2023 Halloween Poetry Reading

You've Been Warned

by Patricia Gomes

Halloween Night Sestina

by Miguel O. Mitchell

Miguel O. Mitchell, PhD, is a Black speculative poet, science fiction and fantasy author, visual artist, and retired chemist. He is fond of putting chemical imagery and neologism in his poems. His poems have appeared in Star*Line, Eye to the Telescope, Dreams and Nightmares, and Scifaikuest. Two of his poems, "A Descendant's Gift" and "Becoming," were nominated for the 2022 Rhysling Award in the Long Poem category, and "Becoming" was included in the anthology The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction (2022). With David C. Kopaska-Merkel, he co-edited the Dwarf Stars 2023 Anthology.

The Giants of Kandahar

by Anna Cates

Dr. Anna Cates resides in Wilmington, Ohio with her cats, Freddie and Fifi. She teaches college writing and literature and graduate education as an online instructor. She is author of the following collections: The Meaning of Life and The Frog King (Cyberwit Press), The Darkroom (Prolific Press), The Golem & the Nazi (Red Moon Press), The Journey (Resource Publications), Love in the Time of Covid (Wipf & Stock), and The Poison Tree: A Peace Play (Wipf & Stock).

Granite Tears on Halloween

by RK Rugg

RK Rugg is a dark academic whose speculative poetry was recently short-listed for the Asimov's Readers' Favorites. He writes, researches and teaches in the heart of the Bridgewater Triangle. More info at RaymondKRugg.com.

Halloween Rave

by Julie Shiel

Julie Shiel lives in Maryland with a ginger feline fluffball and a dilute tortie that keeps him in line. She has a pair of crows named Zoltan and Zelda that visit her daily just to tease the cats. Her work appears in issues of Strange Horizons, Space & Time Magazine, Eye To The Telescope, Penumbric and others. When not writing she grows a moon garden and communes with her local murder.

The Confines Of Room 19

by Jeff Oliver

Jeff Oliver was born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 6th, 1982. A poet by passion and father of eight beautiful children, his dedication to his family and his craft is second to none. Currently residing in Western New York State, he is a writer of intense emotions, having started composing his dark poetry at just 11 years old. His gift for transforming darkness to words shone brightly from a young age. Jeff Oliver’s poetry has an ethereal quality. When others may have been destroyed from such a devastating darkness, he manages to weave lyrical justice into an otherwise unfair world. His published works include Venomous Words, Strange Sounds, Poetic Fiction: Journals of Silent Screams, Scattered Thoughts: Volumes I, II, and III, New World Monsters, and Infinite Black: Tales from the Abyss. "The Confines Of Room 19" appeared in Rooms: From the Confines of Room 19: An excerpt from Infinite Black: Tales From The Abyss.

Many Haunted Returns

by Adele Gardner

Adele Gardner (they/them) has a poetry collection, Halloween Hearts, from Jackanapes Press and over 475 stories, poems, art, and articles in Clarkesworld, Analog, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Daily Science Fiction, and more. A full/active member of HWA and SFWA and a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, Adele serves as literary executor for father, mentor, and namesake Delbert R. Gardner and was cochair of the 2022 Dwarf Stars Award with Greer Woodward: https://sfpoetry.com/ds/22dwarfstars.html

“Many Haunted Returns” appears in Adele Gardner’s poetry collection Halloween Hearts, available from Jackanapes Press: https://www.jackanapespress.com/product/halloween-hearts

The Hallowe'en Homicides, NYC, October 31st, 1981

by LindaAnn LoSchiavo

Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo (she/her), a four time nominee for The Pushcart Prize, was also nominated for Best of the Net, Balcones Poetry Prize, an Ippy, a Firecracker Award, the Rhysling Award, and Dwarf Stars. She is a member of SFPA, British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild. Recent titles: "A Route Obscure and Lonely" (Elgin winner), "Women Who Were Warned," and "Messengers of the Macabre." Forthcoming in 2023: "Apprenticed to the Night" (UniVerse Press), "Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide" (Ukiyoto), and "Vampire Ventures" (Alien Buddha Press). Forthcoming in 2024: "Cancer Courts My Mother" (Penumbra / Stanislaus State College).

Beware of the Conjuror

by H. Russell Smith

read by Fabra

H. Russell Smith lives at the intersection of mystery and enigma. A mad scientist and kind-hearted supervillain, he loves writing about space aliens, robots, cryptids, and the supernatural. Don't try to find him--he'll find you at the least opportune moment. This poem is read by NYC's Master of Dead Language Resurrection, Fabra.

Nephilim Rising

by Keech Ballard

read by Diane Severson

Keech Ballard. Ghost Writer on the Storm. https://keechballard.com

A Moth of Course

by Leslie Laurence

Leslie Laurence resides in a purple house in Northern California. A painter and digital artist, she is picking up the pen she set down twenty years ago.

Masks

by Akua Lezli Hope

Akua Lezli Hope, a Grandmaster of Fantastic Poetry, is an award-winning creator, wisdom seeker & paraplegic who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, & wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, adornments & peace. Author of Embouchure: Poems on Jazz and Other Musics (Writer’s Digest award winner), Them Gone, & Otherwheres: Speculative Poetry (2021 Elgin Award), she edited NOMBONO: (the first) Anthology of Speculative Poetry by BIPOC Creators. She created The Speculative Sunday Poetry Reading Series in 2020, now in its 4th season.

Bloodlust

by John C. Mannone

John C. Mannone has poems in Windhover, North Dakota Quarterly, Poetry South, Baltimore Review, and others. He won a Dwarf Stars Award (2020); was awarded an HWA Scholarship (2017), a Jean Ritchie Fellowship (2017) in Appalachian literature; and served as celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). His full-length collections are Disabled Monsters (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2015), Flux Lines (Linnet’s Wings Press, 2022), Sacred Flute (Iris Press, 2023), and Song of the Mountains (Middle Creek Publishing, 2023). He edits poetry for Abyss & Apex and other journals. He’s a professor of physics teaching mathematics in Tennessee. https://www.facebook.com/jcmannone/

The Higher Dimensions

by David C. Kopaska-Merkel

David C. Kopaska-Merkel won the 2006 Rhysling award for best long poem (for a collaboration with Kendall Evans), and edits Dreams & Nightmares magazine (since 1986). He has edited Star*line and several Rhysling anthologies, co-edited the 2023 Dwarf Stars anthology, and is an SFPA Grandmaster. His poems have been published in Asimov’s, Analog, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. His latest collection, Some Disassembly Required, winner of the 2023 Elgin award, was published by Diminuendo Press in 2022. "The Higher Dimensions" was originally published in Black Petals, 1995. Blog: https://dreamsandnightmaresmagazine.blogspot.com/

Lena Slack

by James Hall

James Hall’s poetry collection Prairie Roots will be released later this year by Shanti Arts Publishing. His poems have appeared in Front Porch Review, Blood and Thunder, Love in the Time of Covid, Deep Overstock and others. Lena Slack was published in The Stratford Quarterly Issue 1 Autumn 2021 ISSN 2563-3619 and appears in his upcoming poetry collection, Prairie Roots.

Little Red Loves

by Pankaj Khemka

Pankaj Khemka is a practicing physician by day and an aspiring poet by night. His work has appeared in Star*Line, Rattle, and Ghost Light. He lives in Orange, California with Floyd the Ficus.

Thrusting Into Reverence

by Bill Ratner

Bill Ratner is a Best of the Net Poetry Nominee (Lascaux Review), published in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press), poetry collection: Fear of Fish (Alien Buddha Press), poetry chapbook: To Decorate a Casket (Finishing Line Press), Missouri Review Audio, Baltimore Review, Chiron Review, Feminine Collective, and other journals. Bill is a 9-time winner of the Moth StorySLAM, 2-time winner of Best of The Hollywood Fringe Extension Award for Solo Performance. Readings featured on National Public Radio’s Good Food, The Business, and KCRW’s Strangers. Bill is a certified volunteer grief counsellor, an officer in his union SAG-AFTRA, and earns his living as a voice actor. https://billratner.com/author