Please join us for our September 11th Zoom reading featuring Al Ortolani and Kevin Rabas. To attend, please register here for the reading, and you will be provided with the information needed to join the reading.
Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-2019) Kevin Rabas teaches at Emporia State University, where he leads the poetry and playwriting tracks and chairs the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism. He has eleven books, including Lisa's Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner; All That Jazz; and Everyone Just Wants to Drum. He is the recipient of the Emporia State President's Award for Research and Creativity and is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry and the Salina New Voice Award.
Al Ortolani's poetry has appeared in journals such as Rattle, Prairie Schooner, and New Letters. His most recent collection, On the Chicopee Spur, was released from New York Quarterly Books in 2018. He is the Manuscript Editor for Woodley Press in Topeka, Kansas, and has directed a memoir writing project for Vietnam veterans across Kansas in association with the Library of Congress and Humanities Kansas. His coauthored collection, Ghost Sign, was selected as a Kansas Notable Book in 2017. He is a 2019 recipient of the Rattle Chapbook Series Award for Hansel and Gretel Get the Word on the Street.