Plum City Reading Series is Literary Cleveland's reading series bringing the country's most interesting and groundbreaking authors to Cleveland. Plum City aims to highlight the work of independent publishers while thoughtfully curating celebratory evenings of literature and community.
Join us for our May reading celebrating new books by poet Ali Black (We Look Better Alive), multi-genre writer and novelist Hilary Plum (State Champ), and Cleveland native and Electric Literature Editor-in-Chief Denne Michele Norris (When The Harvest Comes).
This installment of the Plum City Reading Series will take place Wednesday, May 21 at 7 pm at Loganberry Books (13015 Larchmere in Cleveland), to be immediately followed by an afterparty at the Literary Cleveland Offices (13002 Larchmere).
This engagement is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from Ohio Arts Council.
NOTE: In keeping with our mission, to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, the registration fee for this event is "Pay What You Can." We believe every writer, reader, storyteller, and literary enthusiast who wants to attend a Literary Cleveland event should be able to have that experience. "Pay What You Can" registration allows comfortable, affordable participation for everyone. We have suggested fees—you can pay one of them, or pay what you can. Your participation is the priority for us.
Ali Black is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of the poetry chapbook If It Heals At All (Jacar Press, 2020). The book was selected by Jaki Shelton Green for the New Voices Series and named a finalist for the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in poetry. Her writing has appeared in The Atticus Review, jubilat, Literary Hub, The Offing, The Adroit Journal and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Balance Point Studios, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making, teaching, and sharing art. Her full-length poetry collection, We Look Better Alive, will be published by Burnside Review Press April 28, 2025.
Denne Michele Norris is the editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, winner of the 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. She is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literary publication. A 2021 Out100 Honoree, her writing has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, and the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction, and appears in McSweeney's, American Short Fiction, and ZORA. She is the former Fiction Editor for both Apogee Journal and The Rumpus, and is co-host of the critically-acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot. Her debut novel, When The Harvest Comes, is out April 15, 2025 from Random House.
Hilary Plum is the author of five books, including the poetry collection Excisions, the essay collection Hole Studies, and the Fence Modern Prize in Prose-winning novel Strawberry Fields. She teaches at Cleveland State University and in the NEOMFA program, and she serves as associate director of the CSU Poetry Center. Her work has appeared in Granta, Astra, The Rupture, Los Angeles Review of Books, Cleveland Review of Books, and elsewhere. She lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Hew newest novel, State Champ, will be published May 13, 2025 by Bloomsbury.
Plum City Reading Series is Literary Cleveland's reading series bringing the country's most interesting and groundbreaking authors to Cleveland. Plum City aims to highlight the work of independent publishers while thoughtfully curating celebratory evenings of literature and community.
Join us for our May reading celebrating new books by poet Ali Black (We Look Better Alive), multi-genre writer and novelist Hilary Plum (State Champ), and Cleveland native and Electric Literature Editor-in-Chief Denne Michele Norris (When The Harvest Comes).
This installment of the Plum City Reading Series will take place Wednesday, May 21 at 7 pm at Loganberry Books (13015 Larchmere in Cleveland), to be immediately followed by an afterparty at the Literary Cleveland Offices (13002 Larchmere).
This engagement is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from Ohio Arts Council.
NOTE: In keeping with our mission, to ensure diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, the registration fee for this event is "Pay What You Can." We believe every writer, reader, storyteller, and literary enthusiast who wants to attend a Literary Cleveland event should be able to have that experience. "Pay What You Can" registration allows comfortable, affordable participation for everyone. We have suggested fees—you can pay one of them, or pay what you can. Your participation is the priority for us.
Ali Black is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of the poetry chapbook If It Heals At All (Jacar Press, 2020). The book was selected by Jaki Shelton Green for the New Voices Series and named a finalist for the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in poetry. Her writing has appeared in The Atticus Review, jubilat, Literary Hub, The Offing, The Adroit Journal and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Balance Point Studios, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making, teaching, and sharing art. Her full-length poetry collection, We Look Better Alive, will be published by Burnside Review Press April 28, 2025.
Denne Michele Norris is the editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, winner of the 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. She is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literary publication. A 2021 Out100 Honoree, her writing has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, and the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction, and appears in McSweeney's, American Short Fiction, and ZORA. She is the former Fiction Editor for both Apogee Journal and The Rumpus, and is co-host of the critically-acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot. Her debut novel, When The Harvest Comes, is out April 15, 2025 from Random House.
Hilary Plum is the author of five books, including the poetry collection Excisions, the essay collection Hole Studies, and the Fence Modern Prize in Prose-winning novel Strawberry Fields. She teaches at Cleveland State University and in the NEOMFA program, and she serves as associate director of the CSU Poetry Center. Her work has appeared in Granta, Astra, The Rupture, Los Angeles Review of Books, Cleveland Review of Books, and elsewhere. She lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Hew newest novel, State Champ, will be published May 13, 2025 by Bloomsbury.
Ruth Awad is a Lebanese-American disabled poet, a 2021 NEA Poetry fellow, and the author of Outside the Joy (Third Man Books, 2024) and Set to Music a Wildfire (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2017). She has an MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and she lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio.
Ananda Lima is the author of Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil (Tor Books, 2024) and Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), winner of the Hudson Prize. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is a Contributing Editor at Poets & Writers and Program Curator at StoryStudio, Chicago.
Ben Mauk is a writer and filmmaker. His writing appears in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper's, Granta, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. His first book, The Fugitive World, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
