Samodh Porawagamage is the author of becoming sam,published by Burnside Review Press, and All the Salty Sand in Our Mouths, forthcoming from Airlie Press. A practice-based researcher, he writes about the Sri Lankan Civil War, 2004 tsunami, elephant-human conflict, poverty and underdevelopment, lasting effects of colonialism, and disproportionate impacts of climate change on rural and marginalized communities. He enjoys long hikes, birdwatching, martial arts, haphazard cooking, and ghost stories. He works at Hamilton College.
Jessica Cuello's most recent book, Yours, Creature (JackLeg Press, 2023), was a finalisst for the Philip McMath Poetry Prize. Her book Liar, selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize, was honored with The Eugene Nassar Prize, The CNY Book Aarad, and a finalist nod for The Housatonic Book Award. Cuello is also the author of Hunt (The Word Works, 2017) and Pricking (Tiger Bark Press, 2016). Cuello has been awarded a 2023 NYSCA Artist Grant, The 2022 Nina Riggs Poetry Prize, two CNY Book Awards, The 2016 Washington Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. She is a poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review and teaches French in Central NY.
This hybrid event will take place ONLINE AND IN-PERSON at the Downtown Writers Center. Register Now.