mental illness

In this performance, Michael Burkard reads from his first three books, particularly from the 1981 collection Ruby for Grief. He also reads some uncollected work.

Timothy Liu reads new poems that would go on to be published in Don't Go Back to Sleep (2014), as well as poems from Polytheogamy (2009) and Bending the Mind Around the Dream's Blown Fuse (2009).

Nancy Mairs reads poetry and nonfiction from her first three books, In All the Rooms of the Yellow House (1984), Plaintext (1986), and Remembering the Bone House (1989).

Essayist and poet Erik Reece reads poems from A Short History of the Present (2009) and essays from An American Gospel: On Family, History, and the Kingdom of God (2009) as well as Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America's Most Radical Idea (2016).

Joy Williams gives the first public reading of "Portion," a new short story.

sam sax reads poems that would be published four years later in Pig (2023), as well as work from his first two collections, madness (2017) and bury it (2018). This reading was originally given alongside Erika L. Sánchez as part of the Morgan Lucas Schuldt Memorial Reading Series.