#JToledo5
Celebrating a night of transgressive joy at The Switchboard in Toledo, May 14th, 2022 beginning promptly at 7 pm! Featuring a genre mix-tape of era-anchored readings riffing on pop culture of the 70's, 80's, and 90's. Event photographed by Toledo's famous Dougiefresh, complete with a drag show celebrating another Glass City favorite--Little Miss Onya! Be sure to don your favorite era couture of the 70's, 80's or 90's, have your Venmo up and ready for signed book sales, and bring along your $ones$ for LMO!
Featured Mix Tape Readers
Accessibility: Click here on 5/14 only to follow along with the authors
Ben's Tall & Wild Oats
Originating from the farm valleys of west Appalachia, Ben Kline (he/him) lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Author of the chapbooks SAGITTARIUS A* and DEAD UNCLES, Ben was the 2021 recipient of Patricia Goedicke Prize in Poetry. He enjoys long walks, mahjong, mixology, gossip, finding four leaf clovers and reading/living for filth. Ben’s work can be found in POETRY, South Carolina Review, Rejection Letters, MOLLYHOUSE, bedfellows magazine, Southeast Review, THRUSH, fourteen poems, Limp Wrist and many other publications. You can read more here. Find him on Twitter @BenKlinePoet. Don’t be shocked if you see him shirtless.
duZZtin Tops
Dustin Brookshire, a finalist for the 2021 Scotti Merrill Award, is the founder/editor of Limp Wrist, curator of the Wild & Precious Life Series (a Zoom-based poetry reading series), program director for Reading Queer, founding chapter president of the South Florida Poets, and co-editor with Julie E. Bloemeke of a forthcoming Madville Publishing Dolly Parton poetry anthology. He is the author of two chapbooks: Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021) and To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). Visit Dustin online at www.dustinbrookshire.com.
.jpg)
Mistress Lee & the Banshees
Chin-Sun Lee's work has appeared in The Rumpus, Joyland, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, and The Believer Logger, among other publications. She’s also a contributor to The New York Times bestselling anthology Women in Clothes (Blue Rider Press/Penguin 2014). She has received fellowships from The Hambidge Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and the Playa Artist Residency, and earned her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. She is represented by Pamela Malpas of Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency. More at www.chinsunlee.com.
KT & the Sunshine Band
Lifelong Ohioan Kerry Trautman is a founder of ToledoPoet.com and the "Toledo Poetry Museum" Facebook page which promote NW Ohio poetry events. Since 2016, she has served as a NW regional judge for Ohio’s “Poetry Out Loud” competition. In 2020, her one-act play “Mass” was a winner of The Toledo Repertoire Theater’s “Toledo Voices” competition. She is a poetry editor for Red Fez, and her work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies. Her poetry books are Things That Come in Boxes, To Have Hoped, Artifacts, To be Nonchalantly Alive and Marilyn: Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas. To learn more: https://linktr.ee/OhioKerry
REO Harewagon
Brian O’Hare is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, former U.S. Marine Corps officer and disabled combat veteran. Currently, he’s an award-winning writer/documentary filmmaker living in Los Angeles. Cannon Shot, his feature documentary on the Annapolis Cup, the world’s largest croquet match, between the U.S. Naval Academy and across the street neighbor St. John’s College, will be released in Fall 2022. His writing has appeared in War, Literature and the Arts, Hobart, We Are The Mighty and others—and has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. As well, in September 2021, Brian was selected as a Writing Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Most recently, National Book Award winner Phil Klay awarded Brian the Syracuse University Press' 2021 Veterans Writing Award for Surrender—his book of short stories to be published by Syracuse University Press in Fall 2022. He’s currently at work on his debut novel. https://brianohare.com/ https://www.cannonshotdoc.com/ https://www.deathrattler.com/ Find him on IG: bohare13x
LJ Cool Bae
L.J. Sysko’s work has appeared in The Missouri Review's "Poem a Week," Ploughshares, Best New Poets, Limp Wrist, Radar, and her poetry chapbook BATTLEDORE, among others. A 2022 Palm Beach Poetry Festival Thomas Lux Scholar, Sysko has been honored with Virginia Center for Creative Arts and Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowships as well as finalist recognition from Copper Nickel's Jake Adam York Prize, Mississippi Review Prize, Marsh Hawk Press, and The Missouri Review's Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize, among others. By day, she’s Director of Executive Communications at Delaware State University; at any hour, find her online at ljsysko.com.
Twitter: lj_sysko
IG: ljsysko
Eric Goes to HolyToledoWood
Eric Sasson is the author of the novel ADMISSIONS and the story collection MARGINS OF TOLERANCE, which was runner up for the Tartt First Fiction Award. For three years, he wrote “Ctrl-Alt,” a column on LGBTQ+ culture for the Wall Street Journal. As a regular contributor to The New Republic, VICE and GOOD magazines, his articles were featured on Meet the Press and Morning Joe Scarborough. He’s honored to have received fellowships to several writing residencies including Ragdale, Hambidge, I-Park, Playa, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, among others. He was born and bred in Brooklyn, where he still resides. Find him on IG at @Akaricks
Julie E. and the Eurythmidics
Julie E. Bloemeke (she/her/hers) is the 2021 Georgia Author of the Year Finalist for Poetry. Her debut full-length collection, Slide to Unlock (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020), was also chosen as a 2021 Book All Georgians Should Read. Co-editor with Dustin Brookshire for the forthcoming Dolly Parton poetry anthology (Madville Publishing, 2023), she is also an associate editor for South Carolina Review. Winner of the 2022 Third Coast Poetry Prize, her work has appeared in numerous publications including Writer’s Chronicle, Prairie Schooner, Cortland Review, Gulf Coast, EcoTheo Review, Poetry International, and others. A 2021 fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, she teaches online workshops and is a freelance writer, editor, and guest lecturer. Currently in Atlanta, she is a proud Toledo native and wants nothing more than to shine more light on her beloved Glass City. More at jebloemeke.com. She is proudly no longer active on FB, but find her on Twitter @jebloemeke or IG @poemtastic
Special Guest Appearances By Toledo Favorites
Little Miss Onya
Little Miss Onya is the new girl on the block who is quickly turning heads! She started drag just eight months ago here in Toledo over at Firefly. A native of Columbus, she currently hosts her own drag brunch in the Short North at Devine on High. You can occasionally catch her spinning at Toledo's newest hot spot, Prime. Follow her on IG to see what she is up to next: @littlemissonya
Dougiefresh
What does street photography mean to you? To Toledo native and area photographer Doug Hinebaugh, street is the purest form of candid photography that also happens to be his favorite style to shoot. Whether in a sleepy small town or a sprawling contemporary metropolis, Dougiefresh (as he’s known) seeks out moments that tell the honest stories of the streets in his vibrant and colorful trademark style. Sticking to his mission to consistently help his city put its best foot forward, Doug has learned to follow his heart and he knows it all starts in Toledo. And he’s off to a flying start connecting with thousands who share in his hometown pride and how he sees the place he loves most with his camera.