2022-2023 Breakthrough Writing Residency Reading & Celebration

Join us at the Literary Cleveland offices on Saturday, October 14 from noon-4pm as we celebrate our very first "class" of Breakthrough writers with a very special presentation of their work and recognition of their hard work as participants in the 2022-2023 LIT CLE Breakthrough Writing Residency.

Meet, mingle, and enjoy refreshments with the 2022-2023 residents and mentors from 12-1pm, then enjoy three short readings from the fiction residents at 1-2pm, the poetry residents from 2-3pm, and the nonfiction residents from 3-4pm. 

We welcome you to attend the entire program or come for the hour when your favorite genre is being read.

Schedule
12-1pm- Social Hour (refreshments and mingling)
1-2pm- Fiction Reading (Sonia Feldman and Andrea Imdacha)
2-3pm - Poetry Reading (Rico Brown and Corey Miller)
3-4pm - Nonfiction Reading (Silk Allen and Michael Loderstedt)

Residents
Sonia Feldman (Fiction) is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in journals like The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She runs Sonia’s Poem of the Week, an email newsletter sharing one good poem a week plus commentary. She is at work on a literary coming-of-age novel that explores ways of loving—amicable, familial, romantic and sexual—their profound commonalities and powerful, intangible differences. ‍

Andrea Imdacha (Fiction) is a writer and poet of Sri Lankan and Hungarian heritage who hails from Savannah, GA. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in Literary Mama and Mash Stories. Her short story “Mohini Baba” was a finalist for North American Review’s 2022 Kurt Vonnegut Prize in Speculative Literature and is forthcoming in their Fall 2022 edition. Her novel manuscript, Tiberius, was a semi-finalist for the James Kirkwood Prize in Fiction. Andrea lives in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio with her husband and son. She is currently working on a speculative novel that weaves together elements of global folklore, fairy tales, and gothic tropes, filtering them through a modern lens. ‍

Silk Allen (Nonfiction) is a storyteller and personal stylist from Cleveland, Ohio whose influences range from fashion, history and music to the words of Iceberg Slim and Lil Kim. Silk received a degree in journalism from Central State University and an associate’s in fashion merchandising from Virginia Marti College, and she has written for local publications like BFly Magazine, The Plain Dealer, The Plain Press, and currently The Destination Cleveland Visitor’s Guide. Silk was accepted into the Twelve Literary Arts Baldwin House Urban Writing Residency in 2021 and has attended many Lit Cleveland events over the years, using the workshops to help hone her writing skills. She’s currently working on a collection of essays titled “I Write How I Talk Vol. 1” about coming of age in the late 90s and early 2000s. ‍

Michael Loderstedt (Nonfiction) is Professor Emeritus of Kent State University where he taught printmaking and photography. He continues to explore new studio and writing projects that investigate the geography, histories, or the natural phenomena of place. His recent manuscript entitled The Yellowhammer’s Cross received a 2020 Ohio Arts Council Fellowship in Non-Fiction Literature, and his recent work has been published in Neighborhood Voices, Muleskinner Journal, and the NC Literary Review (receiving the 2021 James Applewhite Prize for Poetry) and was featured in the CAN Triennial. He is currently working on a memoir of his time living on the Outer Banks of NC. 

Rico Brown (Poetry) is an artist and writer living in NE Ohio. He started writing poetry as part of trauma therapy, and it has since become a passion. Rico is currently working on a collection of poems about his life as a queer man of color, trauma survivor, and recovered drug addict living with depression. ‍

Corey Miller (Poetry) has published writing in Booth, Pithead Chapel, Atticus Review, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, and elsewhere. He reads for TriQuarterly, Longleaf Review, and Barren Magazine. When Corey isn’t brewing beer for a living in Cleveland, he likes to take the dogs for adventures. Corey is currently working on a manuscript of environmental poems that pair with photographs.

Details
Saturday, October 14, 2023 from 12-4pm at Literary Cleveland Offices (13002 Larchmere Blvd. Cleveland, OH 44120).