Sundress Publications is delighted to announce an upcoming virtual poetry reading in honor of National Poetry Month. Our Poetry Month Celebration will take place on April 23rd, 2025, from 7:00 to 8:00 PM EST, accessible via the following link: tiny.utk.edu/sundress.
The reading will feature an line-up of Sundress authors, each bringing their unique voice and perspective. We invite everyone to join us in celebrating National Poetry Month and the voices that enrich our literary landscape.
Asa Drake is a Filipina/white poet in Central Florida. She is the author of Maybe the Body (Tin House, 2026) and Beauty Talk (Noemi Press, 2026), winner of the 2024 Noemi Press Book Award. Her chapbook, One Way to Listen (Gold Line Press), is the winner of a 2023 Florida Book Award. A National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest, Storyknife, Sundress Publications, Tin House, and Idyllwild Arts. Her poems can be found on The Slowdown Podcast, The American Poetry Review, and Poetry Daily.
Bess Cooley is the author of the poetry collection Florence (Sundress Publications 2024). She is a winner of the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, and her work has also appeared in Prairie Schooner, Western Humanities Review, American Literary Review, The Journal, and Verse Daily, among other journals. She is co-founding editor of Peatsmoke Journal and teaches at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Tatiana Johnson-Boria (she/her) is the author of Nocturne in Joy (2023), winner of the 2024 Julia Ward Howe Book Prize in Poetry. As an educator, artist, facilitator, and mother; she uses her writing practice to dismantle racism, reckon with trauma, cultivate healing, and to explore the complex magic of mothering. She has received fellowships and awards from Tin House, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MacDowell, the Brother Thomas Fellowship, and St. Botolph Club Foundation, among others. Tatiana teaches at GrubStreet, and has been on faculty at Emerson College, among other institutions. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review Online, and more. She is represented by Lauren Scovel at Laura Gross Literary.
Nora Hikari (she/her) is a Chinese and Japanese transgender poet and artist based in Philadelphia. She was a 2022 Lambda Literary fellow, and her work has been published in Poem-a-Day, Ploughshares, Palette Poetry, Foglifter, and others. She was also a reader at the 2022 Dodge Poetry Festival. Her hybrid fiction, KISS ME FAST, was featured in the Wigleaf Top 50 for 2023. Her first full-length collection, Still My Father’s Son, was published by Sundress Publications in 2025. Her second full-length collection, THE MOST HOLY DAY OF THE TRANSSEXUAL CALENDAR, is forthcoming at Game Over Books, in Winter of 2025. Nora Hikari can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @system_wires.
stevie redwood is a disabled toisanese jewish neuroinsurgent introvert homotrash littledreamer bigmouth bitch living & dying in frisco. they’re unimpressed by scene queers, artifice, & pacifism. they’re fond of shittalk, porchsitting, leaflitter, & riffraff. they dream (of) a liberated palestine, maps without borders, and a different end of the world.
Valerie A. Smith is the author of Back to Alabama (Sundress, 2024). A poignant poetry collection, Back to Alabama is a deep, transformative examination of the Black American narrative that explores the complexities of identity, family, womanhood, and religious faith.Smith’s poetry takes on a variety of visual and lyrical forms, offering profound insights into thespeaker’s journey, inviting readers to reflect on the enduring themes of social justice andspirituality. Smith considers her work particularly influenced by African American artists activefrom the Harlem Renaissance through the Black Arts Movement. Smith has a PhD from GeorgiaState University and an MA from Kennesaw State University where she currently teachesEnglish. Above all, she values spending quality time with her family. Find her online atwww.valeriesmithwriter.com.
