Join us here at Deep Vellum Books on October 7th, 2025 at 7pm for poetry readings by Lauren Brazeal Garza, Katie Condon, Lauren Kalstad and Courtney LeBlanc!

Lauren Brazeal Garza is the author of five books of poetry and fiction including her memoir-in-verse, Gutter (YesYes Books, 2018), which chronicles her homelessness as a teenager. She earned her M.F.A in creative writing from Bennington College, and her Ph.D. in Literature from The University of Texas at Dallas. She teaches literature and creative writing at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Katie Condon is the author of Praying Naked, winner of the Charles B. Wheeler poetry prize. Her poetry has recently appeared in or is forthcoming from the New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, and American Poetry Review, as well as the 2025 Best American Poetry anthology and the Academy of American Poets’ anthology 100 Poems that Matter. Condon is a 2025 National Endowment for the Arts fellow and has also received poetry fellowships from MacDowell, Emory University, the Sewanee Writers Conference, among others. Condon holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Houston, and a PhD in English from the University of Tennessee. She is an assistant professor in the English department at Southern Methodist University, where she teaches creative writing and edits a line of poetry for Project Poëtica / Bridwell Press.

Lauren Kalstad is a poet, professor, and essayist. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New Orleans Review, World Literature Today, The Southeast Review, and she was a semifinalist for the Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize. She received her MFA from New York University and currently teaches at the University of North Texas. Her first collection, Ghost Feathers, was recently a finalist for the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press and is currently out on submission. She is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and lives in Dallas with her husband & daughter.

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the four full-length collections, most recently Her Dark Everything. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press, and Poetry Coven, a monthly generative workshop. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com.