Massachusetts Poetry Festival: Lang Leav and Dara Weir

Please join us for this Friday evening headline reading at the 2021 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. This virtual reading, sponsored by Arklein Insurance Agency and Mapfre Insurance, will feature poets Lang Leav and Dara Wier

Find out more and register for the Festival at festival.masspoetry.org.

Novelist and poet Lang Leav was born in a refugee camp when her family were fleeing the Khmer Rouge Regime. She spent her formative years in Sydney, Australia, in the predominantly migrant town of Cabramatta. Among her many achievements, Lang is the winner of a Qantas Spirit of Youth Award, Churchill Fellowship and Goodreads Reader’s Choice Award. Her first book, Love & Misadventure (2013) was a breakout success, and her subsequent poetry books have all been international bestsellers. In 2016, Lang turned her attention to fiction, and her debut novel Sad Girls shot to #1 on the Straits Times and other bestseller charts internationally. Lang actively participates in international writers festivals and her tours consistently draw massive crowds. With a combined social media following of two million, Lang’s message of love, loss and female empowerment continues to resonate with her multitude of readers. Lang has been featured on CNN, SBS Australia, Intelligence Squared UK, Radio New Zealand and in various publications, including Vogue, Newsweek, the Straits Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She currently resides in New Zealand with her partner and fellow author, Michael Faudet.

Dara Wier's books include In the Still of the Night (Wave Books, 2017), You Good Thing (Wave Books, 2013), Selected Poems (Wave Books, 2009), Remnants of Hannah (Wave Books, 2006), Reverse Rapture (Verse Press, 2005, 2006 Poetry Center Book Award), Hat On a Pond (Verse Press, 2002), and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon, 2001). Among her works limited editions THRU (Scram, 2020), (X In Fix) in Rain Taxi’s Brainstorm Series, Fly on the Wall (Oat City Press), and The Lost Epic, co-written with James Tate (Waiting for Godot Books, 1999). Fellowships and awards from the Lannan Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, American Poetry Review, The Poetry Center have supported her poems. Her editing work includes publishing limited edition chapbooks and broadsides for Factory Hollow Press. Forthcoming is Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina from Wave Books.

Hosted by Mass Poetry; free for students; pay what you can option for general admission. Register here.