Merrill Oliver Douglas’s first full length collection, Persephone Heads For the Gate, won the 2022 Gerald Cable Book Award from Silverfish Review Press. She is also the author of the poetry chapbook Parking Meters into Mermaids (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Baltimore Review, Barrow Street, Tar River Poetry, Stone Canoe, SWWIM Every Day, Verse Daily and Whale Road Review, among others. She lives near Binghamton, New York.
Virgie Townsend is the winner of the 2022 CNY Book Award for Fiction for the short story collection Because We Were Christian Girls, inspired by her own experiences growing up in and leaving Christian fundamentalism. She has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Sun Magazine, HuffPost, and other outlets. Visit her online at https://virgietownsend.com/.
This hybrid event will take place IN-PERSON at the Downtown Writers Center and ONLINE via Zoom.