Reading Den

Join us on May 28 at Fort Greene for the next installment of the Reading Den series.

The event is free to the public and begins at 7pm. Registration is encouraged.

Erika J. Simpson is a Southern girl living in Denver, Colorado, with her partner and their black cat. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Kentucky and is the recipient of the 2021 MFA Award in Nonfiction. Her essay “If You Ever Find Yourself” was published in Roxane Gay’s The Audacity and featured in Best American Essays 2022, edited by Alexander Chee. This Is Your Mother is her debut memoir, and she also writes fiction for the page and screen.

David Hicks is the author of the novel-in-stories WHITE PLAINS (Bower House), a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and Westword’s #1 book by Colorado authors in 2018; a children’s book, THE MAGIC TICKET (Fulcrum, July 2024), and a second novel, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO DANNY (Vine Leaves Press, 2025). Five-time Professor of the Year and recipient of two Fulbright awards (Czech Republic), David has taught American literature and writing for over thirty years, and currently directs the nationally ranked Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA. Before moving to
Pennsylvania he was a tenured professor at Regis University in Denver.

Raye Hendrix is the author of What Good Is Heaven, a debut poetry collection selected by Texas Review Press to represent Alabama in their Southern Poetry Breakthrough Series (2024) and the winner of the 2024 Weatherford Award for Best Appalachian Poetry. Also the author of two poetry chapbooks, their poems appear in American Poetry Review, 32 Poems, Southern Indiana Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Originally from Alabama, Raye is an insufferable Auburn fan and teaches at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. 

Omar Hussain is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He holds an MFA in creative writing from NYU.   A Thousand Natural Shocks is his first novel.

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