Join Tim Staffford to celebrate the release of his new chapbook The Patron Saint of Making Curfew! Tim will be joined on the mic by special guests Natasha Carrizosa, Omar Holmon and Dan “Sully” Sullivan, for an evening hosted by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz.

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Poets:

Tim Stafford is a poet and public educator from Lyons, IL. He is the editor of the Learn Then Burn all-ages anthology series on Write Bloody Publishing. He is a former Chicago Poetry Slam champion and he performs regularly across the U.S. and Europe including the 2015 Woerdz Festival in Luzern, Switzerland and the ABC Brecht Festival in Augsburg, Germany.

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is a New York Times bestselling nonfiction writer and poet. Author of seven books of poetry, her latest How to Love the Empty Air was published in 2018. Her nonfiction book Dr. Mutter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, debuted at #7 on the New York Times Bestseller List for Books about Health and would stay on it for three months. Cristin is married to fellow bestselling author and screenwriter Ernest Cline. She lives in Austin, Texas with her family and their two eccentric rescue dachshunds.

Natasha Carrizosa won the National Poetry Award for multicultural poet of the year in 2013. She is a poet, writer, and spoken word artist. She is a published author of several projects – including heavy light, mejiafricana, and Of Fire and Rain (co-authored with Joaquin Zihuatanejo.) She has performed her work and conducted workshops for audiences in Madrid, Paris, St. Lucia, New York, Chicago, Houston and countless other cities.

Omar Holmon is an Alumni poet of Rutgers University and has competed in slam poetry for numerous years with two final stage appearances at the National Poetry Slam. He has been featured on Button Poetry, Tedx, and a commercial for Laphroaig whiskey (we outchea). In 2014 Omar Holmon Co-founded the Black Nerd Problems website with William Evans, where he spends his days writing essays on pop culture, blackness, and making top quality gifs.

Dan “Sully” Sullivan poems and performances have been featured on HBO Def Poetry Jam, WGN Morning News, and National Public Radio. Sully is a three-time Chicago Poetry Slam Champion, a recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award, the Earl S Ho Award for Excellence in Teaching Creative Writing, and an Indiana University Writer in South Asia Recipient. His first full-length book of poems, The Blue Line Home, is available from EM-Press.