Sheila Smith McKoy and Joan Gelfand read their work; an open mic follows, hosted by Michael Koch. No charge, though your contributions help augment the small honorarium we’re able to offer the poets. byob.

Sheila Smith McKoy, Ph.D. is an award-winning poet, fiction writer and filmmaker. She is the recipient of the 2020 Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Prize in poetry. Her full-length poetry collection, The Bones Beneath (Black Lawrence Press, 2024) is described as “haunting.” She is also co-author of One Window’s Light: A Haiku Collection, a collaboration of five Black poets; the collection won the 2017 Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Award for best haiku anthology. Smith McKoy has also written, produced, directed or served as executive producer for four documentary films, including Maama Watali and Luwero: A Conversation about War, Peace and Gender (2017). She is both a Pulitzer Prize and Pushcart Prize nominated poet. Since 1994, Smith McKoy has authored and edited numerous scholarly works in the areas of Africana Studies, race and difference, mentorship, literature and culture. Her recent and forthcoming publications include Teaching Literature and Writing in Prisons (2023) and Ifa: Solutions for Contemporary Society (co-editor; forthcoming 2025).

Joan Gelfand is has brought out three collections of poetry, a chapbook of short fiction, a novel set in a Silicon Valley startup and the recently published memoir, Outside Voices. She has taught for California Poets in the Schools, The Writing Salon and the San Francisco Writer’s Conference. In January, 2024, Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution, published by Post Hill Press, won the International Book Award for U.S. History. Joan’s work has appeared in national and international publications including the Huffington Post, the LA Review of Books, the “J,” and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her bio can be found in “Who’s Who in America.” For more info, visit http://joangelfand.com