Selection Committee
The selection committee invite the featured poets who read at each event. Committee members serve as volunteers for one year, and then each selects their successor.
SELECTION COMMITTEEE MEMBERS – April 2012 – March 2013
Alan Ainsworth teaches writing at Houston Community College and elsewhere; his poetry and prose have been published in the Atlantic Monthly, the Paris Review, the American Book Review, and many other journals.
Lupe Mendez is originally from Galveston, Texas, but has lived in Houston for the last decade, where he works with Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, PoetryCo. and the Brazilian Arts Foundation to establish poetry and creative writing workshops open to the public. Lupe’s recent work is now part of Norton’s newest anthology -Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories From The United States and Latin America, the 25th anniversary edition of The Bayou Review (University of Houston-Downtown) and as of April 2011, in the UK, Flash (University of Chester, England)- the international forum for flash fiction.
Radames Ortiz’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals including, Gulf Coast, Texas Observer, Open City, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Cortland Review, and Exquisite Corpse. His work has also been collected in various anthologies including US Latino Literature Today, Regeneration: Telling Stories from Our Twenties, and Is This Forever, Or What?: Poems and Paintings from Texas. You can follow him on twitter @radameso and read his blog at http://theamplifiedbard.blogspot.com/
Nancy K. Pearson’s first book of poems, Two Minutes of Light, won the 2009 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award. She was also a two-year fellow at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Before moving to Houston last July, she worked as a waitress, landscaper and taxi driver. Currently, she’s an instructor at Houston Community College and a teacher for Writers in the Schools.
Fran Sanders, Founder and Director of Public Poetry, was host of The Poets’ Corner at Sight Into Sound/Taping for the Blind (1995-2011), presenting over 350 poetry radio programs and also established Houston’s first poetry audio archive in 2009.
Can someone submit in hopes of being chosen to do a poetry reading?
Poets for the library series are invited by a fresh selection committee each year. We are not currently set up to accept submissions. We do provide a monthly listing of poetry activities (see Readings Around Town-The Poetry Card, under COMMUNITY LINKS) and many of the venues listed have open mics and offer opportunities to read.