The Writers Place upcoming events

The Writers Place Reading Series featuring David Baker, Wayne Courtois, and Mary Troy (19 Jun 2026)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

David Baker is a poet, critic, literary editor, and educator. The most recent of his books are Transit (2026), Whale Fall (2022), and Swift: New and Selected Poems, from W. W. Norton. He coedited Collected Poems of Stanley Plumly, published in 2025, also from Norton. Baker’s poems and essays appear widely in American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, The Nation, New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, and elsewhere. He grew up in Jefferson City, Missouri, holds degrees from UCM (Warrensburg) and University of Utah, and currently divides his time between Granville, Ohio, and Hudson, New York.

Mary Troy is the author of six books of fiction–four collections of short stories and two novels: In The Sky Lord,Swimming on Hwy N , Beauties , Cookie Lily, The Alibi Cafe and other stories , and Joe Baker Is Dead. She has won the Lyon College Leila Lenore Heasley Prize as a “distinguished representative of American and international letters,” the USA Book award for literary fiction, the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award, a Nelson Algren award, a William Rockhill Nelson award, and more.

Wayne Couttois: A graduate of the MFA Program at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Courtois is author of a memoir, A Report from Winter; a novel, Tales My Body Told Me; and two erotic novels, My Name Is Rand and In the Time of Solution 9. His first poetry collection, The Old Ambassador and Other Poems, was published in 2023. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in journals including The Greensboro Review, Harrington Gay Men’s Literary Quarterly, Assaracus, Jonathan, and The I-70 Review; in the webzines suspect thoughts: a journal of subversive writing and Velvet Mafia; and in anthologies such as The Shining Years, Gimme Your Lunch Money, Best Gay Erotica, and Hibernation and Other Poems by Bear Bards. His nonfiction has appeared in I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage; Walking Higher: Gay Men Write about the Deaths of Their Mothers; and The Lost Library: Gay Fiction Rediscovered.

David Baker Poetry Workshop (20 Jun 2026)

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Open Mic Night (22 Jun 2026)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Open Mic Night

7:00pm

Quaker House, 4405 Gillham Road

Come share your writing at a free open mic hosted by Sharon Eiker!

The Writers Place Reading Series featuring Maria Nazos, Alice Friman, and Michael Mark (17 Jul 2026)

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Maria Nazos is a Greek American poet raised in Athens, Greece. Her poetry, translations, and essays appear or are forthcoming in Poets & Writers, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. She is the author of PULSE (Omnidawn, 2026) and The Slow Horizon that Breathes (World Poetry Books, 2023), a translated collection by Greek poet Dimitra Kotoula. She has worked nearly every job imaginable, including a disastrous three-day stint as a table dancer in Mykonos. Find her at www.marianazos.com.

Michael Mark is the author of Visiting Her in Queens is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet which won the 2022 Rattle Chapbook Prize. His poems appear in Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, New Ohio Review, Passages North, Ploughshares, Plume, Pleiades, The Southern Review, Sixth Finch, 32 Poems and The Sun. His work appears in The Best New Poets, 2024. He received a Pushcart Prize, 2026. michaeljmark.com

Alice Friman has recently been selected for induction into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, 2026. Her eighth collection of poems is On the Overnight Train, New and Selected Poems from LSU Press, which won the Midland Authors Poetry Award, 2025. Her last books, also from LSU, are Blood Weather, The View from Saturn, and Vinculum, which won the Georgia author of the year in poetry. She's a recipient of two Pushcart Prizes as well as being included in Best American Poetry. She's been published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Plume, The Southern Review and many others.

Open Mic Night (27 Jul 2026)

Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Open Mic Night

7:00pm

Quaker House, 4405 Gillham Road

Come share your writing at a free open mic hosted by Sharon Eiker!

The Writers Place Reading Series featuring Matthew Goldberg, William Trowbridge, and Rick Christiansen (21 Aug 2026)

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Mathew Goldberg’s story collection, Night Watch (Willow Springs Books) won the 2025 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Shenandoah, and American Short Fiction, among others. He has received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council and a Special Mention for a Pushcart Prize. He has a MFA in creative writing from the University of Arkansas and a degree in engineering from Duke University.

Rick Christiansen retired from corporate America ten years ago. He soon started writing to fill the time and to begin, as he has stated, to explain himself, to himself. He quickly discovered a knack for writing poetry and is now the author of Bone Fragments (2024) and Not a Hero (2025). Spartan Press. He has also completed but not yet published a third full length collection and a chapbook. His work has received two 2025 Pushcart Prize nominations and he was a finalist for the RHINO Poetry 2025 Founders Prize.

William Trowbridge’s eleventh poetry collection, Maintenance, came out from Spartan Press 2025. Over 550 of his poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines and in more than 50 anthologies and textbooks. He has published prose pieces in Vox Populi, New letters, the Georgia Review and The I-70 Review. He was Poet Laureate of Missouri from 2012 to 2016. For more information, see his website, wtrowbridge.net.

Open Mic Night (24 Aug 2026)

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Open Mic Night

7:00pm

Quaker House, 4405 Gillham Road

Come share your writing at a free open mic hosted by Sharon Eiker!

Annual Party and Silent Auction (29 Aug 2026)

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 21:00:00 GMT

The Writers Place Reading Series featuring Annette Billings, Greg Field, Maria Vasquez Boyd, Marina Jaffe, and Hyejung Kook (18 Sep 2026)

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sept 18th Heritage Reading with Annette Billings, Greg Field, Maria Vasquez Boyd, Marina Jaffe, and Hyejung Kook. Additional details to be posted soon.

Open Mic Night (28 Sep 2026)

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Open Mic Night

7:00pm

Quaker House, 4405 Gillham Road

Come share your writing at a free open mic hosted by Sharon Eiker!

The Writers Place Reading Series featuring Daniel Biegelson, Phyllis Becker, Pat Lawson (16 Oct 2026)

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Additional details to be posted soon.

Open Mic Night (26 Oct 2026)

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Open Mic Night

7:00pm

Quaker House, 4405 Gillham Road

Come share your writing at a free open mic hosted by Sharon Eiker!

The Writers Place Reading Series featuring Jocelyn Cullity, Robert Stewart, Lisa Allen (20 Nov 2026)

Sat, 21 Nov 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Additional details to be posted soon.

Open Mic Night (27 Nov 2026)

Sat, 28 Nov 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Open Mic Night

7:00pm

Quaker House, 4405 Gillham Road

Come share your writing at a free open mic hosted by Sharon Eiker!