Iain Haley Pollock is the author of three poetry collections, Spit Back a Boy (2011), Ghost, Like a Place (Alice James, 2018), and All the Possible Bodies (Alice James, 2025). His poems have appeared in publications ranging from American Poetry Review to The New York Times Magazine. Pollock has received several honors for his work, including the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, a 2023 NYSCA/ NYFA Artist Fellowship in Poetry, the Bim Ramke Prize for Poetry from Denver Quarterly, and a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. He serves as Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville University in Purchase, NY.
Ellen Austin-Li’s first full-length collection, Incidental Pollen—a 2023 Trio Award finalist, 2024 Wisconsin Poetry Series semi-finalist, and runner-up to the 2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize—is new from Madville Publishing. Finishing Line Press published her two chapbooks, Firefly (2019) and Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic (2021). SAFTA (Sundress Academy for the Arts) supported her work with an artist’s residency in 2024. Her poetry appears in Artemis, One Art,Thimble Literary, The Maine Review, Salamander, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, and many other places. She’s a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee and holds an MFA in poetry from the Solstice Low-Residency Program. Ellen co-founded the monthly reading series, Poetry Night at Sitwell’s, in Cincinnati, where she lives.
This event will take place IN-PERSON at the Downtown Writers Center and be streamed ONLINE via Zoom.