Libby Bernardin
South Carolina poet Libby Bernardin is the author of Stones Ripe for Sowing (Press 53, 2018) and two chapbooks, The Book of Myth (SC Poetry Initiative, 2009) and Layers of Song (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Journal publications include The Asheville Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Kakalak. She has won poetry awards from the Poetry Society of South Carolina and the North Carolina Poetry Society, and has served as co-director of the highly respected Litchfield Tea & Poetry Series until 2019. Her new book, House in Need of Mooring (Press 53, 2022), is yet another testament to the silver lining of the pandemic. A retired English teacher from the University of South Carolina, she leads poetry workshops for the Georgetown County Library. She is a lifetime member of the Board of Governors of the SC Academy of Authors.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Building Community: A Reading
Evelyn Berry
Evelyn Berry (she/her) is a trans Southern writer, editor, and educator. She is the author of Grief Slut (Sundress Publications, 2024) and Buggery (Bateau Press, 2020), and winner of the BOOM Chapbook Prize. She is a recipient of a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship.
Performance Time: 1:00 p.m.
Performance Title: Keeping It Profesh: The Business of Poetry 101
Al Black
Al Black writes poetry, hosts workshops, and since 2010 has hosted over 1,000 poetry/music events in the Midlands of South Carolina. He is the author of two books of poetry, I Only Left for Tea (2014 Muddy Ford Press) and Man with Two Shadows (2018 Muddy Ford Press); co-editor Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (2017 Muddy Ford Press); was the 2017 Jasper Literary Artist of the Year; co-founded the Poets Respond to Race Initiative; co-hosts the Chewing the Gristle, a poetry chat Youtube series; and has a weekly byline in jasperproject.org – Poetry of the People.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Building Community: A Reading
Jennifer Bartell Boykin
Jennifer Bartell Boykin is the Poet Laureate of the City of Columbia. She received an MFA and MLIS from the University of South Carolina. Her debut book of poetry is Traveling Mercy (Finishing Line Press, 2023) and features the Bluefield community, which is in Johnsonville, SC. Her second book Only Believe (The Word Works) won the 2023 Hilary Tham Capital Collection Prize and is forthcoming in 2024. An alumna of Agnes Scott College, Jennifer is an Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellow and has additional fellowships from Callaloo and The Watering Hole.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Writing About Place: A Poetic Conversation with Jennifer Bartell Boykin and Nikky Finney
Victoria Brown
As a devoted woman of God, Victoria Brown carries plenty under her name as she is an Inspirational Poet, Certified Purpose Coach, Motivational Speaker, and a Poet Author of three books. Victoria Brown discovered her calling at the age of 16; however she took action on her calling at the age of 24. An assignment was given to her by God to start a ministry called True Story Through Poetry: Speak It, Write It, Vision It, and two years ago she launched her ministry. Her assignment was to share her testimony daily to others of what God has done in her life. She has empowered, encouraged, and enhanced women to discover their voice and their purpose beyond their trauma.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Pathways to Publishing the Poetry Collection: A Poetic Conversation
Terrance P. Elmore
Terrance P. Elmore is a South Carolina native and Benedict College graduate who has been writing since childhood. His passion for writing led to the creation of The Brown Sugar Cafe, a blog where every Wednesday you will find a poem that will encourage and inspire you. He’s the author of Love Letters and The Essence of Love. Both poetry collections are centered around love because he recognized a need to distinguish the difference between real love and misrepresented love. His third book, Pain Is Not Our Only Paintbrush, gives hope and resiliency through the eyes of a Black man. Subscribe to TheBrownSugarCafe.blog and The Brown Sugar Café Podcast to join him on his journey of spreading love in a world that seems to be full of hate.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Pathways to Publishing the Poetry Collection: A Poetic Conversation
Nikky Finney
Nikky Finney is the author of On Wings Made of Gauze; Rice; The World Is Round; and Head Off & Split, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011. Her new collection of poems, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry, was released in 2020. Finney is Carolina Distinguished Professor at USC in Columbia where she is also Director of the Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Writing About Place: A Poetic Conversation with Jennifer Bartell Boykin and Nikky Finney
Ben Gar
Ben Gar, Ph.D., is a Spanish composer and singer who blends pop and electronic with catchy melodies and emotive lyrics. His debut album, Broken Trust, released on April 5, 2024, is a breath of new air in the pop genre as he skillfully blends reflective lyricism with appealing rhythms.
Performance Time: 9:45 a.m.
Performance Title: Poesía en Español en Carolina del Sur (Poetry in Spanish in SC)
Juan Gónzalez
Juan Gónzalez, Mexican-born with a Master’s degree in mathematical sciences from Clemson University, is a dynamic entrepreneur. Founder of Spanish Writers, a nonprofit fostering intercultural innovation through creative writing and community engagement. His series "Raíces" delves into Hispanic culture, with Gloria as its inaugural book, showcasing his poetry and stories.
Performance Time: 9:45 a.m.
Performance Title: Poesía en Español en Carolina del Sur (Poetry in Spanish in SC)
Elizabeth Leverton
Elizabeth Leverton earned a BA in English literature and a Master's degree in English with a concentration in writing and editing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She began writing poetry in college. A recent graduate of the commercial graphics program at Midlands Technical College, Elizabeth is a graphic designer/typesetter who also enjoys songwriting and playing guitar, sewing functional art, and acrylic painting. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina, with her Labrador Retriever, Molly, and part-Siamese sister cats, Silo and Weaver. Peace, Rhododendron (2023) is her first book. The collection, which includes work from 1989 to 2023, concerns family, love, nostalgia, mental illness, and hope. Her recently home-published chapbook, A Mad Dash to Tell You (March 2024), is an investigation into the complexities of love.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Building Community: A Reading
Ray McManus
Ray McManus is the author of five books of poetry: The Last Saturday in America (Hub City Press, 2024), Punch. (winner of the 2015 Independent Publishers Book Award for Best Book of Poetry in North America), Red Dirt Jesus (selected by Alicia Ostriker for the Marick Press Poetry Prize 2011), and Driving through the country before you are born (winner of the South Carolina Book Prize in 2006), and a chapbook called Left Behind. He lives in South Carolina where he teaches for USC Sumter and serves as the Writer in Residence for the Columbia Museum of Art.
Performance Time: 9:45 a.m.
Performance Title: Fresh Ink: Meet the Poets with New Poetry Books!
Loli Molina Muñoz
Loli Molina Muñoz, Ph.D., is a working class poet, feminist, aesthete, and educator from Spain. Board member of The Jasper Project and The Poetry Society of SC, her poems have been published in different American and Spanish publications, and she is working on her first poetry chapbook in English.
Performance Time: 9:45 a.m.
Performance Title: Poesía en Español en Carolina del Sur (Poetry in Spanish in SC)
Moses Oaktree
Moses Oaktree is an artist, storyteller, and co-founder of Charleston, SC’s UnSpoken Word Open Mic. Moses has performed his signature features across the United States, especially for his homes of New Orleans, Atlanta, Columbia, and Charleston. His style melds southern lyricism, historical intrigue, and a surrealist take on the African/African-American tradition to create a contemporary black American myth. He is currently working on his first book of poetry, Heaven Be A Black Land.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m.
Performance Title: Building Community: A Reading
Clinia M. Saffi
Clinia M. Saffi, Ph.D., born in Paraguay, is Emerita Professor of Modern Foreign Languages at Presbyterian College. Her expertise in Guarani Indian history and literature during the Colonial era is showcased in her publications and presentations across the Americas and Europe. Notable works include "De soledades" and "Resistencia Guaraní en la época colonial."
Performance Time: 9:45 a.m​.
Performance Title: Poesía en Español en Carolina del Sur (Poetry in Spanish in SC)
Tayler Simon
Tayler Simon (she/her) is a writer, social worker, and the owner of the bookstore, Liberation is Lit. She has self-published three books, Phases: Poems, Writing Our Truths: A Guide to Self-Publishing for BIPOC Writers; and Love and Other Forms of Heartbreak. Tayler is passionate about promoting social liberation through the power of transformative stories.
Performance Time: 11:00 a.m​.
Performance Title: Pathways to Publishing the Poetry Collection: A Poetic Conversation
Cassie Premo Steele
C's newest book is the environmental novel, Beaver Girl, chosen as the 2024 One Book, One Community selection for the City of Columbia, South Carolina. An award-winning poet, novelist, and essayist, her most recent book of poetry is Swimming in Gilead from Yellow Arrow Publishing in Baltimore.
Performance Time: 9:45 a.m​.
Performance Title: Fresh Ink: Meet the Poets with New Poetry Books!
Bugsy Calhoun
Bugsy Calhoun is a poet emcee activist, event planner, and slam master for Columbia’s Tribe Slam team. He is a founding member of The Unusual Suspects poetry troupe and a member of Black on Black Rhyme. He has released six spoken word / Hip Hop projects, all available on bandcamp
Performance Time: 2:05 p.m​.
Performance Title: Princess Empowerment & Boyz II Men Writing Workshop for Kids 5-12
Willie Lee Kinard, III
Willie Lee Kinard, III is a Black nonbinary poet, designer, editor, and musician forged in Newberry, South Carolina. A 2023 Lilly Rosenberg Poetry Fellow and Graduate Fellow of The Watering Hole, they are the author of Orders of Service (Alice James Books, 2023).
Performance Time: 9:45 a.m​.
Performance Title: Fresh Ink: Meet the Poets with New Poetry Books!
DéLana R. A. Dameron
DéLana R. A. Dameron is an artist whose primary medium is storytelling. Redwood Court (Dial Press, 2024) is her fiction debut. She is the author of two poetry collections, How God Ends Us and Weary Kingdom. Her work has appeared in Kweli Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Dameron lives on her farm Saloma Acres, an equestrian and cultural play space near Columbia, South Carolina.
Performance Time: 1:00 p.m..
Performance Title: DéLana R. A. Dameron in Conversation with Jennifer Bartell Boykin
Tribe Slam Team
The Tribe Slam Team is Columbia’s premier slam team is a group of poets that participated in the nationally acclaimed Southern Fried Poetry Slam in Florida earlier this month. (Truth Seeker, Poetre', TK the Talented Kani, Moses Oaktree, Bugsy Calhoun, and Wintah Storm)
Performance Time: 1:00 p.m.
Performance Title: Welcome Home, Tribe: Slam Team Performance
