Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents March Reading Series

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is pleased to announce the guests for the March installment of our reading series. This event will take place on Sunday, March 26th at Pretentious Beer Co. from 1:00-3:00PM.

Nisha Atalie is a poet, editor, and doctoral student in literature at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She loves reading and writing about animals, ecology, our relationships to the non-human, and how we can untether these relationships from a worldview imposed by colonialism. Her work has been published in Poem-A-Day, Blood Orange Review, Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. Her work has received the Eileen Lannan Poetry Prize and placed third for the 2022 Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize from the Academy of American Poets.

Audrey Gidman is a queer poet living in Maine. She serves as assistant poetry editor for Gigantic Sequins and chapbooks editor for Newfound. Her poems can be found in The Night Heron Barks, Rust + Moth, Luna Luna, Volume Poetry, The Shore, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, body psalms (Slate Roof Press), was the recipient of the Elyse Wolf Prize.

Allison Summers is a stand-up comedian and filmmaker in Nashville, TN. She has performed at Milwaukee Comedy Fest, Out of Bounds, WICF and Bonnaroo. She teaches improv to people in recovery and stand up comedy to women in prison.

Jessy Easton was raised in the Mojave Desert of California and now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. She holds a BA in Communications from Vanguard University of Southern California. In 2022, Good River Review nominated her story “The Things We Leave Out” to be included in the nonfiction category of the Best of the Net Anthology. Jessy’s writing has been published in Beacon Quarterly, Entropy Magazine, and Good River Review. She publishes weekly to her Substack and she’s currently querying agents with her memoir.

Era Nash is an Americana, indie folk band founded by singer-songwriter Perry Rhodes. Prior to Era Nash, he was the lead singer of Evaline, an indie rock band signed to Maverick & Riverman Records. His music has been featured in the film You’re Not You starring Hilary Swank.

Our community partner this month is The Bottom. The Bottom is a Black-owned, multi-purpose community space for literary, creative, and educational programming whose mission is to build community, celebrate culture, and engage the creativity of Black people through curated events, ongoing projects, shared resources, and physical space. Our programs are centered around engaging black-centered and affirming arts, and uplifting local artists, authors, and makers. As we continue to share our story we hope to continue building and creating community for East Knoxville. Find out more about The Bottom here!

This event is brought to you in part by a grant provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission. Find out about the important work they do here.