Tupelo Press 30/30 Project Reading
The Tupelo Press 30/30 Project is a unique poem-a-day project and fundraiser which takes poetry out into the larger world. The outreach builds a wonderful community of readers for each poet, with a supportive alumni group of over 300 poets from around the world. Poets write a poem a day for a month, after which the poems stay up for one more month, and then are taken down as poets review and revise their work prior to submissions. We've watched alumni help one another publish these poems, growing a shared list of over 90 journals and 45-50 books in which 30/30 poems have been published, and we're heartened by story after story about how meaningful this experience has been.
About the presenters:
Eric Elshtain is a homemaker and teaching poet whose poetry, reviews, and interviews can be found in McSweeney’s, Skanky Possum, Notre Dame Review, Ploughshares, American Letters & Commentary, Interim, Salt Hill, GutCult, Denver Quarterly, Chicago Review, Fact-Simile, Kennesaw Review, and other print and on-line journals. The author of several chapbooks including The Cheaper the Crook, the Gaudier the Patter (Transparent Tiger Press, 2004) and Here in Premonition (RubbaDucky, 2006), Elshtain has a full-length book of poetry, This Thin Memory A-ha from Verge Books. He is also the editor of Jon Trowbridge’s on-line Beard of Bees Press.
Jessica L. Walsh is the author of the poetry collection How to Break My Neck as well as two chapbooks, The Division of Standards and Knocked Around. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In addition to writing, Jessica teaches at Harper College in suburban Chicago, where she is a professor of English. The rest of the time, she’s laughing with her husband Robert and their 9-year-old daughter, Stella. www.jessicalwalsh.com
Jim Landwehr has two poetry collections, Reciting from Memory, by Underground Voices, and Written Life by eLectio Publishing. His first book, Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir, was published by eLectio Publishing in 2014. He has non-fiction stories published in Main Street Rag, Prairie Rose Publications, Steam Ticket and others. His poetry has been featured in Torrid Literature Journal, Every Day Poems, Off the Coast Poetry Journal, and many others. He enjoys fishing, kayaking, biking and camping with his kids in the remote regions of Wisconsin and Minnesota. For more visit: www.jimlandwehr.com
Ryder Collins has a novel, Homegirl! Her chapbook, The way the sky was now, won Heavy Feather Review’s first fiction chapbook contest, and she has two chapbooks of poetry, i am hopscotch without hop and Orpheus on toast. She wants to pull a cloud down from the sky & give it to you. http://bignortherngirlgoes.blogspot.com/
Sarah Sadie (Sarah Busse) is co-editor of Cowfeather Press (www.cowfeatherpress.org) and one of the Poets Laureate of Madison, Wisconsin (2012-2015), where she lives with her family. Her poems and books have won the Council for Wisconsin Writers’ Niedecker and Posner Prizes, as well as a Pushcart. Do-It-Yourself Paper Airplanes, her most recent chapbook, was published in 2015 by Five Oaks Press. Sarah teaches online at the Loft, at the University of Iowa’s Summer Writing Festival, and occasionally elsewhere. These days you can find her blogging at Dowsing for Divinity on the Patheos Pagan channel, and occasionally posting articles, pictures and notes of interest at sarahsadiesadiesarah.tumblr.com.
H.V. Cramond is the Poetry Editor for and a Co-founder of Requited Journal for Innovative Art and a Writing Instructor at Loyola University Chicago. She holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council and the City of Chicago’s Community Arts Assistance Program. Her poem “War of Attrition” (forthcoming in Matter Monthly) was a finalist in the 2013 Split This Rock Poetry Festival Contest judged by Mark Doty. Some recent work can be found in Soundless Poetry, Keep Going, Wunderkammer, Ignavia, death hums, and Pandora’s Box(Southport Press, 2011).
Margie Skelly’s most recent poem publication is “Daze in Burlington, Iowa.” Prior to that, her poem “For Osama bin Laden, May 1, 2011” appeared inHeaven and Hell (an online anthology of poetry and photography) edited by John Guzlowski. The Scream Online. Spring, 2012. Publisher Stuart Balcomb. Her poetry has been published in Cram 2011, several Tall Grass Writers Guild anthologies put out by Outrider Press, Korone, and Rambunctious Review. Other distinctions include a scholarship in poetry to the Rope Walk Writers Conference in New Harmony, Indiana, summer, 2010; Finalist for the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Contest through the Guild at the Chopin Theater, Chicago, IL, June, 2011; Semi-finalist for the 2011 Word Works Washington Prize for a book-length collection of poetry, July, 2011; and Contest Judge for the Thirty-third Evanston-only high school contestants for the Jo-Anne Hirshfield Memorial Poetry Awards, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL, May, 2011. A poem of hers was taught in an Advanced Placement English class at Buffalo Grove High School, Buffalo Grove, IL., Spring, 2010. She has recently taught poetry revision at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago and poetry writing at the Eisenhower Library in Harwood Heights, Illinois. Forthcoming is publication of a poetry chapbook by Puddin’head Press of Chicago.
Christine Starr Davis is a poet/teacher/mother who embraces the enigmatic by mentoring young writers in the public schools and college students who keep her turning the page. Her daughters rowed for her while she earned her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts and found home. Her work has been nominated for Best New Poets, 2009, a Pushcart Prize for Poetry in 2010 and has appeared or is forthcoming inCider Press Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Compass Rose, Confrontation, Eclipse, Lake Effect, Monarch Review, Permafrost, Spoon River Poetry Review, Studio One, Whiskey Island Magazine, and others. Her first poetry collection in search of publication strives to dignify the small, hard truths that most won’t dare say, but that beg telling.
Naoko Fujimoto was born and raised in Japan. She was an exchange student and received a B.A. and M.A. from Indiana University South Bend. Her recent publications are in Prairie Schooner, Hotel Amerika, Passages North, Potomac Review, Natural Bridge, and many other journals. Her chapbook, “Home, No Home,” was recently published by Educe Press in Montana.