Mike Carlson, Tina Chang & Terence Winch with Matthew Rohrer: Poetry Reading

A reading by poets Mike Carlson, Tina Chang, Terence Winch, hosted by Matthew Rohrer. The reading will be followed by a reception/signing with books for sale courtesy of McNally Jackson.

Friday, November 7, 5pm

Open to the public. All attendees are required to RSVP in advance; please click here

The Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House is not currently wheelchair accessible. 

About the Writers:

Mike Carlson is the author of Tips to Help You Do Your Best (Tupelo Press 2025), and Cement Guitar (2003), which was awarded the Juniper Prize. His poems have appeared in Antioch Review, The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, New Letters, Seneca Review, The Southern Review, and others. He is a teacher at P.S. 107 in Brooklyn, New York where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Tina Chang is an American poet, educator, and editor. She was the first woman to be named Poet Laureate of Brooklyn and she served in this role for over a decade. A graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program, she is the author of three critically acclaimed collections: Hybrida (W. W. Norton, May 2019), Of Gods & Strangers (Four Way Books, 2011), and Half-Lit Houses (Four Way Books, 2004). She is Full Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at her alma mater, Binghamton University. She is the co-editor of the seminal anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W.W. Norton, 2008), which was hailed as, “One of the 10 greatest international anthologies, a timeless resource” by the Academy of American Poets, and was praised by the Financial Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Poets & Writers and many other periodicals. Chang is the recipient of awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and the Van Lier Foundation among others. In 2011, she was awarded The Women of Excellence Award for her outreach and literary impact on the Brooklyn community. In 2014 and 2017, Brooklyn magazine named Chang one of the 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn culture. She is the recipient of the 2020 Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets and was Brooklyn Poets’ Award Gala Honoree in 2022.

Terence Winch’s 10th book of poems is It Is As If Desire (Hanging Loose Press, 2024). In 2023, the Pitt Poetry Series published That Ship Has Sailed. Seeing-Eye Boy, a YA novel that takes place in the Irish immigrant world of mid 20th-century New York, came out in 2020. Other recent poetry collections are The Known Universe (Hanging Loose, 2018) and This Way Out (Hanging Loose, 2014). In 2013, Salmon Poetry, based in county Clare, Ireland, published Lit from Below, a collection of 10-line poems. His 2011 collection, Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor, includes some of Winch’s best-known poems from earlier chapbooks, while Boy Drinkers (2007) is a series of mostly narrative poems that center around religion and Winch’s New York brand of Irish-Catholicism. The Great Indoors, winner of the Columbia Book Award, was published in 1995, and Irish Musicians/American Friends, winner of the American Book Award, was published by Coffee House Press in 1985. The Drift of Things was published by The Figures in 2000. Contenders, a short story collection, was named a “best book” by Washingtonian magazine; That Special Place: New World Irish Stories is a collection of non-fiction stories.

Matthew Rohrer is the author of Army of Giants (Wave Books, 2024), The Sky Contains the Plans (Wave Books, 2020), The Others (Wave Books, 2017), which was the winner of the 2017 Believer Book Award, Surrounded by Friends (Wave Books, 2015), Destroyer and Preserver (Wave Books, 2011), A Plate of Chicken (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009), Rise Up (Wave Books, 2007) and A Green Light (Verse Press, 2004), which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite (Verse Press, 2001), and co-author, with Joshua Beckman, of Nice Hat. Thanks. (Verse Press, 2002), and the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing. His first book, A Hummock in the Malookas was selected for the National Poetry Series by Mary Oliver in 1994. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at NYU.