I have been counting down the days since booking Cynthia and Susan for this reading back in September of 2023, because both of them write poems that crackle with wit and thrum with bravery, and we’re all fortunate to have their work here in this world. Come through and get to know them!

Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad-HarperCollins, 2023), which received 5 stars from Roxane Gay, was named among the “Best Poetry of the Last Year” by Ms. Magazine, and was selected as a New York Public Library Best Book of 2023. She is the author of Brown Girl Polaris (a Belladonna chaplet), editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry; winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry; and author of Blue Hallelujahs. Manick has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Château de la Napoule among other foundations. For 10 years she curated Soul Sister Revue, a quarterly reading series that promoted poetry as storytelling and featured emerging poets, poet laureates, and Pultizer Prize winners. Her poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems and has debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. A storyteller and performer at literary festivals, libraries, universities, and museums, Manick’s work has also featured in VOICES, an audio play by Aja Monet and Eve Ensler’s V-Day, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Brooklyn Rail, The Rumpus and other outlets. She currently serves on the editorial board of Alice James Books. She lives in New York but travels widely for poetry. 

Susan Rich is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Blue Atlas (April 2024) and Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems (2022). She has co-edited two prose anthologies including Demystifying the Manuscript: Essays and Interviews for Creating a Book of Poems (2023) and Strangest of Theatres: Poets Crossing Borders (2013). A recipient of a Times Literary Supplement Award, she has received fellowships from Artists Trust, 4Culture, Seattle King County, the Fulbright Foundation and Peace Corps Writers. Her poems have been published in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Alaska Quarterly Review, New England Review, The Slowdown, and elsewhere. Susan lives in Seattle, but is Massachusetts born and bred.

Registration is easy: bit.ly/WTUIMay2024