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Reading Series

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We have two reading series!

The House Party Reading Series

a salon-style reading

Hosted in Hillsborough and Durham, NC, the House Party Reading Series is a chance for writers and readers to hear some of the most exciting voices in contemporary letters… and then have a party. Head chef Ashley Nissler prepares the spread and the Bull City Press gang brings authors from all over the country to read new work.

Bull City Press Presents

Located at Mettlesome Theater (in Golden Belt, 800 Taylor Street, Suite 9-156, Durham, NC, 27701), Bull City Press’s downtown reading series brings you poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from established and emerging writers. And stick around for Golden Age, which generally features one of the readers inspiring improv comedy. Free to the public.

Join the mailing list to receive an invitation: https://bullcitypress.com/reading-series/join-the-mailing-list/

Upcoming Readings

March 23 at 7:30 pm: Scott Gould & Carol Mitchell with Melanie Tafejian and Golden Age Comedy

Mettlesome Theater in Golden Belt, 800 Taylor Street, Suite 9-156, Durham

Scott Gould is the author of five books, including The Hammerhead Chronicles, winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for Fiction, and Things That Crash, Things That Fly, which won a 2022 Memoir Prize for Books. His other honors include a Next Generation Indie Book Award, an IPPY Award for Fiction, the Larry Brown Short Story Award and the S.C. Arts Commission Artist Fellowship in Prose. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, Pangyrus, Crazyhorse, Pithead Chapel, Garden & Gun, and New Stories from the South, among others. He lives in Sans Souci, South Carolina and teaches at the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities.

Carol Mitchell is a Caribbean immigrant living in the United States. She is the author of the novel What Start Bad a Mornin’ and of 18 books for children, including three published by HarperCollins UK. She holds an MFA, is a fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and teaches writing at George Mason and George Washington Universities.

Melanie Tafejian is a writer and educator from the Pacific Northwest. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, and The Los Angeles Review, among other journals. Melanie serves on the editorial staff for The Raleigh Review and received an MFA from North Carolina State University, where she now lectures in the First Year Writing Program.

Golden Age is an all-star cast of improvisers, Each night, they welcome one special guest to share art and insights. Their experiences inspired their work, now they inspire hilarious conversation and comedy.

Previous Readings

April 13 at time TDB: Jason Gray, David Haynes, Sebastian Merrill & Karen Tucker

House Party Reading Series, Durham NC

Jason Gray is the author of Radiation King, winner of the Idaho Prize for Poetry, and Photographing Eden, winner of the 2008 Hollis Summers Prize (Ohio UP). He has also published two chapbooks, How to Paint the Savior Dead (Kent State UP, 2007) and Adam & Eve Go to the Zoo (Dream Horse Press, 2003). His poems have appeared in PoetryThe American Poetry ReviewThe Kenyon ReviewLiterary ImaginationPoetry Ireland Review, and many other places. He has also reviewed poetry, nonfiction, and fiction for The Southern ReviewThe Missouri ReviewShenandoahThe Journal, and elsewhere. His poems have been anthologized and reprinted on Verse Daily. Besides writing, he spends time taking pictures of things.

The author of seven novels for adults and five books for younger readers, David Haynes is an emeritus professor of English at Southern Methodist University, where he directed the creative writing program for ten years. Since 1996 he has taught regularly in MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. His seventh and most recently novel is A Star in the Face of the Sky.  His forthcoming book is a collection, Martha’s Daughter: A Novella and Stories.

Sebastian Merrill’s debut collection GHOST :: SEEDS was selected by Kimiko Hahn as the winner of the 2022 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, published by Texas Review Press in November 2023. A winner of the 2024 Stonewall Honor Book – Barbara Gittings Literature Award from the American Library Association, GHOST :: SEEDS was also selected by Ellen Doré Watson as the winner of the 2022 Levis Prize for Poetry from Friends of Writers. Sebastian was selected as a member of the 2023 Get the Word Out inaugural poetry cohort for debut writers from Poets & Writers, served as a staff-scholar for the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 2022 and 2023, and was selected as the Summer 2023 Warren Wilson MFA Alumni Residency Fellow. The recipient of the Rodney Jack Scholarship from Friends of Writers, he holds an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College and a BA from Wellesley College. (photo by Beowulf Sheehan)

Karen Tucker is the author of the novel Bewilderness (Catapult 2021), which was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, shortlisted for the Crook’s Corner Book Prize, and selected as a “Dazzling Debut” and Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association. Tucker’s fiction can be found in The Missouri ReviewThe Yale ReviewLitHubBoulevard,  EPOCHTin HouseAmerican Literary Review, Salamander, and elsewhere. Her awards include an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant for Emerging Writers, the George M. Harper Award for Creative Writing, the Jerome Stern Series Spotlight Award in fiction, and a PEO Scholar Award. Born and raised in North Carolina, she teaches fiction and creative nonfiction at UNC Chapel Hill.

April 27 at 7:30 pm: Su Cho, Anthony Correale, & Matthew Olzmann with Golden Age Comedy

Su Cho is a poet and essayist born in South Korea and raised in Indiana. She is the author of the poetry collection The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin, 2022) which was a winner of the National Poetry Series. Her work has appeared in places like The Best American Poetry 2021, Best New Poets 2021, and They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets. Her editorial work includes serving as Guest Editor for Poetry magazine and serving as editor-in-chief of Cream City Review and Indiana Review. She is an assistant professor of English teaching creative writing and poetry at Clemson University.

Anthony Correale holds his BA and MA in English from Humboldt State University, deep in the California redwoods. He received an MFA in fiction at Indiana University and has served as the fiction editor and nonfiction editor at Indiana Review. His work has appeared in Day One. He teaches at Clemson University.

Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route as well as two previous collections of poetry: Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olzmann’s poems have appeared in the New York Times, Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prizes, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He is a Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Golden Age is an all-star cast of improvisers, Each night, they welcome one special guest to share art and insights. Their experiences inspired their work, now they inspire hilarious conversation and comedy.

May 25 at 7:30 pm: Cynthia Gunadi with TBD and Golden Age Comedy

Cynthia Gunadi is the 2023-2024 Beebe Fellow in Creative Writing at Warren Wilson College. Her short fiction has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Greensboro Review, and Salt Hill Journal, among other places. She is grateful to have received support from Kundiman, Vermont Studio Center, and The Massachusetts Cultural Council. She holds an MFA from The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, as well as an M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In a recent past life she practiced and taught architectural design at University of Miami.

July 27 at 7:30 pm: Jayme Ringleb with TBD and Golden Age Comedy

Jayme Ringleb is a queer writer raised in the southern United States and northern Italy. Jayme’s debut poetry collection, So Tall It Ends in Heaven, is published by Tin House Books. Poems from this collection have appeared recently in Poetry, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and Ploughshares. Jayme holds a PhD from Florida State University, an MFA from the University of Oregon, and an MBA from the University of Iowa. An endowed chair and assistant professor of English at Meredith College, Jayme lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Bull City Press

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