The Howard County Youth Poet Laureate program last year proudly welcomed Mai-Anh Nguyen as the inaugural appointee, at the announcement held in Busboys and Poets, Columbia. Since then, Mai-Anh has been heard at numerous events throughout the county, in her role as a voice for youth expression and the literary arts. In a recent interview with Howard County Arts Council, Mai-Anh said the best part of her term so far has been, “When my classmates and teachers become interested in poetry after seeing me on the news. I like having people ask me, ‘can you write something like this?'”

The Youth Poet Laureate is an honorary position, formally appointed by the County Executive to a one-year term, participating in public events and readings across the county. Eligible applicants are aged 14–21 and either live in or are able to present at in-person events in Howard County, such as from a nearby college. The next Youth Poet Laureate will serve from September 2025 – July 2026, and receives an honorarium of $500. Eligible candidates can submit their own applications, open NOW and due Friday, May 9, 2025.

To anyone thinking of applying, Mai-Anh wants “to encourage people to try, whether you’ve just started or have been interested in poetry for a long time. You never know until you take a leap.”

Click here to apply!

The Howard County Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate programs are a partnership of HoCoPoLitSo, Howard County Arts Council, and Howard County Government through the Office of County Executive Calvin Ball. Full program guidelines can be found on Howard County Arts Council’s “Grants for Artists” homepage; for questions or technical issues concerning the application process, please contact grantsandprojects@hocoarts.org or by phone call to (410) 313-2787 during regular business hours.

Next week, on Tuesday, April 8th, 4:00–5:45 p.m., HoCoPoLitSo joins Howard Community College’s Department of Humanities and the Office of Student Life in welcoming authors Jane Delury and former HoCoPoLitSo writer-in-residence Steven Leyva to the college campus for an afternoon reading, discussion and Q&A, offered free to the public. We hope you will join us in the Horowitz Center’s Monteabaro Recital Hall, and in its lobby afterward for a reception with light refreshments, and book sales and signing provided by HoCoPoLitSo of the authors’ newest works, Hedge by Jane Delury and The Opposite of Cruelty by Steven Leyva.

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the April edition of the Wilde Reading Series, with Nishi Chawla and Jennifer Keith, hosted by Laura Shovan. Please join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, March 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. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance via this online form.

Below, get to know Nishi and Jenny!

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

Nishi: No single person lingers in my writing, yet traces of many pass through its pages. Faces blur, voices merge, and memory bends into something else – something both familiar and unclaimed. My characters are not reflections but echoes, shaped by moments, by absences, by the weight of untold stories. If anyone appears, it is only in fragments, never whole, never fully known.

Jenny: I don’t want to embarrass them.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Nishi: For me, the act of writing is less about a fixed location and more about the atmosphere it creates, an intangible space where thought deepens and language takes shape. I find myself drawn to places that allow reflection and immersion, where the world hums in the background without overwhelming the silence I need. Sometimes, it’s a quiet study, lined with books whose spines hold centuries of voices. Other times, it’s a window seat with a view – watching the shifting light, the slow dance of trees, or the distant rhythm of life unfolding outside. And then, there are moments when movement itself fuels the writing: a train rushing past blurred landscapes, the steady motion mirroring the flow of words, stories forming like fleeting impressions on a rain-streaked window. My writing space is not defined by walls, but by a feeling, a sense of being both grounded and aloft, where ideas can unfold freely.

For me, writing is also a deeply personal act, untethered from ritual or setting. I can even write in bed, words slipping between wakefulness and dreams, taking shape in the soft hush of late hours or the first light of morning.

Jenny: My beautiful studio. Having a special place for writing is a real luxury.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Nishi: I wouldn’t say I have rigid pre-writing rituals, but there are rhythms, quiet gestures, that help ease me into the act of writing. Sometimes, it begins with a moment of stillness – just sitting, allowing thoughts to settle, waiting for the right thread to emerge. Other times, it’s about movement, a slow walk to let ideas breathe before they take shape on the page.

Reading something – perhaps a poem, a passage from a novel, or even an old notebook filled with half-formed ideas, often sparks a certain energy, nudging me toward the right words. A warm cup of tea, the ritual of holding it, sipping it slowly, can create a bridge between the ordinary and the creative.

And then there is the silence – necessary, but not always literal. Sometimes, it’s the hush of early morning or late night. Other times, it’s the gentle hum of instrumental music, something that doesn’t intrude but instead opens up space within the mind.

But not all writing arrives with ritual. There are days when words come unbidden, unexpected, without ceremony. And those moments are just as welcome.

Jenny: Tea. Lots of tea.

Who always gets a first read?

Nishi: It’s a bit of a moving target, really. Sometimes, the first reader is no one but myself – my eyes tracing over every word, reading and rereading, letting the work breathe before I decide to share it. But when I do share, it’s with someone I trust implicitly, someone who understands the delicate balance of offering both honesty and empathy. It could be a fellow writer, a friend who knows my voice well, or even someone who isn’t a writer at all but has a sharp, perceptive eye. The first read is always an intimate moment, a quiet exchange between the work and those who help shape its journey. It depends on what I’m writing. Sometimes, a piece feels too raw, too close, to share with anyone right away. Mostly, the first reader is just myself – stepping away and returning, letting the work reveal its own flaws and strengths before I decide it’s ready for another set of eyes.

Jenny: My husband, Chris Ciattei, AKA Batworth.

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

Nishi: There are a few books I’ve returned to time and again, but one that stands out is The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. The layers of surrealism, satire, and spirituality never seem to lose their intrigue. Each time I read it, I find new meanings, new connections, as if the book itself evolves with me. It’s a rare story that can be revisited without ever feeling stale. It pulls me in, like a labyrinth I never quite finish exploring.

Jenny: Alcoholics Anonymous, fourth edition.

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Nishi: There have been many readings that have stayed with me, but the most memorable ones are those where the words didn’t just exist on the page but came alive in the air, charged with presence and emotion. It wasn’t always about the fame of the writer or the grandeur of the venue. Sometimes, it was the intimacy of a quiet room where a poet’s voice trembled with unspoken history, or a storyteller wove a world so vividly that the audience forgot to breathe.

Perhaps it was a reading where the language carried weight beyond the words themselves – where literature met lived experience, and something unnameable passed between speaker and listener. The most memorable readings, for me, are those where words linger long after the event is over, reshaping thoughts, leaving echoes that refuse to fade.

Jenny: SO many: Anthony Hecht in Georgetown, D.C., December 1996. 1998 Best of Baltimore at Pikesville Bibelot. HOT L reading in Philadelphia at AWP in 2022. Any time Joe Harrison read. (RIP)

• Dr. Nishi Chawla is a well-known Asian-American poet, playwright, novelist, independent filmmaker and a long-standing academician. She has published two novels, seven volumes of poetry and ten plays. She has co-edited two global volumes of poetry for Penguin Random House. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the George Washington University, Washington DC, and a post-doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. She has also written and directed four arthouse feature films, three of which are now streaming on Amazon Prime. She can be found online at nishichawla.com.

• Jennifer Keith‘s poems have appeared in The Free State Review, Fledgling Rag, The Baltimore Review, Best American Poetry 2015, Able Muse, and elsewhere. Keith received the 2014 John Elsberg poetry prize, and was a finalist in the 2021 Erskine J. Poetry Prize from Smartish Pace. Her first full-length book of poems, Terminarch, was chosen by David Yezzi for the 2023 Able Muse Book Award. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Her home page can be found at jenniferkeithwriter.com, now under development.

Howard County Poetry & Literature Society, HoCoPoLitSo, this year celebrates its 50th anniversary of presenting writers— from the internationally renowned to emerging locals— here in Howard County to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. The first step toward that achievement began on November 19th, 1974, when poets Lucille Clifton and Carolyn Kizer read from their work to students at Wilde Lake High School, and in the incredible half-century since that day, of all the many services HoCoPoLitSo is privileged to provide the community, we remain perhaps most proud of our student and youth-focused programming and close partnerships with local schools, including Howard County Public School System and Howard Community College.

In addition to welcoming student attendees at all events, HoCoPoLitSo each year provides for an active professional writer to take part in a residency in Howard County, visiting students for readings and workshops in their classrooms. More than 30 authors of diverse backgrounds have taken part in what is today the Bauder Writer-in-Residence Program; after a recent visit by Tope Folarin, the current resident, one student said:

About a third of the way into his speech, all I could think was ‘man, what an absolute badass.’ That guy was awesome, I’m super proud to have gotten to hear from someone like him. [Tope’s] statement of ‘I’ve got to open this door or die trying’ is exactly the kind of drive people need in life, and seeing someone who had a life full of that idea is absolutely amazing. It’s an aspect everyone needs in life, without a doubt. I wish we got to have more people giving talks like that at school [. . .] I hope he keeps on going like this.

To further encourage young writers, HoCoPoLitSo annually presents awards to student honorees of—

All-County Writing Competition — due March 31, 2025
Since 1981, HoCoPoLitSo hosts this annual writing contest open to current Howard County high school students, accepting entries across four categories: poetry, personal essay, short story, and short play.  Students submit their own work; there is no entry fee, and students may enter in as many categories as they wish.

Submissions are open NOW, and close on March 31, 2025.

Promise & Achievement in Language Arts — due April 15, 2025
Through this annual partnership between HoCoPoLitSo and Howard County Public School System, English department Instructional Team Leaders nominate students at their schools to receive award.  If you are a county educator who has not received communication on how to nominate students, please contact info@hocopolitso.org or 443-518-4568.

Nominations are open NOW, and close on April 15, 2025.

The students selected for awards receive personally-selected books tailored to their literary interests, presented by HoCoPoLitSo board members or affiliates at each school’s summer award and graduation ceremonies. A full list of the past year’s honorees is available in the HoCoPoLitSo Annual Report. In an interview with Business Monthly in 2024, Miriam Roy, a student recipient of award for Promise & Achievement in Language Arts then at Long Reach High School, said:

It was a lovely surprise to receive an award for my love of literature. I have always enjoyed reading literature and writing poetry since the beginning of middle school so receiving the award was a wonderful experience.

More recently, starting in fall of 2023, HoCoPoLitSo has partnered with Howard County Arts Council and Howard County Government through the office of County Executive Calvin Ball, to implement the first-ever offices of Howard County Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate. Following the appointment of Mai-Anh Nguyen, then a student at Oakland Mills High School, as the inaugural Howard County Youth Poet Laureate, applications are now open for the second term of this one-year honorary position:

Howard County Youth Poet Laureate — due May 9, 2025
The role of Howard County Youth Poet Laureate is an honorary position formally appointed by the County Executive at the recommendation of a review panel coordinated by HoCoPoLitSo.  Candidates submit their own application, with supporting recommendations; eligible candidates are aged 14–21, and either reside in or will be able to present at in-person events in Howard County throughout the one-year term.  The next Youth Poet Laureate will serve from September 2025 to July 2026, and receives an honorarium of $500.

Applications are open NOW, and close on May 9, 2025.

The current Howard County Youth Poet Laureate, Mai-Anh Nguyen, will read at HoCoPoLitSo’s Wilde Reading Series in June.

The deadline for the 2025–2026 Youth Poet Laureate term applications has been extended to Friday, May 9th, at 11:59 p.m.

Denice Frohman headlines the Blackbird Poetry Festival to be held on April 24th, 2025, at Howard Community College (HCC). Now in its 17th consecutive year, the festival is a day devoted to verse, presented in partnership between HoCoPoLitSo and HCC’s Departments of Student Life and Humanities/World Languages, including a student workshop, multiple poetry readings, HCC’s poetry patrol, a recording session of HoCoPoLitSo’s writer-to-writer talk show The Writing Life, a reading from the Howard County Poet Laureate Truth Thomas, and much more.

The event starts moving at the 11 a.m. Morning Songs Writing Workshop in the Kittleman Room of Duncan Hall (DH-100), hosted by HoCoPoLitSo’s current Bauder Writer-in-Residence, Tope Folarin. The 2 p.m. Sunbird Reading features a reading by guest artist Denice Frohman, followed by a poetry open mic for local authors of all ages. Attendance is free and open to the public, while seating lasts; current HCC students may find college registration links on the college event page.

Finally, the festival culminates its daylong celebration of poetry with the Nightbird Reading, in the Rouse Company Foundation Student Services Hall top floor suite (RCF-400): seating starts at 6:30 p.m. for the 7 p.m. performance. Nightbird will feature Denice Frohman; Tope Folarin; and Truth Thomas, with a reception, book sale and signing to follow the reading. Nightbird this year is offered free to the public, but we ask that guests planning to attend RSVP in advance to ensure adequate seating is available.

Free general admission seating can be reserved at https://blackbird2025.eventbrite.com. If you require additional accommodations, or for questions or comment, please reach us at info@hocopolitso.org or by phone call to (443) 518-4568.

• Denice Frohman (@DeniceFrohman) is a poet and performer from New York City. She has received support from The Pew Center for the Arts, Baldwin for the Arts, CantoMundo, Headlands Center for the Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poem-A-Day (The Academic of American Poets), The BreakBeat Poets: LatiNext, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color and elsewhere. A former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she has featured on hundreds of stages from The Apollo to the White House. Currently, she is developing her one-woman show, Esto No Tiene Nombre, which centers the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders.

• Tope Folarin is a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington, D.C., now serving as HoCoPoLitSo’s 2024–2025 academic year Bauder Writer-in-Residence. He also serves as Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Lannan Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing at Georgetown University. He is the recipient of the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Whiting Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other awards. Tope was educated at Morehouse College and the University of Oxford, where he earned two Masters’ degrees as a Rhodes Scholar.

His reviews, essays, and cultural criticism have been featured in The Atlantic, The Baffler, BBC News, The Drift, High Country News, Lithub, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Vulture, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. His debut novel, A Particular Kind of Black Man, was published by Simon & Schuster.

The Howard County Poetry & Literature Society— HoCoPoLitSo— this year celebrates 50 joyous years of nurturing love for the diversity of contemporary literary arts in Howard County. The society sponsors numerous literary readings throughout the year; administers the Bauder Writer-in-Residence program providing for a current working author to visit Howard County students in their classrooms; produces The Writing Life talk show, now seen by more than a million viewers; and partners with many other cultural arts organizations to support the arts in Howard County, Maryland, and beyond. More information is available here at hocopolitso.org, and the tax-deductible gifts of individual donors are always welcomed, and crucial to sustaining another 50 years to come.

HoCoPoLitSo is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and receives funding from Howard County Government; Howard County and Maryland State Arts Councils; Community Foundation of Howard County; Maryland Humanities; Alpha Foundation of Howard County; Dr. Lillian Bauder; and generous friends of HoCoPoLitSo. The Howard County Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate programs are administered in partnership between HoCoPoLitSo, Howard County Arts Council, and the Office of the Howard County Executive. Proceeds support live and recorded literary programs produced by HoCoPoLitSo for student and general audiences.

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the March edition of the Wilde Reading Series, with Ashley Elizabeth and Sue Ellen Thompson, hosted by Jared Smith. Please join us at independent bookstore Queen Takes Book on Tuesday, March 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. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance via this online form.

Below, get to Ashley and Sue!

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

Ashley: The person that shows up the most is my grandmother. I draw a lot from the ancestors and sometimes it feels as though she’s not actually gone. It does hurt when I wake up from a work, but feels good while I am in it. Others that show up quite frequently include my partner, my parents, and my sister.

Sue: My mother—although my father shows up almost as often.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Ashley: I am not a writer that needs to be in a specific environment to write. I can write whenever, wherever as long as the ideas are coming. The most common place for me to write or at least start a draft is in my car in my voices notes app or regular notes if I’m at a stoplight, but it always gets transferred to paper for initial edits.

Sue: At home in Oxford, MD, in my studio over the garage.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Ashley: Not at all. I wait for ideas to come to me, and once they do, I must get to it in that moment instead of trying to reach an idea of comfortability. By then, the idea usually is long gone!

Sue: I like to get physical exercise first, so I always go to the gym before sitting down to write.

Who always gets a first read?

Ashley: This depends on the piece and when I write it. Normally, my sister, Mel Sherrer, gets a first look since I take a lot of her workshops and it’s only fair to share what I got from the workshop. Sometimes, my partner gets a first read if I drop everything to write some.

Sue: No one aside from myself.

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

Ashley: There are several. Whenever I am grieving, I return to The Cruel Country by Judith Ortiz Cofer. House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros usually brightens my day as well. Such a colorful text. With my students, I return to our curricular texts quite often. They each bring something different and I get something different from them each time I return. Before I do re-reads I do try to read something different in between re-reads. You know, for balance.

Sue: Jane Kenyon’s Collected Poems.

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Ashley: As an audience member, Nikki Giovanni‘s reading will always stay with me. Out of the several readings I’ve been to, I think I took the most notes during that reading.

As a reader, I’ve been fortunate enough to take part in several events. It’s hard to pick which was most memorable, but probably my second reading with Garden Party Collective as it was to highlight my chapbook about teaching, red line. The parents of one of my students that died suddenly were there, and it was the first time I felt physically unable to continue to read but also felt like I had the most impact with.

Sue: Philip Levine‘s 2011 reading at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont, right after he’d been appointed U.S. Poet Laureate.

• Ashley Elizabeth (she/her) is a Baltimore-based poet and winner of the 2024 Garden Party Collective Chapbook Contest. She is a Pushcart-nominated writer and educator whose work has appeared in SWIMM, Voicemail Poems, Rigorous, and Sage Cigarettes, among others. She is the author of four chapbooks, including red line and CHARM(ed). Her debut full-length collection, A Family Thing, is out now from ELJ Editions.

You can find Ashley on Instagram and Twitter as @ae_thepoet, or @aetheblkpoet on Bluesky, or on her personal website, aetheblkpoet.com.

• Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of six books of poetry— most recently Sea Nettles: New & Selected Poems. Before moving to the Eastern Shore in 2006, she taught at Middlebury College, Binghamton University, Wesleyan University, and Central Connecticut State University. A resident of Oxford for the past 18 years, she has been mentoring adult poets and teaching workshops at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda. In 2010, the Maryland Library Association awarded her its prestigious Maryland Author Award.

Sue’s home online is sueellenthompson.com, and she can be reached on Facebook as Sue Ellen Thompson, Poet.

Howard County Poetry and Literature Society is honored to receive the award of a $10,000 grant from Maryland Humanities through the 2025 Marilyn Hatza Memorial Strengthening the Humanities Investment in Nonprofits for Equity (SHINE) Grant Program, with our deepest gratitude for the recognition and support of Maryland Humanities, Maryland Historical Trust, and the Maryland Department of Planning. The SHINE Grant Program closely aligns with HoCoPoLitSo’s values and mission to broaden the audience for contemporary literature and celebrate culturally diverse literary heritages, and these grant funds will help to support HoCoPoLitSo’s operations and literary programming throughout this 50th anniversary year. #MDHumanities @MDHumanities

The operations and programming of HoCoPoLitSo in 2025 are financed in part with State Funds from the Maryland Historical Trust, an agency of the Maryland Department of Planning which is an instrumentality of the State of Maryland. However, project contents or opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Maryland Historical Trust or the Maryland Department of Planning.

Founded in 1974, HoCoPoLitSo this year rejoices in its golden 50th anniversary of bringing world-renowned authors to Howard County to broaden the audience for contemporary literature and celebrate culturally diverse literary heritages. As we charge forward in this joyous season, we recognize that it would not have been possible to get here any other way than one step at a time— and certainly not without the generous support of our many friends, peers, and partners. In that spirit, Susan Thornton Hobby, Recording Secretary and The Writing Life Producer, penned the cover story of our FY2024 annual report: “We All Contribute to 50 Years of Stone Soup.”

This past year, leading up to the anniversary, was defined by new and expanded collaborations: in late 2023, HoCoPoLitSo partnered with Howard County Arts Council and Howard County government through the office of County Executive Calvin Ball to create the first-ever positions of Howard County Poet Laureate and Youth Poet Laureate; we hope you will be able to join us for events featuring the inaugural appointees, Truth Thomas and Mai-Anh Nguyen— and applications are open now for the second youth laureate term.

Now in 2025, this year’s Bauder Writer-in-Residence, Tope Folarin, is making visits to county schools throughout the remainder of the school term, and applications are currently accepted for this year’s All-County Writing Competition. The Wilde Reading Series has moved to the newly-opened independent bookstore in the heart of Columbia, Queen Takes Book, and the annual Lucille Clifton Reading was held in partnership with the Howard County Conservancy this past October. Ahead of us are our signature events in collaboration with Howard Community College: HoCoPoLitSo’s Irish Evening coming soon on February 15th — tickets on sale NOW — and the Blackbird Poetry Festival, to be held April 24th, and we hope you can join us for all this and more.

As we reflect on the past half-century, we also look forward to how HoCoPoLitSo can change and adapt to best meet the needs of our community for another 50 years to come. Recently, new members of HoCoPoLitSo’s board of directors took the initiative to produce an updated online newsletter, distributed through hocopolitso.substack.com, which we call: HoCoPoLitSo’s “Rhyme and Reason.” If you were not previously receiving e-mails from HoCoPoLitSo, we hope you will subscribe to keep abreast of quarterly happenings in the world of lit, and future annual reports.

let there be lit.

HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the February edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Michael Ratcliffe and K.R. Raye, hosted by Laura Shovan. Please note this February 2025 reading will be held via online livestream, through Zoom and Facebook: we hope you will join us online February 11, 7–8:30 p.m.

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 via this online form.

Below, get to know Michael and K.R!

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

Michael: Two people show up most often in my writing— my great-great grandparents, John and Mary Ratcliff. They and their lives are the focus of the poems in my chapbook, Shards of Blue.

K.R.: It’s never a person that shows up in my writing, it’s themes. All of my stories speak about the power of friendship and faith (or the lack thereof). Whether I’m writing Horror, Drama, Romance, New Adult, or Young Adult Fantasy, friendship and faith play a role in some way.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Michael: I recently made and installed a bench at the far corner of our property where two stone walls meet in the woods. I think that’s going to be my new favorite place to write. There are a few other spots on the property, each with a large rock to sit on, that are great places to ponder and write. For now, it’s at my desk, looking out on woods and mountainside.

K.R.: I love writing in Florida on a screened-in back porch as the palm trees sway and the birds frolic in the lake.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Michael: I don’t have consistent rituals, but I generally prefer to write in the morning, with coffee featuring prominently in the process. Except in the summer, when mornings are devoted to cycling or gardening. Then, writing has to wait till later in the day.

K.R.: No, I don’t have any pre-writing rituals. I can typically write anytime and anywhere. Plus, I draw inspiration from my environment, so situations and settings spark me to write when I experience them.

Who always gets a first read?

Michael: My sister. She’s a professional copy editor and also a writer.

K.R.: My husband! He’s an excellent critic. I know if he questions something, I need to work on it and if he loves it, it’s solid. Plus, reading it first is his reward for patiently sharing me with my crazy characters during the writing process.

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

Michael: Fiction, Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country. Nonfiction, Karl Marx’s Capital, volume 1. And, in the some say fiction/some say nonfiction category: the Book of Mormon.

K.R.: I don’t tend to re-read books because my To-Be-Read pile is so large and I love diving into new characters and worlds. However, on my journey to getting our Young Adult Fantasy novel traditionally published, I’ve had to re-read The Hunger Games and Percy Jackson.

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Michael: Any of the Mother Earth Poetry Series readings at Red Emma’s in Baltimore. Each had a vibe that I haven’t felt elsewhere. Also at Red Emma’s, Amanda Kolson Hurley reading from and talking about her book, Radical Suburbs. I’ve spent much of my professional career defining urban, suburban, and rural areas, and I have a general interest in radical communitarian groups, so we had a lot to talk about at that reading.

K.R.: Book Club discussions are always enlightening because readers share what they thought and how the story affected them. One in particular was hilarious because a reader kept swearing that I must have been a fly on her dorm room wall to have shared so many of her secrets in my novel.

• Michael Ratcliffe is a geographer whose is a geographer whose poetry often reflects his interests in landscape and spirituality. His poems have appeared in print and online, including in Maryland in Poetry, Peacock Journal, Fourth and Sycamore, and Poetry X Hunger. Mike lives with his wife on two acres on Catoctin Mountain outside Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he gardens, takes care of trees, and sets out on long bike rides.

You can find more on Michael at michaelratcliffespoetry.wordpress.com.

• K.R. Raye lives in Maryland with her husband and two sons. She is the author of The Colors Trilogy, award-winning, Amazon best-selling contemporary New Adult novels. Throughout her diverse career working as a mechanical engineer, adjunct professor, and in sales, she continues to weave her love of marketing, computer information systems, and operations together with her passion for writing.

K.R.’s homepage is krraye.com, and she maintains a presence on several social media fronts, including BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The deadline for the 2025–2026 Youth Poet Laureate term applications has been extended to Friday, May 9th, at 11:59 p.m.

The Howard County Youth Poet Laureate program, a partnership between HoCoPoLitSo, Howard County Arts Council, and the Office of County Executive Calvin Ball, in the last year proudly welcomed our inaugural youth laureate, Mai-Anh Nguyen, at the announcement made in September 2024 at Busboys and Poets in Columbia, with several events since completed or planned around the county, including a Wilde Reading from Mai-Anh in June.

The role of the Youth Poet Laureate is an honorary position formally appointed by the County Executive, who will act as an ambassador for literary arts, and amplify the voice of youth expression in our community through participation in public events and readings across their one-year term. Applications for the 2025–2026 academic year are open NOW for eligible young poets, ages 14–21, who either reside in or will be able to present at in-person events in Howard County. The next Youth Poet Laureate will serve from September 2025 until July 2026, and receives an honorarium of $500 in two equal payments.

Eligible candidates may apply now by clicking HERE! The deadline for submissions has been extended until May 9, 2025. Full program guidelines can be found on the Howard County Arts Council grants homepage; for questions on the application process, please contact grantsandprojects@hocoarts.org, or by phone call to (410) 313-2787 during regular business hours.