Five Nevada County Women Poets Reading Their Work on April 3

As one of the many pop-up events in celebration of National Poetry Month, Five Nevada County Women Poets will, for the 8th year, read poems about storm and sanctuary, love and life; wind, rain, snow, and fire; the joys and tribulations of our time and our place…and more. The pop-ups lead up to the all-day Sierra Poetry Festival on Saturday, April 13, at the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley.

Collectively, the poets—Kirsten Casey, Judy Crowe, Beth Ford, Ingrid Keriotis, and Judie Rae—have published hundreds of poems in books, magazines, anthologies, newspapers, and literary journals.

KIRSTEN CASEY is the current Nevada County Poet Laureate, and has been an active California Poet in the Schools for almost 20 years. Kirsten is also the host of Nevada County Library’s monthly “Poetry Happy Hour,” a free, low pressure opportunity to appreciate and write poems (on the third Thursday of every month at the Communal Cafe.) Her first poetry collection, Ex Vivo: Out of the Living Body, was published by Hip Pocket Press. Her new manuscript, Grieving Birds, was a recent finalist for the Gunpowder Press Dryden-Vreeland book prize. To read more of her work, and find her upcoming events, visit her website: kirstencasey.com.

JUDY CROWE’s poems have appeared in California Fire & Water, Epoch, The Maine Review, Commonweal, Midwest Review, Cloudbank, Subtropics, West Marin Review, and elsewhere. Among recent awards are: 2nd place poem, Fish Anthology Poetry Prize 2022 (Billy Collins, judge); Grand Prize, The MacGuffin Poet Hunt, (Lynne Thompson, judge); and 1st place poem, Oberon Poetry Prize. She’s a longtime member of the Community of Writers. Her chapbook, Flat Water: Nebraska Poems, was published in 2019. Her new book, The Watching Sky, was published by Cornerstone Press in January 2024. She lives and writes in Nevada City. www.judybrackettcrowe.com

BETH FORD lives and works in Nevada City, CA. A graphic artist, book designer, essayist, poet, and award-winning florist, her work has been reviewed locally and nationally. With a passion for visual language, color theory, and typography, her designs are known for their depth of atmosphere and and layered collage. She’s an alum of The Naropa Institute of Poetics in Boulder, Colorado, and the Community of Writers summer poetry workshop, and has collaborated with Poets Laureate Paulann Peterson, Peter Sears, and Kathleen Flenniken, among others. She designed the website and graphics for the Sierra Poetry Festival. A native San Franciscan, she is equally obsessed with birding, botany, books, fresh air. https://bethford.design

INGRID KERIOTIS’s book of poetry, It Started with the Wild Horses, was published in 2019. Her poems have most recently appeared in Sierra Nevada Review and The Sierra Journal. Ingrid coordinates the Tutor Center at the Nevada County Campus of Sierra College. She writes because she believes, in the words of Thomas Merton, that “art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” Find out more about Ingrid at www.ingridkeriotis.com.

JUDIE RAE is the author of the novel, The Haunting of Walter Rabinowitz. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, among them Nimrod, Wisconsin Review, Mudfish. Author of three chapbooks, The Weight of Roses, Howling Down the Moon, and Family Matters, she recently co-edited a poetry anthology, Old Age and Young Hearts, published by Kelsay Books. Judie taught English classes for twenty-seven years at various colleges throughout California. A Canadian, she now lives in Nevada City, a landscape reminiscent of her grandmother’s home on the Ottawa River, where Judie spent her childhood summers.