Back to All Events

Readings by Lauren Camp and Seth Brady Tucker

Lauren Camp, New Mexico Poet Laureate (2022-25), created the New Mexico Epic Poem Project, a community-centered, crowd-sourced initiative designed to help people in rural and arts-underserved communities express themselves. Undertaken in partnership with New Mexico Arts, the Project has reached 25 of New Mexico’s 33 counties. Letterpress broadsides of each community poem will be printed, disseminated across the state, and exhibited at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. Lauren is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Since this time, Lauren has brought “Poetry Under the Stars” programs to four national parks and monuments, voicing poems about the dark from across time and cultures to audiences in the dark. These readings, followed by a laser-guided constellation tour, are designed to encourage people to slow down, look and listen, and to advocate for preserving our dark skies. Lauren has also collaborated with many divisions of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs to create a free coloring book, entitled “Imagine Nature,” with poetry and activity prompts from Lauren and illustrations commissioned by fifteen artists from around the state. The book has been distributed to more than 50,000 people across New Mexico. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute, and has been awarded a Dorset Prize and a New Mexico Book Award. Other honors include finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Housatonic Book Award, Big Other Book Award, and Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry. She has been writer-in-residence at Lowell Observatory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Hedgebrook, Denver Botanic Gardens, Storyknife, and The Taft-Nicholson Environmental Humanities Center. Her poems and essays have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including The Nation, Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Orion, Missouri Review, and Poem-a-Day. Her work has been translated into Turkish, Mandarin, Serbian, Arabic, French, and Spanish. She pivoted from a successful career as a visual artist (1996-2008). Her portrait series, “The Fabric of Jazz,” traveled to museums in ten cities. More artwork can be found in cultural centers, hospitals, museums, U.S. embassies, and other organizations around the world. For 15 years, she was a producer and host for Santa Fe Public Radio.

https://www.laurencamp.com/about-lauren-camp-poet.html

Seth Brady Tucker is a poet and fiction writer originally from Lander, Wyoming. His first book won the 2011 Elixir Press Editor’s Poetry Prize (Mormon Boy), and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. His second book won the Gival Press Poetry Award (We Deserve the Gods We Ask For) and went on to win the Eric Hoffer Book Award. He has led poetry and fiction workshops for graduate and undergraduate students alike, and is currently an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Seth is also the founder and co-director of the Seaside Writers’ Conference (which takes place annually in May), and volunteers his time teaching veterans and veteran caretakers through the Writers’ Guild (East)/Wounded Warrior Project. Seth has been an editor for a number of different literary journals, and is currently a senior editor at the Tupelo Quarterly Review. Recently, his fiction won the Bevel Summers Fiction Prize from Shenandoah and a Flash Fiction Award from Literal Latte, and he was also a finalist for the Jeff Sharlet Award from the Iowa Review, the Lamar York Nonfiction Prize from the Chattahoochee Review, and the James Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review. Seth has served as a Carol Houck Smith Scholar in Poetry at Bread Loaf, and as the Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction at Sewanee. His poetry and fiction are forthcoming or have appeared in Pleiades, Shenandoah, Verse Daily, Iowa Review, Southern Humanities Review, Indiana Review, and Poetry Northwest, among many others. Seth has worked as a wine sommelier and has degrees from San Francisco State University, Northern Arizona University, and from the top-ranked creative writing program at Florida State University (PhD English 2012). He was a paratrooper with the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and served in the Persian Gulf War, in another lifetime.

https://www.sethbradytucker.ink/

Previous
Previous
April 28

Julian Dashiell Cleveland - Opening Reception

Next
Next
May 2

Sirens by Toni Oswald