Arielle Hebert with Tracy Dimond and Steven Leyva: BOTTOM FEEDERS

We're launching Arielle Hebert's vibrant, gritty debut poetry collection, Bottom Feeders, and you're invited!

Join us for an evening with the author and two Baltimore poets, Tracy Dimond and Steven Leyva, as they read poems in celebration of the new book.

Bottom Feeders is a queer coming-of-age collection set in late 2000s Florida, during the height of the opioid epidemic. Here, overdoses, red tide blooms, and hurricanes are as much a part of growing up as fleeting teenage desires, beach parties, and prom. Despite the long shadows cast over these poems, there is beauty, friendship, chosen family, and hope in this collection.

Order BOTTOM FEEDERS here!

Arielle Hebert is a queer poet based in North Carolina with roots in Florida and Louisiana. She is the author of Bottom Feeders (Black Lawrence Press). Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and have appeared in Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Best New Poets, and others. Arielle is the 2025-2026 fellow at Hellbender Gathering of Poets, an annual writing conference that celebrates poetry, environmental science, and community to bring about a joyful rising in a climate-changed world. She is the Director of Operations and Marketing at Blair, a nonprofit publisher focused on emerging and diverse writers.

Tracy Dimond is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Emotion Industry (Barrelhouse). A Baker Artist Award finalist and Best of the Net nominee, she is also the author of four chapbooks, including: TO TRACY LIKE / TO LIKE / LIKE (akinoga press) and Sorry I Wrote So Many Sad Poems Today (Ink Press), winner of Baltimore City Paper’s Best Chapbook. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Smartish Pace, Lines + Stars, Washington Writers Publishing House, and other places. Dimond holds her MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore and dedicates her time serving other writers through CityLit Project and Writers in Baltimore Schools.

Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Scalawag, Nashville Review, jubilat, Vinyl, Prairie Schooner, and Best American Poetry 2020. He is a Cave Canem fellow and author of the chapbook Low Parish and author of The Understudy’s Handbook which won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers Publishing House. His second book of poems, The Opposite of Cruelty, is forthcoming from Blair Publishing in March 2025. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an associate professor in the Klein Family School of Communications Design.

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