Poetry Featuring Amy Alvarez, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, and Sara Letourneau

Thursday, February 13, 2025, 7 – 9 pm
Featuring Amy Alvarez, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, and Sara Letourneau

Amy M. Alvarez is the author of the poetry collection Makeshift Altar (2024) and the co-editor of Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (2023). Selected as one of 2022’s Best New Poets, her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry Foundation, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships from CantoMundo, VONA, Macondo, the Virginia Creative Arts Center, and the Furious Flower Poetry Center. In 2022, she was inducted as an Affrilachian Poet. Amy was born in New York City to Jamaican and Puerto Rican parents. She has taught at high schools in the Bronx, New York, and Boston, Massachusetts, and at West Virginia University. She currently teaches at Boston College. https://amymalvarez.com

Mckendy Fils-Aimé is a New England-based Haitian-American poet, organizer, and educator. He is a perennial semi-finalist of the National Poetry Slam and has represented New England nine times. Mckendy has completed artist residencies at MassLEAP and the Art Alliance of Northern New Hampshire and has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and Cave Canem. Recently, Mckendy ranked 2nd overall at the 2024 Midwest Mashup, 3rd at the 2024 NorthBeast Regional Poetry Slam, and 1st at 2024 Vox Pop Regional Poetry Slam. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Literary Review, Bellingham Review, The Shore, The Journal, and elsewhere.

Sara Letourneau’s debut poetry collection, Wild Gardens, is out now through Kelsay Books. She’s also a book editor and writing coach at Heart of the Story Editorial & Coaching Services; the cofounder and cohost of the Pour Me a Poem open mic in Mansfield, Massachusetts; and the co-editor of the Pour Me a Poem anthology. Her poetry has won the 2023 Beals Prize for Poetry and the Blue Institute’s 2020 Words on Water contest. Her new and upcoming work can be found in Amethyst Review, The Arts Fuse, Gyroscope Review, Nixes Mate Review, Remington Review, Silver Birch Press, and Third Wednesday Magazine, among others. Sara lives in Foxboro, Massachusetts. https://heartofthestoryeditorial.com