem “Revenge.” The words pinned me to my chair, then lifted me up. You can watch that moment and listen to the poem here.

• Ann Bracken has published three poetry collections and a memoir. She has served as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-facilitates the Wilde Readings Poetry Series in Columbia, Maryland. Her poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Awakenings Review, Mad in America, and Gargoyle. Her work has been featured on Best American Poetry, and she’s been a guest on Grace Cavalieri’s The Poet and The Poem radio show.

www.annbrackenauthor.com

• Performance poet, writer, percussionist and picture maker Linda Joy Burke is a 2013 Howard County Women’s Hall of Fame inductee, and 2020 Howie recipient from the Howard County Arts Council for Outstanding Artist. Her work appears in When Divas Laugh,  Fledgling Rag, The Little Patuxent Review, Passager, Gargoyle and numerous other print publications and online at Danmurano.com.

@birdpoet on Instagram
https://lindajoyburke.com
http://lindajoyburke.blogspot.com
https://lindajoyburke2.blogspot.com

• Laura Shovan is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet with over 100 publications in journals and anthologies, both for children and adults. Laura’s award-winning children’s books include The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, Takedown, the Sydney Taylor Notable book A Place at the Table, written with Saadia Faruqi, and a poetry collection Welcome to Monsterville. A longtime poet-in-the-schools, Laura teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts and mentors teens in the Navigating the Margins writing program.

@laurashovan on Instagram
@laura.shovan.2025 on Facebook
www.laurashovan.com