Join us for an evening of literature and conversation with North Bay native Tim Hunt, professor emeritus in Literature from Illinois State University, author of Kerouac’s Crooked Road: Development of a Fiction, The Textuality of Soulwork: Jack Kerouac’s Quest for Spontaneous Prose, and editor of the six volume The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. Tim, a fourth generation Californian raised primarily in Sebastopol, is also the author of six collections of poetry, all Pushcart Prize nominees, including Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes (winner of the 2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), and his most recent book, Western Where. His “Lake County Elegy” has been awarded the Chester H. Jones National Poetry Prize. Please consider this special occasion as an opportunity to engage with the potential for literature. There will be poetry.

FREE and open to the public.

Join us for an evening of poetry at the intersection of landscape and language, our inner and outer lives, the precarity and wonder of our natural world, as Wisconsin-based poet Catherine Jagoe reads from her latest book, Praying to the God of Small Things (Kelsay Books, 2024). 

• FREE and open to the public – your RSVP helps with planning

• Light refreshments and amazing poetry served in equal measure

• A beautiful letterpress broadside of new work by Catherine will be available

Author Heather Swan says of this new work: “These exacting poems telescope in and out, braiding the tangible effects of climate change and keen observations of the leafhopper, the killdeer feigning a broken wing, the 'lemonbright' of finches, moss. Never steering away from the complicity of being human, [Jasgoe] meanwhile wields the very human power of language, deftly speaking for the wondrous more-than-human world, compelling her readers to 'stand still and listen, just listen / trying to name every song.'” 

We hope to see you for this special event.

We’re thrilled to kick off a busy fall of talks, readings, workshops, and other celebrations at NBLA with a Sunday afternoon of poetry featuring the inimitable poet, editor, teacher, and translator Gillian Conoley. Please join us!

• FREE and open to the public – your RSVP helps with planning

• Light refreshments and amazing poetry served in equal measure

• A beautiful letterpress broadside of new work by Gillian will be available

The author of ten collections, Gillian Conoley’s most recent books are Notes from the Passenger (2023) and A little More Red Sun on the Human (2019), both published with Nightboat Books. The latter won the 39th annual Northern California Book Award in 2020. Other awards include the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Fund for Poetry Award.

Gillian is a long-time Bay Area resident and was for many years a beloved professor of creative writing at Sonoma State University. She is the founding editor of VOLT magazine and translator of three books by Henri Michaux, published as Thousand Times Broken by City Lights. Gillian’s poetry is a riveting mix of ancient pleasures and contemporary concerns; we hope you can join us for this terrific, in-person event, part of NBLA’s ongoing reading series showcasing the work and talents of contemporary poets. [https://www.gillianconoley.com/]

Celebrate National Poetry Month with us!

We're thrilled to host poets Laura Moriarty, Elizabeth Herron, and youth poet Athena Ryan at NBLA in the first of a regular series of readings to highlight the literary and print arts.

• FREE and open to the public - please RSVP

• Light refreshments served

• Beautiful hand-set broadsides available with donation to NBLA

Laura Moriarty was the Director of the American Poetry Archives at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University for many years. She has taught at Naropa University and Mills College. She was Deputy Director of Small Press Distribution for two decades. She won the Poetry Center Book Award in 1983, a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Award in Poetry in 1992, a New Langton Arts Award in Literature 1998 and a Fund for Poetry grant in 2007. Her most recent book of poetry is Personal Volcano from Nightboat Books. Her Which Walks is forthcoming, also from Nightboat.

Author of four previous books of poetry and five chapbooks as well as, most recently, In the Cities of Sleep from Fernwood Press, Elizabeth C. Herron also writes about the importance of natural systems in the well-being of all life. The Mesa Refuge for Writers, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Foundation for Deep Ecology have supported her work. She is a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Writers and lives with her husband in Northern California where she is the current Poet Laureate of Sonoma County.

Find NBLA at the Sonoma Community Writers Festival, a community-based series of readings, panels, workshops and a bazaar featuring over 40 Bay Area independent literary organizations.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

For more information on the festival, visit https://english.sonoma.edu/community-writers-festival

Join Allie Rigby and Katie Marie Nealon for a free, public poetry reading on April 3 as part of National Poetry Month. This event begins promptly at 7 p.m. at North Bay Letterpress Arts. Light refreshments will be provided.

Allie will read from her debut book of poetry, Moonscape for a Child (Bored Wolves 2024), and then there will be an Open Mic and possible letterpress demo. As a fellow poet and printer, Katie will share about her collaborations with Allie, and also speak to the possibilities of poetry and letterpress. Bring a poem–or two–to read and share!

Who: Public event, open to the community.
When: April 3 from 7–9 p.m. (PST).
What: Please join us for a wonderful evening of poetry and connection.