- This event has passed.
Nourish: A Reading Series
October 3 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Nourish: A Reading Series
Sara Dovre Wudali is a writer, editor, and arts educator living in Saint Paul. She was a Poetry Fellow in the Loft Mentor Series and has received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. Her poems and essays have been published or are forthcoming in literary journals and anthologies such as North American Review, Poet Lore, Rhino, Blood Tree Literature, and Hairstreak Butterfly Review. She is the co-editor of the chapbook, All You Need is One Avocado and co-author of the chapbook The Sweet. She is a founding member of the poetry collective The Poetry Bus, a mentor with the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop, and the poet-in-residence at Café Marguerite. Dovre Wudali grew up on a farm in southwest Minnesota, where the wind blows through the cottonwoods and box elder bugs rule. You can learn more and read her work at saradovrewudali.com.
This month’s lineup will feature:
LM Brimmer is an interdisciplinary artist & educator living on Dakota land. A co-editor of the anthology Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose and Pride, they serve Queer Voices as Artistic Director. This season, they are returning from a workshop at McCormack Writing Center in Oregon and a residency at POWERHOUSE in NY. Their work has appeared in Pleiades, Quarterly West, The Colorado Review, Heavy Feather Review, Sonora Review, Voicemail Poems, and elsewhere. Their debut poetry collection, Imagined Child is due early 2027 from Kelsey Street Press.
Juliet Patterson is the author of Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide (Milkweed Editions, September 2022), finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Awards and named one of the best memoirs of 2022 by Library Journal. She has also published two full-length poetry collections, Threnody, and The Truant Lover, both from Nightboat Books. She teaches creative writing at St. Olaf College and Augsburg University’s low-residency MFA program. She lives in Minneapolis near the Mississippi River and the Great River Road.
Antonio Williams is a powerful voice for those who have been silenced by systems of oppression — and a living testament to resilience and hope. After serving 14 years in prison, Antonio emerged as a passionate advocate for justice-impacted individuals, especially Black and Brown communities. While incarcerated, he mentored other Black men, organized for their rights, and led a successful prison strike — planting the seeds of his commitment to collective liberation.
That same spirit of resistance and care continues through his work today as the founder of T.O.N.E U.P., a grassroots organization dedicated to empowering formerly incarcerated individuals through access to resources, leadership development, healing opportunities, and political education. Antonio works to ensure that no one has to choose between their continued liberation and their economic survival — helping people not only heal and rebuild, but also become leaders in the fight for justice.
His deep expertise in re-entry, grassroots organizing in Minneapolis, and policy advocacy — from restoring voting rights to ending solitary confinement and prison labor — makes Antonio a critical voice in statewide efforts to reimagine public safety. He believes re-entry is a community responsibility and is honored to collaborate with others to build a future rooted in wellness, dignity, and liberation. Antonio is a 2026 Bush Fellow.
Veronica Silva is the recipient of the Key West Literary Seminar’s 2024 Scotti Merrill Award for Poetry. She holds an MFA from the University of Central Florida, and her work has appeared in literary magazines like Hayden’s Ferry Review, Passages North, and Pleiades. A Cuban American poet from Miami, she currently lives in Minneapolis and works in nonprofit literary publishing. Veronica and her partner, Adam, organize a weekly community-focused run/walk club in Northeast.
Ask her how to join!
Dan Dietrich‘s book, Homestead, won first prize for poetry in the 27th Annual Writer’s Digest Self Published Book Awards. His stories have received awards from St. Martin’s Press, the Outdoor Writers Association of America and the Minnesota State Arts Board.