CRUEL/CRUEL Book Launch

Join us for the launch of poet Dior Stephens’ book CRUEL/CRUEL. Stephens will read selections from CRUEL/CRUEL. Additionally, poets Marcus Donaldson and Dr. Taylor Byas will read some of their work.

6 pm reception/6:30pm program
Free and open to the public. Registration required.
To attend online, register directly via Crowdcast.

Copies of Cruel/Cruel will be available for sale & signing.

Dior J. Stephens is a proud pisces hailing from Midwestern waters. He is the author of the chapbooks SCREAMS & lavender, 001, and CANNON!. Their debut full-length collection, CRUEL/CRUEL is out now with Nightboat Books. They happily serve as the Managing Poetry Editor of Foglifter Journal and Press. You can find them on twitter at @dolphinneptune and Instagram at @dolphinphotos

Marcus Donaldson is a writer with a lot of questions. Their essays have appeared in The Burr Magazine. They are currently working on their first chapbook of poems, and live with their family on a hill just north of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D. (she/her) is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she is an Associate Editor for Cincinnati Review and an Assistant Features Editor for The Rumpus. She is the 1st place winner of the 2020 Poetry Super Highway, the 2020 Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets Contests, and the 2021 Adrienne Rich Poetry Prize. She is the author of the chapbooks Bloodwarm and Shutter, and her debut full-length I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times will be out with Soft Skull Press in August 2023.