New Venue this month for St. Rocco’s Readings for the Dispossessed.

Sandra Simonds is the author of seven books of poetry: Atopia (Wesleyan University Press, 2019), Orlando (Wave Books, 2018), Further Problems with Pleasure, winner of the 2015 Akron Poetry Prize, Steal It Back (Saturnalia Books, 2015), The Sonnets (Bloof Books, 2014), Mother Was a Tragic Girl (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2012), and Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2009). Her poems have been included in Best American Poetry in 2014 and 2015 and have appeared in many literary journals, including Poetry magazine, the American Poetry Review, the Chicago Review, Granta, Boston Review, Ploughshares, Fence, Court Green, and Lana Turner. In 2013, she won a Readers’ Choice Award for her sonnet “Red Wand,” which was published on the Academy of American Poets website. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida, and is an associate professor of English and Humanities at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia.

Joe Elliot is the author of the poetry collections Idea for a B-Movie (Free Scholar Press, 2016), Homework (Lunar Chandelier, 2010) and Opposable Thumb (subpress, 2006), as well as numerous chapbooks including You Gotta Go In It’s the Big Game, Poems to be Centered on Much Much Larger Sheets of Paper and Half Gross, a collaboration with the artist John Koos. His long poem 101 Designs for the World Trade Center was published by Faux Press as an e-book in 2003. Elliot coedited two chapbook series—A Musty Bone and Situations—and ran a weekly reading series at Biblios Bookstore in Manhattan. For many years, he made a living as a letterpress printer. He now teaches English at Edward R. Murrow High School and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Anne Noonan, and their three sons.

Lisa Mottolo is a writer from Schenectady NY who uses the themes of isolation and discontent. Her work has appeared in Barren Magazine and Coffin Bell Journal. Lisa has an affinity for birds and has 5 adopted birds that love apples and chewing the paper she writes on. Through her work, she aspires to ease the sense of isolation faced by herself and others.