Words // Friends

Words // Friends Autumn 2024
Hosted by Sara Matson

Hello, beautiful friends!

I'm thrilled to host the last Words // Friends of 2024 with readings by incredible writers. Join us for free, live on Zoom!

Featuring Readings by:
Adrienne Dodt
Nate Logan
Andrea Change
Sarah Kersey

Tom Snarsky
jason b. crawford

Adrienne Dodt is a poet and sometimes essayist. Adrienne's poetry chapbook Return was published by Damask Press. From 2013-2016, ze was a regular contributor to the Spoon River Poetry Review blog. Ze has work published in Entropy, Fact-Simile, and Con/Crescent magazines. Ze also has a poem featured on the X-Files tribute EP Purity Control, released by What's For Breakfast? Records/We Used To Drink Together Records. Zir play The Weird Sisters was performed in Chicago in October 2019. In 2020, Adrienne co-hosted the Into the Aethernet Zoom reading series. Adrienne teaches English as a Second Language at a non-profit in Chicago.

Nate Logan is the author of Wrong Horse (Moria Books, 2024) and Inside the Golden Days of Missing You (Magic Helicopter Press, 2019). He lives in Indiana.

Andrea Change is a poet and writer. She has been a part of the Chicago poetry community for over 20 years. Her work has been published in a number of poetry magazines, journals and her work is also included in such poetry anthologies from Tia Chucha Press as Powerlines and Stray Bullets. Her poetry was also featured in the 2001 Steppenwolf Theatre production, Words on Fire.

A hometown girl, born and raised in Chicago, much of her poetry is inspired by her experiences growing up in the city. A graduate from Northwestern University, she is still learning and is constantly fascinated by the great voices she hears at local area poetry readings. She is mother of one son, Phillip, and two dogs Sasha and Missy. Still an active member of the poetry and arts community, she is the Executive Director for the Guild Complex, a literary arts organization and resides in the neighborhood of Rogers Park.

Sarah Kersey (she/they) is a poet and x-ray technologist who lives in Chelsea, MA. Her work has appeared in Columbia Journal, The Rumpus, The Account Magazine, and elsewhere. They were a finalist for the 2021 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship and have received support from Tin House Workshop. She tweets @sk__poet.

Tom Snarsky is the author of the chapbooks Threshold (Another New Calligraphy) and Complete Sentences (Broken Sleep Books), as well as the full-length collections Light-Up Swan and Reclaimed Water (both from Ornithopter Press). His long poem A Letter From The Mountain is forthcoming from GLYPHÖRIA at Metatron. He lives with his wife Kristi and their cats in the mountains of northwestern Virginia.

jason b. crawford (They/He/She) is a writer born in Washington DC, raised in Lansing, MI. Their debut Full-Length Year of the Unicorn Kidz is out from Sundress Publications. crawford holds a Bachelor of Science in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University. They are a 2023 Lambda Literary Emerging LGBTQ Voices fellow. They are the winner of the Courtney Valentine Prize for Outstanding Work by a Millennial Artist, the winner of the Rhino’s Founders Prize, and a finalist for the Frontier’s Open prize. crawford was a finalist for the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid 2021 and 2022 Poetry Contest. Their work can be found or is forthcoming in POETRY Magazine, Metro Weekly, AGNI Magazine, Foglifter Magazine, Four Way Review, Cincinnati Review, Frontier Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, among others. They hold an MFA in poetry from The New School. Their second collection YEET! was the winner of the 2023 Omnidawn 1st/2nd Book Prize and will be published in Fall 2025.

Sara Matson (she/her) is a poet in Chicago. Her poems can be found in Kicking Your Ass, Bone Bouquet, and The Chicago Reader. She hosts the seasonal online reading series Words // Friends. Sara's latest chapbook, (Women) In STEM is available from Bottlecap Press and her pop culture chapbook Special Features: DVD Poems is available from Alien Buddha Press. Find her on Instagram @skeletorsmom

*Words // Friends episodes are recorded and will be available for free on YouTube.

*Are you a writer that would like to read on Words // Friends? Reach out to Sara Matson on Instagram @skeletorsmom or BlueSky @saramatson.bsky.social