Fourth Friday series kicks off new location

Writers on the Spit present The Fourth Friday Reading Series at 6 p.m. May 22 at a new location in Sequim — The Lodge at Sherwood Village, 660 Evergreen Farm Way.

 

Writers on the Spit present The Fourth Friday Reading Series at 6 p.m. May 22 at a new location in Sequim — The Lodge at Sherwood Village, 660 Evergreen Farm Way. This month’s featured writers are poets from Port Townsend, Gerald Braude and Terry Persun.

Braude is a full-time classical and jazz guitarist with over 25 years as a performer. Between gigs, he writes manuscript reviews for iUniverse and has edited six books for Booktrope Editions. The manuscripts he edits and the reviews he writes are preferably literary and historical fiction. His poems have been published in the literary journal Nebo. Braude will be reading poems at Fourth Friday from “Blues and Beyond” published by Booktrope Editions.

Important poetic influences on Braude’s writing have been the voice of Carl Sandburg, the distillation of Gwendolyn Brooks and the lyricism of William Stafford.

Persun has been writing and publishing his poetry since the early 1970s. His work has appeared in many small and university magazines including Wisconsin Review, Kansas Quarterly, Rattle, Hiram Poetry Review, Drop Forge, Bluestem, Nebo, Eclipse and many others. His poems have appeared in six chapbooks and four full-length collections. Persun speaks at writer conferences and universities across the country on a variety of writing craft topics. He will read his poems from “And Now This,” published by MoonPath Press and from “Sentences,” published by Brooktrope Editions. He earned an master’s degree in creative writing from SUNY — Stoney Brook and studied with Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Stanley Kunitz, Louis Simpson, and W.D. Snodgrass.

The Fourth Friday featured writers are followed by an hour of 5-minute open-mic readings. Those interested in reading their poetry or prose are invited to put their names in the hat. For guidelines, contact Rmarcus@olypen.com. There is no fee for this event.