Hey! Today I was featured on ABC Action News 6 in a Hometown Hero segment where I got to talk about painting, poetry and the arts as a vehicle for healing. Get a sneak peek at some of my art on display at the Dec. 9th, 2023 Open House! The show runs through Jan. 28th, with over 300 works by participating artists at all price points, so time to holiday shop!
To see the video segment, click through to this link.
Hey, writer friends–it turns out I will be reading at AWP at the event below.
Where I’ll be at AWP2023 in Seattle
–Friday 3/10/2023 3 pm – 4 pm — Signing at Texas Review Press table, #601.
–Saturday 3/11/2023 11 pm – Noon — Signing at Kestrel: A Journal of Literature & Art, table #1300.
–And I will be reading Friday at 7:00 at Underbelly in Seattle, free and open to all. The reading will start at 7:30 or so and I will read after 8:00. “We’re the Flownover” at Underbelly at 8:00 Friday. 119 1st Ave S, Seattle, WA, United States, Washington Duration: 2 hr Join us for a poetry and prose reading featuring new work from Trio House Press, Gold Wake Press, Minnesota Historical Society Press, the South Dakota Review, and Texas Review Press!
https://www.facebook.com/events/632716478665807/?ti=ls
From Trio House Press:
David Groff
Matt Mauch
Jen Manthey
From Gold Wake Press:
Laura Bandy
From MN Historical Society Press:
Lynette Reini-Grandell
From South Dakota Review:
Lee Ann Roripaugh
Jan Beatty See less
From Texas Review Press:
Kelly McQuain
Some good news! My first full-length poetry collection has been accepted by Texas Review Press (see the first link in the comments). My book was chosen for their Southern Breakthrough Series, a contest that seeks new works from a different southern state each year. My collection, titled Scrape the Velvet from Your Antlers, was chosen to represent WV, my home state. The title refers to something bucks do to harden their antlers in anticipation of the fighting come mating season. This is my first full-length book, a longstanding dream of mine! The book will debut in February 2023. My thanks to TRP, all the editors who first published these poems, and especially the editors at Kestrel, A Journal of Literature and Art, where the title poem first appeared (thanks Donna Long, @Elizabeth Savage, Suzanne Heagy). #poetry
I am long overdue in sharing this good writers news: My chapbook, Antlers, was selected by #SevenKitchensPress for their Editor’s Series. Much thanks to editor Ron Mohring for his hard work on this project. The chapbooks are painstakingly crafted and stitched by hand in a very limited quantity. More writing news is coming soon! Details on how to order the chapbook are here: https://sevenkitchenspress.com/2022/01/29/kelly-mcquain-antler-editors-series/
Antlers. $9.00 – ISBN 978-1-949333-87-9
This chapbook joings my previous chapbook, Velvet Rodeo, which is available through Bloom Books here: http://bloomliteraryjournal.org/shop/velvet-rodeo/
I have a new poem up at the literary journal, Rogue Agent. Check it out if you like: “The Grieving Bone” (click here).
Nov. 15, 2019
My art project on Walt Whitman, “A Whitman Sampler” is now on display at the Free Library of Philadelphia’s exhibition, Voyages by Road and Sea: Philadelphia Perspectives on Walt Whitman and Herman Melville. The artwork is now installed in the West Gallery at the Parkway Central Library, Free Library of Philadelphia, located on the Ben Franklin Parkway. This project is a collaboration of the Free Library and the Rosenbach Center and features historical context on the authors as well as newly commissioned artwork related to the works of Melville and Whitman.
That’s where I come in. The Library commissioned artwork from me that consists of a box similar to an advent calendar. Each box contains pictures and text that correspond with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Part puzzle, part Whitman fortune-telling device, the box is designed as an interactive tool to help readers engage with the Great Gray Bard in a new and compelling way. In the spring I will be participating in an event where I take the box out of its display case to show off its possibilities. Time and date to be announced.
Special thanks to the team that created the exhibition: graphic designer Nathanael Roesch, writer/editor Clare Fentress, registrar Jobi Zink, FLP Deputy Director Andrew Nurkin, the Rosenbach’s Alexander Ames, and co-curator Professor Ed Whitley. In the coming year, a series of related events and programs in support of the exhibition will be held. Watch for details!
Update: On the back of the sampler there is an illustration of Walt for the 21st century, departing as air, waiting for us along life’s path in the grass beneath our soles/souls:
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
—Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Faun in a Field of Flowers [detail] – watercolor
“Join us in celebrating Literary Arts Week in Philadelphia by recognizing the Rittenhouse Writers Group, Mighty Writers, Philadelphia Young Playwrights and Blue Stoop – Philadelphia organizations supporting local emerging writers. Festivities will include a reception, a poetry reading by a special guest, and the opening of Visual Democracy, an Art in City Hall exhibit that celebrates the connection between the literary and visual arts as part of Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy.”
#Whitmanat200 #Whitman200
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
City Hall Philadelphia
Ceremony
Mayor’s Reception Room, 202
5:30-6:00 p.m.
Reception
Conversation Hall, Room 201
6:00-7:00 p.m.
Visual Democracy Exhibit Opening
Room 116
6:00-7:00 p.m.
This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
#LitArtsPHL
This event is part of Whitman at 200 https://www.whitmanat200.org/
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Dear Writer Friends–I’m not going to #AWP2018, but if you are, and if you’re going to Ybor City for an event, make sure to walk a couple blocks toward the train tracks and visit Al’s Bar-B-Que. It’s messy & great, and they serve big-ass beers! I went there with my dad a year or two before he passed away, and it’s such a nice memory. I try to get there when I visit my brother in Tampa. The Ybor neighborhood is worth a stroll, and has an interesting history as a hub of Cuban cigar manufacturing.
Kelly McQuain 