Open mic before and after the featured poets. Sign up at 3 pm.

Norma Smith (normasmithwriter.com) is a Bay Area poet, memoirist, and lyric essayist. She was born in Detroit and grew up in Fresno. She worked in hospitals for decades and has also worked as a journalist, translator-interpreter, social researcher, event and conference organizer, and editor-writing coach. Her work has been published in literary, scholarly, and political journals and anthologies, including POETS READING THE NEWS, COLLOSSUS, DESPUES DEL AGUACERO (Pan Dulce Poets), BUTTERFLIES IN GAZA, and Círculo de Poetas & Writers Anthology (forthcoming).  She offers online and in-person writing workshops. Her book of poems, HOME REMEDY, is available at https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/home-remedy/

Cave Canem fellow James Cagney is the award-winning author of Black Steel Magnolias In The Hour Of Chaos Theory (Black Lawrence Press, 2023), MARTIAN: The Saint Of Loneliness (Nomadic Press, 2022). His current collection, Ghetto Koans: A Personal Archive, is published by Black Lawrence Press. He was born, raised, and currently…