Glowing in the Dark: a winter reading to celebrate our community of authors Ben Weakley, Hari Alluri, Carla Rachel Sameth, Yesenia Montilla, Cynthia Dewi Oka, and Shuly Xóchitl Cawood

**Registration for public to attend (HERE) https://www.eventbrite.com/e/glowing-in-the-dark-tickets-422673215967 Join CBAW for Glowing in the Dark, a winter reading to celebrate our community of authors Ben Weakley, Hari Alluri, Carla Rachel Sameth, Yesenia Montilla, Cynthia Dewi Oka, and Shuly Xóchitl Cawood as they read from their new published works. Hosted by Seema Reza. Stay after the reading for Open Studio with Veteran Artist and CBAW Co-Founder, Joe Merritt. Bring anything you want to work on, in any medium, and create art with our community. Ben Weakley spent fourteen years in the U.S. Army, beginning with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and finishing at a desk inside the Pentagon. He writes poetry and prose about the enduring nature of war and the human experience. His first collection of poems, HEAT + PRESSURE is forthcoming in November 2022 from Middle West Press. Ben’s work appears in the anthologies, “Our Best War Stories”, by Middle West Press and “We Were Not Alone”, by Community Building Art Works. Other poems and articles appear or are forthcoming in Sequestrum, Cutleaf Journal, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, and Army University Press., among other publications. His Awards include First Place in the 2019 Heroes’ Voices National Poetry Contest, and Finalist in the 2020 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards. Ben is also a nominee for the Pushcart Prize. Today, Ben lives in the Tri-Cities of Northeast Tennessee with his wife, their children, and a very mischievous hound dog. You can read more of Ben’s work at https://www.jbenweakley.com. Hari Alluri (he/him/siya) is the author of The Flayed City (Kaya). A winner of the 2020 Leonard A. Slade, Jr. Poetry Fellowship and an editor at Locked Horn Press, he has received grants from the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and fellowships from Las Dos Brujas, Port Townsend, and VONA/Voices writers workshops. His work appears in the Watch Your Head (Coach House) and Pandemic Solidarity (Pluto) anthologies, as well as recently in Prism International, Solstice, Tinderbox, The Volta and elsewhere. Carla Rachel Sameth was recently selected as the Co-Poet Laureate for Altadena, CA 2022-2024. Her chapbook, What Is Left was published December 2021 (dancing girl press) Carla’s award-winning memoir, One Day on the Gold Line will be reissued by Golden Foothills Press in November 2022. Her writing on blended/unblended, queer, multi-racial and single parent families appears in a variety of literary journals, newspapers and anthologies. Carla’s work has been twice named as Notable Essays of the Year in Best American Essays, and nominated for Best of the Net.. Her story “Graduation Day at Addiction High,” which originally appeared in Narratively, was also selected for Longread’s “Five Stories on Addiction.” A Pasadena Rose Poet, a West Hollywood Pride Poet, and a former PEN Teaching Artist, Carla teaches creative writing to high school and university students and has taught incarcerated youth. https://carlasameth.com/ Yesenia Montilla is an Afro-Latina poet & a daughter of immigrants. Her poetry has appeared in Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, & others. She received her MFA from Drew University & is a CantoMundo graduate fellow. Her first collection The Pink Box was Longlisted for a PEN award in 2016. Her second collection Muse Found in a Colonized Body is forthcoming (Four Way Books, 2022). Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not A Country (Northwestern University Press), Salvage: Poems (Northwestern University Press) and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (Thread Makes Blanket). She’s currently Poet in Residence at the Amy Clampitt House. Shuly Xóchitl Cawood is the author of several books, including the poetry collection, Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning (Mercer University Press, 2021), winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. Her forthcoming flash essay collection, What the Fortune Teller Would Have Said, won the 2022 Iron Horse Literary Review Chapbook Competition. Shuly has an MFA in creative writing and an MA in journalism. She loves teaching writing workshops, hiking in the woods, and watching trashy TV. Learn more about her at www.shulycawood.com. Joe Merritt was medically retired from the United States Marine Corps in 2016 after 10 years of honorable service. Joe rediscovered art during his medical treatment and has a successful career as a professional artist, exhibiting his work and presenting gallery talks across the country. He is a steward of the veteran art community, leading art programming with active duty and veteran populations in DC, MD and VA.   When Wednesday Nov 30, 2022 ⋅ 4pm – 5:30pm (Pacific Time – Los Angeles)