Book Launch: SAINT DYMPHNA’S PLAYBOOK by Hillary Leftwich
This event will be held live on Zoom. Click here to register now.
Pre-order SAINT DYMPHNA’S PLAYBOOK
HILLARY LEFTWICH is a multi-media writer and the author of Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Agape Editions, 2023), Aura (Future Tense Books, 2022), and Saint Dymphna’s Playbook (forthcoming from Limit Zero, 2025). She teaches creative writing, business writing, and environmental writing and storytelling at several universities, writing organizations, and nonprofits for adults, previously incarcerated and hospitalized youth, and unhoused populations. She centers her writing around themes of class struggle, the impact of disease, mental illness, ritual, and the supernatural. On the outskirts of the writing world, she teaches Tarot and Tarot writing workshops focusing on strengthening divination abilities along with writing. She is a professional Tarot reader, an Usui Reiki Master Teacher, death worker, and speaks with the dead.
Find her author services here: Alchemy Author Services & Writing Workshop
She is currently working on a series of hermit crab/collage essays and video poems investigating gun violence along with her background and experience growing up in Colorado and its history with mass shootings.
GUEST READERS
CAROL GUESS is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose, including Sleep Tight Satellite and Infodemic. In 2014 Guess was awarded the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement by Columbia University. Guess teaches Queer Literature and Creative Writing at Western Washington University, and lives in the Skagit Valley.
BRENDA S. TALIAN is a writer and professor living in New Orleans. She is the author of the Elgin Award-nominated Bestial Mouths and Blood Mountain. Her forthcoming nonfiction, American Magdalene: The Life Behind the Scandalous Book Madeleine: An Autobiography, is expected in 2025.
ALEX DIFRANCESCO is the author of Psychopomps, All City, Transmutation, and Breaking the Curse. Their work has appeared in New York Times, The Guardian, Electric Lit, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Lit Hub, and more. They are the recipient of a 2022 Individual Excellence award from the Ohio Arts Council, and the first transgender awards finalist in over 80 years of the Ohioana book awards. They live in Philadelphia with their dog, Roxy and their cat, Jack.
CHRIS CAMPANIONI was born in Manhattan and grew up in a very nineties New Jersey. His work on migration and media theory has been awarded the Calder Prize for interdisciplinary research and a Mellon Foundation fellowship, and his writing has received the Pushcart Prize, the International Latino Book Award, and the Academy of American Poets College Prize. Recent books include a novel named VHS (CLASH Books, 2025), a creative nonfiction called north by north/west (West Virginia University Press, 2025), a notebook titled A and B and Also Nothing (Unbound Edition, 2023), the poetry collection Windows 85 (Roof Books, 2024), and Drift Net (Lever Press, 2025), a monograph on migrant subjectivity and works of art born in translation. He is the writer in residence at Pace University in New York City, where he teaches creative writing and media studies.
JEFF ALESSANDRELLI is most recently the author of the novel And Yet (Future Tense Books, 2024). The Kenyon Review called his 2019 poetry collection Fur Not Light an “example of radical humility…its poems enact a quiet but persistent empathy in the world of creative writing.” Recent work by Alessandrelli appears or is forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, Chicago Review, and Buckmxn Journal.
ERIN K. BARNES is a Denver-based writer whose work blends synesthetic musings, punk-rock memories, and sharp explorations of rebellion and subversion. By day, she weaves narrative magic in the immersive arts world as Senior Public Relations Manager for Meow Wolf. By night, she transforms into her alter ego, Gogo Germaine—self-proclaimed punk slutbunny and author of the award-winning memoir Glory Guitars: Memoir of a ’90s Teenage Punk Rock Grrrl.
From punk exploits to bedtime novels for her neurodivergent kids, Erin’s writing paints vivid, unforgettable scenes. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Denver Post, Westword, The Rumpus, Razorcake, Louder Than War, and her memoir is immortalized at the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas. As a journalist, she has written for Men’s Health, BUST, Syfy, and others.
Previously, Erin was the Burrito Fairy for Illegal Pete’s, PR storyteller for the haunted Black Monarch Hotel, and co-led The Haunted Writer’s Retreat with author Josiah Hesse. She speaks on writing, branding, and creative PR at events like UMS, Fan Expo, Warm Cookies of the Revolution, and SIGGRAPH. Named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives and 303 Magazine’s 70 Colorado Creatives, she has won two “Best of Denver” awards from Westword’s annual roundup (Best Blog, 2009 and Best Punk-Rock Memoir, 2023). She lives in Denver’s creative vortex with her family, a menagerie of pets, and a love of all things delightfully weird.
An Evening with Joan Kwon Glass (3PM Mountiain Standard Time)
Don't miss this special reading with poet Joan Kwon Glass, winner of the 2024 Perugia Press poetry Prize and the Diode Book Prize.
A Reading Celebration for Samuel Kóláwolé (7pm, Mountain Time)
Join us in celebration of Samuel Kóláwolé's debut novel, The Road to the Salt Seat, published by Amistad.
A Reading Celebration for Carol Guess (January 20 @6pm MST, Zoom Event)
Join us in celebration of Carol Guess's collection, Sleep Tight Satellite, published by Tupelo Press. At The Inkwell Founder Monique Antonette Lewis hosts Carol along with featured guests Wendy J. Fox, Hillary Leftwich, Jay Halsey, and Jason Masino.
Shoshana Surek Book Launch Celebration b'siyata d'shira from Finishing Line Press (April 14| 6pm Mountain Time)
SHOSHANA SUREK earned her MA and MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University in Denver. Her essays, fiction, and poetry have been published in literary magazines in the United States, Canada, Australia, England, and South Korea. Shoshana received a Fiction Pushcart Prize nomination in 2017 and a Poetry Pushcart Prize nomination in 2020. She is a 2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award finalist from december Magazine and placed third in the 2020 Voyage First Chapter’s Contest, judged by NYT Bestselling Author, Melissa de la Cruz. She was a first reader for Vestal Review and Inverted Syntax literary magazines. Her debut poetry collection, b’siyata d’shira is a prayer song set to the rhythm of memory. Family ghosts haunted by the Holocaust exist at the intersection of tragedy and modern society. Surek’s debut is not told from a singular lens but one she has unraveled, questioned, and rediscovered. By rooting imagery in prayer, Surek braids together a history of old and new worlds shrouded by ancient traditions and personal history, mining memories around culture, elegy, family, and faith. Through lyrical language and meditation, b’siyata d’shira seeks to raise the dead while fiercely honoring a lineage with a horrific past so stunning we will all be left questioning the beauty behind human brutality. Published by Finishing Line Press. She and her family reside in the beautiful foothills of Colorado. Book orders: Finishing Line Press
GUEST READERS
JAY HALSEY’s poems and prose have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. His photography has been used as cover art for poetry collections and novels, and was part of a touring exhibit featured at libraries and bookstores throughout France to represent Editions Gallmeister’s American authors. His photography and multi-form prose and poetry collection, Barely Half in an Awkward Line, was published by Really Serious Literature in October of 2022 and is available anywhere that sells books. Book orders: Bookshop and Barnes & Noble
CRISOSTO APACHE is originally from Mescalero, New Mexico, on the Mescalero Apache reservation, and currently lives in the Denver area with their spouse. They are Mescalero Apache, Chiricahua Apache, and Diné (Navajo) of the Salt Clan born for the Towering House Clan. They hold an MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and are an Assistant Professor of English. Crisosto’s debut collection is GENESIS (Lost Alphabet). Their second collection is Ghostword (Gnashing Teeth Publications). They are also the Associate Editor of The Offing Magazine. Book orders: Ghostword / Website: crisostoapache.com
CHIP LIVINGSTON is the author of the poetry collections, Saints of the Republic; Crow-Blue, Crow-Black; and Museum of False Starts. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in Poem A Day, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Cincinnati Review, and other journals and anthologies. Chip is the editor of Love, Loosha: The Letters of Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie. He teaches in the low-rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He lives in Montevideo, Uruguay. Website: chiplivingston.com
AKUSUA AKOTO is a poet, essayist, spoken word artist and memoirist originally from Dallas, currently residing in Denver. She is working on a manuscript of poetry based on Black mother-daughter relationships, insanity, poverty and survival.
At the Inkwell Presents a Book Celebration & Reading for Ashley Howell Bunn
At The Inkwell Denver returns to in-person readings at our new venue, Counterpath Bookstore, on Saturday, November 5!
Brenda S. Tolian Book Celebration: Blood Mountain (Zoom, 5pm U.S. Mountain Time)
Join At The Inkwell Denver to celebrate Brenda S. Tolian's latest book Blood Mountain with guest readers Paul Tremblay, Gambino Iglesias, Maryse Meijer, Bobby Crew and Joy Yehle.
Click Here to register to attend on Zoom. Pre-registration is required to receive the Zoom link and password.
BRENDA S. TOLIAN is a the author of BLOOD MOUNTAIN published by RAW DOG SCREAMING PRESS. She is a member of the, HWA , AWP and the Angela Carter Society. She is a graduate of Adams State University, Regis University (MFA) and a Doctoral Student of Literature at Murray State University. Her work has appeared in Haunted Mtl.com, the anthology 101 Proof Horror, the Denver Horror Collective’s anthology Consumed Tales Inspired by The Wendigo, The Jewish Book Of Horror, Twisted Pulp Magazine issue 3. Brenda also writes academically on subjects such as Postmodernism,Vladimir Nabokov and the female body within horror. She is a lead instructor of dark fiction with Al•che•my Writers Workshop in Denver and one of a trinity of directors at ☿ OUROBOROS SCREAMING. She now calls New Orleans home after a long stint in the southwest.
MARYSE MEIJER is the author of Heartbreaker, The Seventh Mansion, Northwood, and Rag. She lives in Chicago.
JOY YEHLE is an award winning author of horror and dark fiction. Her short stories have appeared in various publications, including the best-selling Denver Horror Collective’s Terror at 5280’ and Consumed: Tales Inspired by the Wendigo. Her first YA novel, DREAD, was published in 2016. Joy also co-hosts The Burial Plot Horror Podcast
and is co-director at Ouroboros Screaming Writers Workshops.
BOBBY CREW has been writing horror since elementary school. Due to his twisted imagination, his parents thought they were raising a serial killer, but thankfully he chose to keep the killing on paper only. He grew up in Denver, Colorado, and is the creator of The Horror Crew Productions, a brand new indie publishing press that focuses
primarily on LGBTQ horror.
PAUL TREMBLAY has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the author of Survivor Song, The Cabin at the End of the World, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, A Head Full of Ghosts, the crime novels The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland, and the short story collection, Growing Things and Other
Stories. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly online, and numerous year’s-best anthologies. He has a master’s degree in mathematics and lives outside Boston with his family.
GABINO IGLESIAS is a writer, journalist, professor, and literary critic living in Austin, TX. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning novels Zero Saints and Coyote Songs. Iglesias' nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Electric Literature, and LitReactor, and his reviews appear regularly in places like NPR, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, Criminal Element, Mystery Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He’s been a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards twice and the Millions Tournament of Books, and is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Mystery Writers of America, and the National Book Critics Circle.
At The Inkwell with Lisa Dordal
At The Inkwell Denver returns with Lisa Dordal's latest collection, Water Lessons, and featured guests Ashley Cornelius and Shoshana Surek.
At The Inkwell Denver
Registration Link: bookbardenver.com/event/inkwell-richardson-hoilette
ANDRÉ O. HOILETTE is a Jamaican-born poet living in Denver, Colorado, André is a Cave Canem alumnus and the former editor of ambulant: A Journal of Poetry & Art and former assistant editor of Nexus Magazine. He earned an MFA in Fiction and Poetry from Regis University’s Mile-High MFA program. 2020 nomination for Pushcart Prize. 2021 Finalist Frontier Poetry Chapbook Prize, 2021 Semi-finalist Cave Canem Book Prize. Previous publication in Role Call, Stand Our Ground, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam and Cave Canem 10-Year Reader anthologies and journals: Inverted Syntax, Cultural Weekly, Rigorous, milk magazine, Nexus magazine, South Broadway Press and Burrow Press.
MARC ANTHONY RICHARDSON is author of Year of the Rat, winner of an American Book Award, and is a recipient of a Creative Capital Award, a PEN America grant, a Sachs Program grant, a Hurston/Wright fellowship, and a Vermont Studio Center residency. He teaches creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania. www.marcanthonyrichardson.com