PLAN YOUR VISIT FOR "ONE RIVER, ONE BOAT: CELEBRATING SOUTH CAROLINA'S POETS >>
Soda City
POETRY FESTIVAL
Poetic Conversations
Daniel Cross Turner
POETIC CONVERSATION: COAST LINES ANTHOLOGY. THIS SESSION OFFERS A LIVELY EXCHANGE BETWEEN CONTRIBUTORS TO COAST LINES: A POETRY ANTHOLOGY, A NEW ANTHOLOGY THAT INCLUDES WORKS BY 50 POETS EXPLORING THE DIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA COASTAL PLAIN, FROM ITS DISTINCT ECOLOGY AND WILDLIFE TO ITS DEEP HISTORY AND CULTURE. THIS CONVERSATION FEATURES DANIEL CROSS TURNER, GLENIS REDMOND, JO ANGELA EDWINS & YVETTE MURRAY.
Daniel Cross Turner’s (Vanderbilt, Ph.D.) writing appears in Five Points, James Dickey Review, Literary Matters, etc. His books include a poetry collection, Riding Light (CLASS); a scholarly monograph, Southern Crossings: Poetry, Memory, and the Transcultural South (Tennessee); an essay collection, Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature and Culture (LSU Press); a poetry anthology featuring 77 poets, Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry (USC Press); and a new poetry anthology exploring coastal ecologies and wildlife from 50 poets with color photographs, Coast Lines (CLASS). An upstate SC native, he lives on the coast. Visit danielcrossturner.com
Glenis Redmond
Glenis Redmond is Greenville, South Carolina’s Inaugural Poet Laureate and a 2025 recipient of the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor, awarded by the Governor in recognition of a lifetime of extraordinary achievement, service, and contributions on a national or statewide scale. She received the Highlights Foundation Inspire Scholarship in 2025 and is the Baldwin Fellow (2024–2025), as well as a 2023 Poet Laureate Fellow selected by the Academy of American Poets. Glenis was also named a Citizen Diplomat by the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center. A Cave Canem Alumni, Glenis is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves. She earned her B.A. from Erskine College and her M.F.A. in poetry from Warren Wilson College. She is the author of seven books.
Jo Angela Edwins
Jo Angela Edwins has published poems in over 100 journals and anthologies including Calyx, descant, The Hollins Critic, and Mom Egg Review. She is the author of the collection A Dangerous Heaven (Gnashing Teeth, 2023) and the chapbooks Play (Finishing Line, 2016) and Bitten (dancing girl, forthcoming 2025). She has received awards from Winning Writers, Poetry Super Highway, the Jasper Project, and the SC Academy of Authors. A professor of English at Francis Marion University, she serves as the first poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina.
Yvette Murray
Yvette R. Murray is an award-winning poet and writer. She has been published in Chestnut Review, Emrys Journal, Litmosphere, A Gathering Together, and elsewhere. She is the 2022 Susan Laughter Meyers Weymouth Fellow, a 2021 Best New Poet selection, a Watering Hole Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Find her at MissYvettewrites@gmail.com.
%20(1)%20-%20Al%20Black(1).png)
Libby Bernadin
POETIC CONVERSATION: THE RIVER POETS. THE NAME "RIVER POETS" REFLECTS THIS COLLECTIVE'S PERSONAL CONNECTIONS TO RIVERS, BUT ALSO IS A METAPHOR FOR THE POETIC PROCESS-ITS FLUIDITY, FLUX, TURNS AND BENDS, AS WE HELP HONE ONE ANOTHER'S WORK. THIS CONVERSATION FEATURES LIBBY BERNADIN, SUSAN CRAIG, RUTH NICHOLSON, & ANN CHALDWELL HUMPHRIES WHO WILL SHARE SELECTED POEMS BY OTHER POETS, AS WELL AS READ FROM THEIR WORK.
Libby Bernardin is the author of House in Need of Mooring and Stones Ripe for Sowing, both published by Press 53. She has published two chapbooks and contributed to many journals. She has won poetry awards from the Poetry Society of SC and the NC Poetry Society, and is a member of both poetry societies. She is a lifetime member of the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She writes and shares new work with The River Poets, a group of women who are dedicated to poetry.
Susan Craig
Susan M. Craig is a former graphic design studio owner and longtime poet. Her work has appeared in national and regional journals, including Twelve Mile Review; Kakalak; Poetry South; Mom Egg Review; Fall Lines and various others. Her political poems have been published in the online journal “What Rough Beast” as well as in its newest iteration, “Second Coming.” Her chapbook “Hush” was published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2023. She is inspired by personal story, and entranced by intimate observations of nature. She is delighted to read at Soda City as part of the River Poets group. www.susancraigpoet.com
Ruth Nicholson
Ruth Nicholson became a resident of South Carolina forty-five years ago after receiving her formal education in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. She worked in South Carolina for Historic Columbia Foundation, Lexington County School District Two, and finally, before retirement, the public library system of Richland County. Her poems have been published in a variety of journals, including Passages North, Emrys Journal, Kakalak, Jasper, Fall Lines:a Literary Convergence, and American Journal of Nursing. Ruth has received prizes from the Poetry Society of South Carolina, including, in the spring of 2024, the Scotty Davis Watson Prize and the Forum Prize.
Ann Chadwell Humphries
Ann Chadwell Humphries is a Poet Speaker Scholar for South Carolina Humanities. Muddy Ford Press published her debut collection, An Eclipse and A Butcher, second in their Leareate series. Her second volume, My Blind Obsession, is expected to be released summer 2025. Ann's work has recently been featured in James Dickey Review, Coast Lines Anthology, and Zocalo Journal. Her papers are archived at USC Special Collections. She reads and writes using assistive technology.