Reading: Khadija Queen, Steven Dunn, Jessica Lawson, Jeffrey Pethybridge, Carolina Ebeid, and Andre Hoilette, hosted by Meca’Ayo, Saturday, September 19, 2026, 7pm
Join us on Saturday, September 19, 2026, at 7 pm, at Counterpath (7935 East 14th Ave. in Denver) for readings by Khadija Queen, Steven Dunn, Jessica Lawson, Jeffrey Pethybridge, Carolina Ebeid, and Andre Hoilette. Hosted by Meca’Ayo. Free and open to the public.
Khadijah Queen holds a PhD in Literary Arts from University of Denver. She is the author of nine books of poetry and prose, including Anodyne (Tin House 2020), winner of the William Carlos Williams Award, and Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Legacy Lit/Hachette August 2025), a memoir about her time in the Navy alongside short histories of maritime women. In 2025 the Foundation for Contemporary Arts recognized Queen’s work with the Cy Twombly Award for poetry. Her next book is Black Women Writers At Work in the 21st Century (Haymarket, February 2027), a collection of interviews with esteemed Black women/femme authors.
Steven Dunn (a.k.a Pothole, because he is deep in these streets) is the author of three novels and 3,259 Facebook posts that explore the intricate humanity of talking shit about your hoe-ass daddy. He currently teaches writing at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design.
Jessica Lawson (she/her/hers) is Pushcart-nominated writer, teacher, and queer single parent. Raised in the Midwest and now based in Denver, she holds a B.A. from Smith College, a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. from the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she served as an editor for Timber Journal. Her debut poetry collection, Gash Atlas, is a nightmarish cartography of life in the Trump era. Through poetic and visual “maps,” this collection excavates nested layers of sexuality, violence, and white supremacy, finally turning the lens of critique back on its own speaker. Gash Atlas was selected by judge Erica Hunt for the Kore Press Institute Poetry Prize and published in 2022. Her chapbook Rot Contracts (Trouble Department 2020) focuses on family rupture, the law, and the limits of human bonds, and her other writings have appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, The Rumpus, Paperbag, Dreginald, Entropy, The Wanderer, and elsewhere. Her academic work on 20th and 21st century literature focuses on the impact of marginalization on the body as well as the politics of literary experiment. She teaches undergraduate classes on literary history, creative writing, and gender studies, as well as community workshops focusing on formal innovations in poetry by writers of color and LGBTQIA+ writers.
Jeffrey Pethybridge is the author of Striven, The Bright Treatise (Noemi Press 2013). His work appears widely in journals such as Chicago Review, Volt, Poor Claudia, Best American Experimental Writing, The Iowa Review, LIT, New American Writing and others. He teaches in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University where he is Director of the Summer Writing Program. He lives in so-called Denver with the poet Carolina Ebeid and their son Patrick; together they curate and host the Lord Weary’s Reading Series, and edit Visible Binary. He’s currently at work on a documentary project centered on the recently released torture memos entitled “Force Drift, an Essay in the Epic.” He grew up in Virginia.
Carolina Ebeid is a multimedia poet. She is the author of You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior (Noemi Press, 2016) and the chapbook Dauerwunder: a brief record of facts (Albion Books, 2023). Her next book Hide is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in winter of 2026. Her work has been supported by the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University, Bread Loaf, CantoMundo, the NEA, and a residency fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. From 2023-2025 she is the Bonderman Assistant Professor of poetry at Brown University. A longtime editor, she currently edits poetry at the multimedia zine Visible Binary with Patrick and Jeffrey Pethybridge. Carolina grew up in West New York, New Jersey in a Cuban and Palestinian family.
André O. Hoilette is a Jamaican-born poet living in Denver, Colorado. He is a Cave Canem fellow and former editor of ambulant: A Journal of Poetry & Art and former Asst. Editor of Nexus Magazine. He currently pursues MFAs in Fiction and Poetry from Regis University. Previous publications in Stand Our Ground: Poems for Travon Martin, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, and the Cave Canem 10-year reader, milk magazine, Cultural Weekly, South Broadway Ghost Society, and other journals.
Meca’Ayo (Tameca L Coleman) is a multi-genre writer, itinerant nerd, sound maker, massage therapist, zine maker, and point and shoot art dabbler who currently lives in Denver, Colorado. Their writing and photography have been featured in literary magazines, art exhibits, newspapers, and other venues and publications on and offline. Some publications of art and writing include DARIA Art Magazine, Femme Salée, Denver Westword, East Window, Rigorous Magazine, The Colorado Independent, Heavy Feather Review, Lambda Literary, just femme & dandy magazine, Inverted Syntax, Full Stop Literary Reviews, Denverse Magazine and Ottawa Design Club. Many of their works implement improvisation and collaboration. Collaborative projects include work with Cellists for Change, Adams County public arts events, at Denver Zine Fest and via anthology zines and postcards featuring collaborative poetry. Meca’Ayo completed their MFA in poetry and fiction at Regis’ Mile-High MFA program in 2018. Their first book, an identity polyptych, debuted from The Elephants in 2021. Meca’Ayo was a finalist for poet laureate in Adam’s County and in the state of Colorado in 2023. They are a current artist resident at Carousel Arts in CAST 108 Studios in Englewood, Colorado. They are the founder and lead of Colorado Poetry Calendar. Meca’Ayo has worked in the healing arts since 2011