SPECTRA Reading Series: Foster-Stahl Chapbook Release - Whittemore & Bohnsack
Schedule
Sat, 15 Mar, 2025 at 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
Rozz-Tox | Rock Island, IL
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SPECTRA Reading Series Returns 3/15 to Celebrate Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series ReleasesWho: Midwest Writing Center presents the SPECTRA Reading Series
What: Foster-Stahl Chapbook Releases: Amie Whittemore and Joshua Bohnsack
When: Saturday, March 15 – 7pm Open Mic | 8pm Reading
Where: Rozz-Tox (2108 3rd Ave. Rock Island, IL)
Cost: free & open | donations welcome | books available for purchase
SPECTRA Lives! The Quad Cities longest-running reading series returns to Rozz-Tox on Saturday, March 15 to celebrate the release of two new MWC Press chapbooks: Hesitation Waltz by Amie Whittemore, and Atonality by Joshua Bohnsack. Both books were selected for the 2023 Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series: Hesitation Waltz is the Series Selection, and Atonality is the Editors’ Choice. Supporting readers TBA. Here’s some endorsements for the books:
“In these vibrant elegies, odes, and epistles, Whittemore does not spare us the pain and anxiety of witnessing ongoing ruin. But she doesn’t refuse beauty or abundance either. Instead, she has created a book that feels like someone telling you who they are, what they love, and what they mourn, and my god, did I need to read this.”
— Kendra DeColo, author of I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers from the World
“In Atonality, Joshua Bohnsack navigates the end of the postmodern age through his deep connection with music and measures the shifting distances between musician and listener by showing us his own displacement. These essays start sharply and gather power over the course of the book, revealing Bohnsack’s vulnerability in the face of a noisy world.”
— Geoff Rickly of Thursday and author of Someone Who Isn't Me
An open mic state things off at 7:00 p.m. (spaces are limited, 5-minute sets, first come first serve), and the featured readings at 8:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public; both chapbooks will be available for purchase for $10/each (books can also be pre-ordered from the MWC website). Donations to MWC are welcome and go to support youth writing programs in the QC.
Please contact Ryan Collins at MWC with questions and media inquiries: [email protected] | 309-732-7330.
Bios:
Amie Whittemore (she/her) is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Nest of Matches (Autumn House). She was the 2020-2021 Poet Laureate of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. Her poems have won multiple awards, including a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, and her poems and prose have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Nashville Review, Smartish Pace, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Eastern Illinois University. https://amiewhittemore.com/
Joshua Bohnsack’s work has appeared in AGNI, Salt Hill, The Rumpus, and others. He is the publisher of Long Day Press and plays in the band Gold Dust. He grew up on a farm in Taylor Ridge, IL and lives in Chicago. https://www.joshuabohnsack.com/
The SPECTRA Reading Series is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from the Illinois Arts Council.
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Where is it happening?
Rozz-Tox, 2108 3rd Ave,Rock Island, Illinois, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
