Reading: Jay Halsey, Akusua Akoto, Eric Baus, Andrea Rexilius, and Steven Dunn, Saturday, October 29, 2022, 6 pm

Join us on Saturday, October 29, 2022, at 6 pm at Counterpath (7935 East 14th Ave. in Denver) for a reading to celebrate the release of Jay Halsey’s Barely Half in an Awkward Line, with Jay Halsey, Eric Baus, Andrea Rexilius, Akusua Akoto, and Steven Dunn. Hosted by Hillary Leftwich. Free and open to the public!

Akusua Akoto is a poet, spoken word performer and public speaker living in Denver working on two manuscripts of poetry; one focusing on three generations of black womanhood, generational trauma, mental illness, poverty and survival. The other is a state of the world perspective.

Eric Baus is the author of five books of poetry: How I Became a Hum (Octopus Books, 2020) The Tranquilized Tongue, (City Lights 2014), Scared Text, winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011), Tuned Droves (Octopus Books, 2009), and The To Sound, winner of the Verse Prize (Wave Books, 2004). He is also the author of several chapbooks, most recently The Rain Of The Ice (Above/Ground Press 2014) and Euphorbia (Above/Ground Press 2019). His poems have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and Finnish. He is a graduate of the PhD program in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Denver as well as the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He teaches literature and creative writing at Regis University’s Mile High MFA program in Denver, which he co-directs with poet Andrea Rexilius.

Andrea Rexilius is the author of Sister UrnNew Organism: EssaisHalf of What They Carried Flew Away, and To Be Human Is To Be A Conversation, as well as the chapbooks, SéanceTo Be Human, and Afterworld. She earned an M.F.A. in Poetry from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Denver. Andrea is the Program Director for Regis University’s Mile-High MFA in Creative Writing.

Steven Dunn, aka Pot Hole (cuz he’s deep in these streets) is the author of two novels from Tarpaulin Sky Press: Potted Meat (2016) and water & power (2018).  He was born and raised in West Virginia, and teaches in the M.F.A. programs at Regis University and Cornell College.

Jay Halsey’s poems and prose have been published in several online and print journals and nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. His photography has been used as cover art for poetry collections and novels, featured in fundraising campaigns for the Rocky Mountain Land Library in Fairplay, Colorado, and was part of a touring exhibit featured at libraries and bookstores throughout France to represent Editions Gallmeister’s American authors. His forthcoming photography and multi-form collection Barely Half in an Awkward Line is being published by Really Serious Literature in the fall of 2022. He was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio and has lived on the Colorado Front Range for the past fifteen years. Since then, he’s worked as a champion for those worse off than he, explored and recorded desolate places absent of people, written of anger and love, and sought a peace that may or may not exist.