Those of you who attended our AWA Conference in 2015 will likely remember the wonderful Open Mic spearheaded by Emily Savin.
If you weren’t there, it was a night in which AWA workshop leaders came together to share their poems and stories as a community. Names were called off a long list that had been signed, in a mishmash of sharpie and ballpoint pen and pencil, throughout the day on a poster.
Readers stepped up to a podium that would be used for Bisi Ideraabdullah’s moving keynote the next day, but that for now held each writer for a few minutes as they shared what they had brought with them. Works of different styles, genres, and lengths were met with applause and cheers. It was a lively night, the room low-lit but full of energy. We celebrated with each other and we grieved with each other.
In that spirit, and because we’ve received a variety of emails recently in which writers shared their readings with us, we wanted to host a virtual reading in this post.
We hope to do more of these round up posts in the future. We know many AWA workshop leaders host readings with their workshop participants and we’d love to continue to share the fruits of that work, both of the writers and the leaders. If you write in an AWA workshop or lead one, please consider sending us an email with a link to a video of you sharing your work. We want to celebrate you, and as always, we love to hear from you!
Turning it over to the readers…
Catherine Wald reading “Aftermath”
Robert Gibbons reading “All Inspiration Comes from Spirit” to celebrate the 15th anniversary of New York Writer’s Coalition
Kate Marshall Flaherty reading “Far Away”
Lynne Connor reading at Mother ME hosted by Lost Lit
For more voices of AWA, check out these posts of poems and stories written during our Write Around the World fundraiser.