As one of the many pop-up events in celebration of Poetry Month, Five Nevada County Women Poets will, for the sixth year, read their poems. This year’s reading will take place in the bar of the National Exchange Hotel in Nevada City on Thursday evening from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Collectively, the women—Ingrid Keriotis, Kirsten Casey, Judie Rae, Molly Fisk, and Judy Crowe—have published hundreds of poems in books, magazines, anthologies, newspapers, and literary reviews.
The pop-ups lead up to the all-day Sierra Poetry Festival on Saturday, April 30, at Miners Foundry in Nevada City.
The women will be reading poems about love and life; wind, rain, and fire; the joys and tribulations of our time and our place…and more.
Read on to learn more about the poets:
Ingrid Keriotis received her MFA from Eastern Washington University. Her works have appeared in the anthology More Than Soil, More Than Sky and in literary magazines such as Blue Unicorn, Talking River, Steam Ticket, Canary, and Sisyphus. Her collection of poetry, It Started with the Wild Horses, was published in 2019. She teaches English at Sierra College and walks under the pines near her home for inspiration.
Kirsten Casey is the current Nevada County poet laureate, and an active California Poet in the Schools. As laureate, she is writing poems celebrating local historical places, people, and events. She is also holding community workshops to promote poetry and to make the process of its creation more accessible. Her second book of poetry (with the working title Instantaneous Obsolescence) explores historical and literary characters struggling with social media.
Judie Rae holds a Masters of Professional Writing from the University of California. She is the author of a college thematic reader, Rites of Passage, as well as four novels for children, including a Nancy Drew Mystery. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, as well as in her poetry chapbooks The Weight of Roses and Howling Down the Moon. For 27 years Judie taught college English classes; now retired, she currently teaches memoir-writing classes online.
Molly Fisk was the inaugural Nevada County Poet Laureate and is an Academy of American Poets Laureate. She edited the 2020 collection, California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology, is the author of the poetry books, The More Difficult Beauty and Listening to Winter, and contributes a weekly essay on KVMR Radio. Molly has received many prizes for individual poems as well as grants from the NEA, the California Arts Council, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She’s the Poet Laureate of KVMR in Nevada City and Hell’s Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah.
Judy Crowe has taught creative writing, children’s literature, public speaking, and English literature and composition at Sierra College. She has been active in Nevada County’s literary community for many years, including stints as a board member of Literature Alive and, currently, serves on the literary committee of Nevada County Arts Council. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies and in her poetry chapbook, Flat Water: Nebraska Poems.
Check out the details of all of the pop-ups and the festival:
Five Nevada County Women Poets Poetry Reading Pop-up
Thursday, April 21, 6:30–7:30 p.m.
National Exchange Hotel Bar, Nevada City