FEBRUARY PREVIEW

This Friday, February 18th, poet Juan Morales from CSU-Pueblo will be our featured reader at Black Cat Books in Manitou Springs. Here's an excerpt from Juan's website, just to give you some info about his background:

Juan J. Morales was born in the U.S. to an Ecuadorian mother and a Puerto Rican father. He grew up hearing family stories that inspired much of the poems in Friday and the Year that Followed, his first collection of poetry, which was chosen by Vern Rutsala for the 2005 Rhea and Seymour Gorsline Poetry Competition and published by Bedbug Press. Juan received his MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2005. His poetry has also appeared inAcentos Review, Blue Mesa Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Copper Nickel, Many Mountains Moving, Palabra (forthcoming), Poet Lore, War, Literature, & the Arts, and other journals. He is the Director of Creative Writing as an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University-Pueblo, where he curates the Southern Colorado Reading Series and the student literary magazine Tempered Steel, formerly The Hungry Eye. Currently, Juan is working on his second collection of poems.

I hope to see, as usual, a vibrant crowd of writers and readers. Remember, the Open Mic session gets started first thing, and there's only room for ten readers! Get there a little early if you have a prepared poem or excerpt to read, and I'll see you then!

...

Abby E. Murray

CSWRS Coordinator