Events

Nathalie Quintane

Discussing The Cavalier (Winter Editions, 2025) in conversation with NEOMFA faculty member Hilary Plum and translator Jonathan Larson. Presented by Mac's Backs-Books on Coventry in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University, NEOMFA, and Winter Editions.

Monday, October 26, 2026 at 6:30 pm

Let's Ride Skateboards
1810 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118

Nathalie Quintane is a French poet and writer living in Digne-les-Bains, France. She has published more than 25 books in essentially every genre, most of which have appeared with the publishing houses P.O.L. and La Fabrique. Quintane’s writing distinguishes itself by the recombination of memoir, prose poem, narration, reportage, tract, journalism, autofiction, pastiche, literary criticism, etc. into new literary forms.

Sony Ton-Aime

NEOMFA and KSU alum Sony Ton-Aime (Class of 2019) returns for a pair of events in October 2026:

Salon Session with NEOMFA Students
Tuesday, October 13 at 6:30 pm
Satterfield Hall 119, Kent State University
Visiting professor Anthony Tognazzini’s Multigenre "First Books" class. Open to all NEOMFA students with no RSVP required.

Public Reading at KSU Wick Poetry Center
Wednesday, October 14 at 7:00 pm
Murphy Auditorium in Rockwell Hall, Kent State University
Presented by KSU's Wick Poetry Center. Book signing and reception to follow. This event is free and open to the public. 

Sony Ton-Aime is a Haitian poet, essayist, and translator, and is the executive director of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. Previously, he served as the Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution. His debut poetry collection, Konbit, was published in 2026 by Carnegie Mellon University Press. He is also the author of the chapbook LaWomann, the Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Lennox Kilgour’s Story, and co-founding editor of ID13. His work has appeared in Artful Dodge, Consequence Forum, Poets.org, Idaho Review, Hunger Mountain Review, and Cleveland Review of Books, among others.

Sandra Doller

Online Reading and Salon Session
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 at 6:00 pm

Visiting Professor Caryl Pagel's “Material Conditions" Poetry Workshop. Open to all NEOMFA students via Zoom, with no RSVP required.

Sandra Doller is the author of several books of poetry, prose, translation, and the in-between from the most valiant and precarious small presses—Les Figues, Ahsahta, Subito, and Sidebrow Books. She has published chapbooks with above/ground, Éditions Eclipse, CutBank, and Essay Press, and her newest book of poems, Not Now Now, is out now from Rescue Press. Her work appears in magazines such as Fence, Harp & Altar, and Mantis. Doller is the founder of an international literary arts journal and independent press called “1913,” where she remains l’éditrice-in-chief publishing poetry, poetics, prose and else by emerging and established writers. Doller’s awards and honors include the Anomalous Press Translation Prize, the Paul Engle-James Michener Award, and, once upon a time, Honorable Mention from Edward Albee in the 21st Century Playwrights Festival. She lives in the USA, for now.

Alumni Reading

Thursday, June 11, 2026 at 6:00 pm  
Visible Voice Books
4601 Lorain Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44102

Hosted by Lindsey Maple.

Featuring Carrie George, Isaiah Hunt, Jessica Jewell, Benjamin Anthony Rhodes, and Alexandra Salata.

Free and open to the public, with no tickets or reservations required.

Visiting Writer: James Hannaham

Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 7:00 pm
Oscar Ritchie Hall Theatre, Kent State University

Presented wth Kent State University Department of English and the Wick Poetry Center. Hosted by Anthony Tognazzini.

Free and open to the public, with no tickets or reservations required.

James Hannaham is a writer, a visual artist, or both. His novel Delicious Foods won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was a New York Times Notable Book. He has shown text-based artwork at Open Source Gallery and The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, and won Best in Show at Main Street Arts’ exhibit Biblio Spectaculum. In 2021 he released Pilot Impostor, a multigenre book inspired by an anthology of Fernando Pessoa’s poetry. His third novel, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, released in 2022, won the Ferro-Grumley Award, a second Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and also was a New York Times Notable Book. Accolades include a Guggenheim Fellowship and numerous residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and others. 

Spring Student Reading

Saturday, April 4, 2026 at 6:30 pm
Literary Cleveland
13002 Larchmere Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio 44120

Join us for an evening of literary readings featuring eight writers from the NEOMFA program. The Spring 2026 lineup includes Julia Cilano, Abigail Clark, Katie Flack, Benjamin Goldberg, Corey Miller, Benvolio Nichols, Sam Omori, and Cheyenne Shaffer.

This event is free with no tickets or reservations required.

2026 Play Readings

Two nights of table and staged readings of new works in development:

Friday, February 13 at 7:30 pm
The Royal Puppet by W. Reid Kennedy
That’s Not How I Say It by Jennifer Foxhoven
Abshers by Ari Croft

Saturday, February 14 at 7:30 pm
Chapter and Verse by Eric Mansfield

Presented with convergence-continuum at The Liminis Theatre, 2438 Scranton Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44113.

Fall Student Reading

Saturday, November 15, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Wick Poetry Center, Kent State University

Join us for an evening of literary readings featuring eight writers from the NEOMFA program. The Fall 2025 lineup includes Jawuan Arnold, Julia Cilano, Lindsay Collier, Jane Lee James, Lindsey Maple, Sean Miller, Olivia Mirmohamed, and JD Shell.

Rubbertop Review, The University of Akron’s literary journal, will be accepting donations of books for a fundraising sale. 

This event is free with no tickets or reservations required.

Visiting Writer: Robyn Schiff

With Alyssa Perry

Presented with Cleveland State University Poetry Center Lighthouse Reading Series. Hosted by Caryl Pagel.

Friday, November 15, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Parker Hannifin Hall Room 104, Cleveland State University

Free and open to the public, with no tickets or reservations required. Book sales by Mac's Backs-Books on Coventry.

Robyn Schiff is the author of four poetry collections: Worth (2002), Revolver (2008), A Woman of Property (2016), and most recently, Information Desk: An Epic (2023). A professor at the University of Chicago, Schiff co-edits Canarium Books, an independent small press, and was the recipient of the 2023 Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize. Her work has been published in Harper’s, The New Yorker, Yale Review, and elsewhere. 

Alyssa Perry is a writer, editor, and teacher. She is the author of Oily Doily (2024). Her writing appears with Annulet, The Canary, Fence, Mercury Firs, River Styx, and other venues. Perry is poetry editor at the Cleveland Review of Books and an editor at Rescue Press. She teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Visiting Writer: Eugene Lim

Friday, February 2, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Wick Poetry Center, Kent State University

Hosted by Hilary Plum. Free and open to the public, with no tickets or reservations required.

Eugene Lim is the author of the novels Fog & Car (2008), The Strangers (2013), Dear Cyborgs (2017), and Search History (2021). His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Believer, The Baffler, Granta, Dazed, Little Star, and elsewhere. He is the librarian at Hunter College High School and will be a visiting professor in the MFA program at Queens College, CUNY for the 2023-2024 school year. He runs Ellipsis Press and lives in Jackson Heights, NY, with Joanna and Felix.

Visiting Writer: Brian Broome

Friday, October 27, 2023 at 7:00 pm
The Nightlight Cinema
30 North High Street, Akron, OH 44308

Free and open to the public, with no tickets or reservations required.

Brian Broome, a poet and screenwriter, is the author of Punch Me Up to the Gods. He is K. Leroy Irvis Fellow and instructor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Broome has been a finalist in The Moth storytelling competition and won the grand prize in Carnegie Mellon University’s Martin Luther King Writing Awards. He also won a VANN Award from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation for journalism in 2019. Broome lives in Pittsburgh.