Join us on January 12 from 7pm-9pm EST for a virtual reading featuring multiple writers across In Print. From women's justified anger to the dangers of silence, each writer presents a unique perspective on social issues across time that still affect us today.

Our readers for the evening will feature Olga-Maria Cruz, Marissa Anne Ayala, Kathleen Hellen, Jessica Ciosek, Mariam Magsi, Diane Schenker, Katelyn Kopenhaver, Elisabeth Horan

Olga-Maria Cruz (she/her) is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in journals including Poetry East, Pen & Brush, Carolina Quarterly and Bellevue Literary Review,  and anthologies by Lee Gutkind (SAME TIME NEXT WEEK, In Fact Books) and Erin Keane (THE LOUISVILLE ANTHOLOGY: Belt Publishing). Her chapbook, A PHILOSOPHER SPEAKS OF RIVERS, was published by Finishing Line Press. She has received poetry and creative nonfiction grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and Kentucky Foundation for Women and residencies at Hopscotch House and the Weymouth Center in North Carolina.

Marissa Anne Ayala is a poet & artist based in Austin, TX. Her poetry combines language and visual art crafting color-drenched narratives. She's currently writing a collection of poetry, essays, and collage art informed by meditation and color theory. Her work has appeared in the Poets of Queens Anthology, Fugue Literary Journal, Pen + Brush Literary Magazine, Pen + Brush Art Gallery, Tupelo Press, & more. You can find her color meditations, collage, and photography on Insta: @chroma_note. She runs the East Austin Writing Project and the East Austin Writing Project Poetry Club.

Kathleen Hellen’s latest poetry collection is The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin. Her

credits include two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento, and her award-

winning collection Umberto’s Night. Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, her work has

appeared in Ascent, Barrow Street, The Carolina Quarterly, Four Way Review, jubilat, New

Letters, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Sewanee Review, Spoon River

Poetry Review, Subtropics, The Sycamore Review, and West Branch, among others.

Jessica Ciosek’s debut novel, Sometimes a Soldier Comes Home, was published in September 2021 by GenZ Publishing. The novel is loosely based on the lives of her beloved grandparents during and just after the second world war. Her stories, essays, and articles have appeared in several small journals, magazines, and around the web. Jessica’s first short story, written when she was seven, won first prize in her summer camp’s writing contest.

When not writing, she enjoys running along the mighty Hudson River, biking on the vast rail-to-trails network in the Northeast, reading, puzzles of all kinds, and taking photos of her beloved city. Born in the Midwest, Jessica has lived in NYC for over half her life. Together with her husband, she has raised two children and a multitude of fur creatures in the Big Apple.

Mariam Magsi is a Pakistani-Canadian Multidisciplinary artist, writer and educator working in photography, video, performance, installation, poetry and other arts. Magsi's works unpack themes related to migration, intergenerational trauma, social constructions of identity, culture, sexuality and gender. Magsi holds an MFA from OCAD University in Interdisciplinary Art, Media & Design.

Diane Schenker's poetry has appeared in Pen + Brush In Print, The Gettysburg Review,

Subtropics, Rhino, Gargoyle and SalonZine, among others. She is author of the chapbook

Relation/Couch/Dreaming and has written reviews for coldfrontmag.com and The Boxcar Poetry

Review. Her first book manuscript, Expert Terrain, was shortlisted by the Harbor Mountain

Press MURA Book Award and awarded Honorable Mention by the Concrete Wolf Louis

Poetry Book Award. She has read at various venues around the New York City area including

Pen + Brush, The Center for Book Arts, Sunday Salon, KGB Bar and in The World Under the

Female Gaze, a poetry reading hosted by the Women’s National Book Association-NYC and

The Transition Network (TTN).

Diane has been a fellow at The Gettysburg Review Conference for Writers and is a two-

time alum of the Community of Writers in Olympic Valley, CA (with work published in their 2014 Poetry Anthology).

She has also performed, taught and directed extensively in theater and opera (directing

several productions with American Chamber Opera Co in NYC). Diane was co-creator and

actor in the performance piece Jane Smith Jane Smith (directed by Rinde Eckert) and wrote

and staged Nannerl: A Speculative Morality both at On the Boards in Seattle.

Katelyn Kopenhaver

Katelyn Kopenhaver is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Born in 1992 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania; Kopenhaver received her BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in 2016 and currently resides in Miami, Florida. Her range of work includes fashion and portrait photography that has been featured in media outlets such as New York Magazine, Interview Magazine, The Cut, METAL, and Netflix.

In 2019 Kopenhaver completed a visceral and harrowing live performance and exhibition of a severe, personal body of work, "Predators and Prey," in a three-person show with Renee Cox and Paola Martínez Fiterre at Pen + Brush in New York. In 2020 Kopenhaver was commissioned During the Day But Mostly At Night,  a book compilation of haunting text and visuals published by Pen+Brush. Also touched on in the book, her performance/photography project revolving around Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which landed her in ABC News, New York Times, Boston University, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, among others.

Kopenhaver was awarded the 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Work.

Pulling from judicial and global issues of corruption and personal experience, Kopenhaver attempts to reveal and communicate the contradictions, denial, and fragmentation within the self and culture. Her projects often overlap mediums through intricate and didactic usage of language and visual art and performance, weaving objects and text creating an interrelatedness. Her performances act as studies or situations, asking the viewer or audience to participate or respond in some way they did not anticipate. Conceptually, Kopenhaver is preoccupied with societal oversight: choice, commodity, safety, violence, information, power, and personal action. She weaves the overlooked realities that hover just below our day to day consciousness—the occurrences we knowingly disavow or are conditioned to suppress and relentlessly presents such denial into an existence of unavoidable truth we must now confront and, therefore, question and respond to.

Elisabeth Horan is an imperfect creature from Vermont advocating for animals, children and those suffering alone and in pain - especially those ostracized by disability and mental illness.

She is Editor in Chief at Animal Heart Press and Co-Editor at Ice Floe Press. Her newest collection, The Mask, was released November, 2021 at Broken Spine Arts. Her poetry collections can be found at Fly on the Wall Press, Cephalo Press, Twist in Time Press, Moonchild Magazine, and Animal Heart Press (co-authored with Adedayo Agarau).

She is a poetry mentor to many up and coming brilliant poets, and proud momma to Peter and Thomas.

She has earned a Masters in English and her MFA in Poetry from Lindenwood University. She teaches English and Writing at her local community college.

Follow her @ehoranpoet & ehoranpoet.net