Public Reading Series
Readings by featured artists are open to the public, by registration only.
A suggested $20 donation may be given at the door. All events take place at The Sanctuary.
Shawna Kay Rodenberg
Friday, May 16 | 7:00 PM
Shawna Kay Rodenberg is the author of the memoir Kin. She has been the recipient of a Jean Ritchie Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and her essays have appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, and Elle. She teaches nonfiction at the Bennington Writing Seminars and lives on a hobby goat farm in southern Indiana.
Image credit: Joshua Lucca
Michael Patrick F. Smith
Saturday, May 17 | 7:00 PM
Michael Patrick F. Smith is the author of The Good Hand (A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown). His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, and The Guardian. Currently, he also works as a gardener in Brooklyn, New York.
Image credit: Zach Pontz
Robert Gipe
Sunday, May 18 | 7:00 PM
Robert Gipe won the 2015 Weatherford Award for outstanding Appalachian novel for his first novel Trampoline. His second novel, Weedeater, was published in 2018. His third novel, Pop, was published in 2021. All three novels are published by Ohio University Press. In 2021, the trilogy won the Judy Gaines Young Book Award. From 1997 to 2018, Gipe directed the Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College Appalachian Program in Harlan. Gipe is founding producer of the Higher Ground community performance series, and has served as a script consultant for the Hulu series Dopesick and a producer on the feature film The Evening Hour. Gipe resides in Harlan County, Kentucky. He grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee.
Image credit: Meaghan Evans
Monic Ductan
Tuesday, May 20 | 7:00 PM
Monic Ductan teaches writing at Tennessee Tech University. Her book, Daughters of Muscadine, is a story collection about working-class Black families in rural Georgia. Muscadine won the Weatherford Award and the Tennessee Book Award. Monic is at work on a poetry collection, an essay collection, and a novel.
Clara Strong
Wednesday, May 21 | 7:00 PM
Clara Strong’s poems have appeared in publications including Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Rascal Journal, and Cutleaf Press. She has received nominations twice for both the Pushcart Poetry Prize and Best New Poetry. She holds a BA in Psychology from Antioch College, and an M.F.A. in Literature and Creative Writing from Bennington College. Her graduate lecture focused on the convergence of motherhood, ambivalence and the occult in the works of Sylvia Plath. Her chapbook, Afterbirth, was published this year by Finishing Line Press. She teaches creative writing at the University of Evansville.
Bernard Clay
Thursday, May 22 | 7:00 PM
Kentucky native Bernard Clay grew up in Louisville. He has spent years developing a deep appreciation of the state's unique natural and urban areas. Bernard earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Kentucky Creative Writing Program and is a member of the Affrilachian Poets collective. His work can be found in various journals and anthologies. He currently lives on Scorpion Hollow Farm in eastern Kentucky with his herbalist partner Lauren, founder of Resilient Roots, where he homesteads and continues writing.