Buffalo Area Poetry & Literature Calendar (week of July 14 to July 20)

Five events this week in the Buffalo area literary community

Monday, July 14, 7 p.m.: GREEN_SPACE, DoubleCross Press, and Hostile Books present the re-release event for Ryan Kaveh Sheldon’s long lost Lemon. Lemon—first published in a lemon juice-printed edition by Hostile Books in 2015—is a poetic series that channels or translates the spirit of Jack Spicer. Also reading will be MC Hyland and Christina Vega-Westhoff.

The reading will also include slices of Joe Hall’s interview with Sheldon in the DoubleCross companion publication--Asbestos, Duct Tape, Willow Bark—about the origins of Hostile Books.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

With Veronica Wong and Joe Hall, Ryan Kaveh Sheldon co-edited Hostile Books, a micro-press/book arts collective. His creative and critical work has appeared in Small Po[r]tions, Poor Claudia, wildness, DIAGRAM, and Jacket2. He used to live in Buffalo.

MC Hyland (she/they) is the founding editor of DoubleCross Press, a poetry micropress. She is the author of over a dozen poetry chapbooks/artist books and two previous full-length books of poems, THE END (Sidebrow 2019) and Neveragainland (Lowbrow Press 2010). Her book of short essays, The Dead and the Living and the Bridge, came out with Meekling Press this April, and a book collecting poems from two long-running art practices, Walks & Weathers, will be published by Beauty School Editions later this year. MC lives in St. Paul, MN with her partner, Jeff, and cat, Dakota.

Christina Vega-Westhoff is a poet, translator, choreographer, and educator living in Buffalo, NY. She is the author of Suelo Tide Cement (Nightboat, 2018). She served as translator for the bilingual Stories that Cook: Art, Memories, and Recipes / Historias que Cocinan: Arte, Recuerdos, y Recetas (Genesee Valley Council on the Arts, 2024), which features recipes, stories, and art from students, teachers, and staff associated with migrant education programs in Western New York. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Capilano Review’s Speculative Feminisms issue and Black Sun Lit’s Vestiges and her work is currently being supported by a New York State Choreographers Initiative Grant and an Artpark Writer’s Residency. She teaches writing and aerial dance to youth and adults.

Location: Fitz Books, 1462 Main Street, Buffalo.

Tuesday, July 15, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Buffalo Book Launch event for Nishant Batsha's second novel A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart (Ecco Press). Batsha will read brief excerpts from the book, and engage in a conversation about the novel with Noah Falck, Literary Director at Just Buffalo Literary Center.

The novel has been recommended as summer read by The New York Times, The Minnesota Star-Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. Publisher’s Weekly called the book “lyrical and ambitious,” while BookPage praised it as a "glimpse into a fascinating and largely unknown chapter in America’s past."

National Book Award finalist Sarah Thankam Matthews said the novel was "brilliant, important, and genuinely thrilling” while closer to home, Jonathon Welch at Talking Leaves Books in Buffalo commented that it "limns a complex intercultural love relationship in the midst of radical political upheaval and government crackdowns.”

The book launch will take place at Black Rock Books, 1239 Niagara Street in Buffalo.

Tuesday, July 15, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesday Night Open Mic Series at the Em Tea Coffeecup Café. All are welcome whether new to poetry or a long-time member of the community. 80 Oakgrove Ave., Buffalo, NY. Free and open to the public.

Wednesday, July 16, 7:30 p.m.: The Screening Room Reading Series hosted by poet Sandy Geary. Irene Sipos will be the featured reader. Additional reading slots available. The Screening Room Cinema Café, 880 Alberta Drive, Amherst. $3.

Saturday, 7 p.m.: The Buffalo area memorial service for poet, arts writer, journalist, and culture worker George F. Howell (1948-2025) organized by his family and friends at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, 341 Delaware Ave. in Buffalo.

Former Buffalo-based poet, writer, and editor George F. Howell passed away on March 15, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. He was 76.

Howell was born in Hartford, Connecticut on November 6th, 1948. He was the eldest of 8 siblings, 6 boys and 2 girls. While George was quite young, his family moved from Coventry, Connecticut to Depew, New York, where he spent the rest of his childhood. He was a boy scout, played in intramural sports, and helped form a poetry club in high school. He wrote his first poetry in grade school, and was a lifelong poet, artist, and musician. He was an astute observer of life, with a sense of humor that was evident to the end.

Howell received a Bachelor’s Degree from Buffalo State University, and a Master’s Degree in Literary Arts from Binghamton University. In his twenties and thirties, he became very active in the Buffalo arts and literary scene, and was one of the founding generation of Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, curating and hosting its first reading reading and literary series called Writeratio in 1975. A collection of his experimental writings Working Book was published by Periplus Press in 1978.

In the 1980’s he became one of the founding editors of Buffalo Arts Review, and its senior editor, editor-in-chief, and lead writer and reviewer for many of its issues.

George left Buffalo in the late 1980’s for California, where he wrote for a variety of alternative weeklies and arts publications in the Los Angeles area. There he met his wife Mary Best while volunteering to help El Salvadorian immigrants adjust to this country.

George and Mary moved to the Washington, D.C. area in the 1990’s for work. They lived and worked in D.C until moving to Twenty Nine Palms, California, a desert artist community, in 2013, after George retired from his work at the American cable and satellite television network C-Span.

Howell moved to Providence Mount St. Vincent (the Mount), in Seattle, Washington, in April of 2024, to receive assistance as he battled living with a rare form of Parkinson’s called Multiple Systems Atrophy. He received heartfelt care in the assisted living, rehab, and skilled nursing sections of the Mount as his disease progressed.

The Stony Embrace, a full-length collection of poems by Howell was published in 2019 by Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library.