George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.
THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT.
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84125861059
STORYTELLING ON ORCHARD STREET, NYC
Pete Solomita interviews poets, fiction writers, storytellers, film and theater directors, musicians, artists, who tell stories through their art, on Storytelling On Orchard Street, which debuted on September 25, 2022 and has over 46 episodes available to stream on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and other podcast platforms.
Meagan Brothers writes novels for young adults, the most recent of which, Weird Girl and What’s His Name, was named one of Kirkus Review’s Best Teen Books of 2015. Her poetry has appeared in POSTblank Magazine and Maintenant, as well as the anthologies Persian Sugar in English Tea, Before Passing, and The Other Side of Violet. A native Carolinian, she currently lives in New York City.
Lee Kostrinsky’s short stories and poems have been published in multiple literary publications. He also has three books of poetry including two published last year. Lee is also a guitarist, bassist, songwriter, and was the former co-owner of Smalls Jazz Club in the West Village of New York City. He currently runs the weekend day time jam sessions at Smalls.
Amy Barone’s poetry collection, Defying Extinction, was published by Broadstone Books in 2022. New York Quarterly Books published her book, We Became Summer. She wrote chapbooks Kamikaze Dance (Finishing Line Press) and Views from the Driveway (Foothills Publishing.) Barone lives in New York City and Haverford, PA. X: @AmyBBarone
ZIGGURAT POETS SF
Youssef Alaoui is an Arab-Latino writer and cultural organizer. Born in California to a Colombian mother and Moroccan father, his work reflects his diverse heritage. He holds an MFA in Poetics, and his writing has been published in Exquisite Corpse, Racket SF, Paris Lit Up, Brooklyn Rail and elsewhere. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he also founded Paper Press Books & Associates and Beast Crawl literary festival.
Keith Donnell Jr. is a California-based poet and book editor. He is a graduate of the Creative Writing MFA Program at San Francisco State University and the author of The Move (Nomadic Press, 2021) and supreme night (Black Lawrence Press, 2025). He is a previous Editor-in-Chief of Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review and his work has appeared in journals and anthologies, including POETRY and Best American Nonrequired Reading.
Kevin Dublin is founder of Living Room SF and focused on expanding economic accessibility to creative writing & inquiry through workshops, producing readings, and facilitating partnerships. Find his recent work in Brooklyn Rail, Ploughshares, and Apocrypha Magazine. He’s author of the chapbooks Eulogy and How to Fall in Love in San Diego, proudly from Smithfield, NC, and resides in San Francisco.
Duane Horton is a black queer fantasy writer who resides in the Bay Area. He believes in writing his intersection of identity into his fantasy stories to widen the cannon and so that folks who look like him can see themselves represented on the page. Duane graduated with an MFA in creative writing from Mills College in 2019 and since then has published a book – a collection of short stories called NO HERO ALONE – now available on amazon.
NASSAU COUNTY POETS LAUREATE LI NY
Alan Semerdjian is an award-winning Armenian-American writer, musician, educator, and current poet laureate of New York’s Nassau County. Recent recognitions include two Pushcart Prize nominations; a Frontier New Poets Award, and a tweet from Kim Kardashian that made his 2020 spoken word album The Serpent and The Crane (with guitarist/composer Aram Bajakian) viral for a day. Alan’s poem “The Writing About It Again” was part of a short, animated film (An Armenian Triptych: Retracing Our Steps, made in collaboration with Bajakian and international visual artist Kevork Mourad) that won honors in several film festivals. Alan has been teaching English in public schools for over twenty five years. He is on the advisory board for the International Armenian Literary Alliance, through which he founded and directs the Young Armenian Poets Awards.
Lorraine Conlin is the Nassau County Poet Laureate Emeritus (2015-2017) Vice-president of the NCPLS, Events Coordinator for PPA and Director of Program Development for the LIWG. She hosts Tuesdays With Poetry at the Bellmore Library. A two time winner of the Alan Ginsberg Poetry Contest. Her poems have been published nationally and internationally in anthologies and literary reviews.
Paula Curci produces Calliope’s Corner & What’s the Buzz ® on WRHU.ORG. She is Nassau County Poet Laureate Emerita (2022-2024) and the co-founder of the Acoustic Poets Network™. She is a certified Journal to the Self™ Journal Writing Instructor. You can find her Posics™ poetry and radio show online.
Peter V. Dugan was born and raised on Long Island, NY and he studied at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. He has authored five collections of poetry and his work has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. He hosts a reading series at the Oceanside Library, and he attends many poetry events in the LI and NYC regions. His dedication to his craft and contribution to the field of poetry led to his appointment as the Nassau County Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
