Adding your name to the que for the open mic is not required in advance!  We will ask for interested folks in the moment.

Please join California Poets in the Schools for a community open mic at 7pm, October 29th.

The event is part of a quarterly series of open mic events meant to foster community amongst our network, and to highlight our fantastic poets.  Each event will spotlight one or two poets from the CalPoets' network as featured readers, and an emcee (also from the network). On the 29th, our featured readers will launch the event with a 15 minute reading (each) and then we'll then transition into an open mic.

• teens 14+ & adults welcome
• register online & join link will be sent before the event
• event will occur on Zoom
• event will not be livestreamed
• there will be time for 20 open mic readers, give or take
• each reader will have 3(ish) minutes to read or perform
• reader slots are first come, first served... If you are interested in reading, there is no need to register in advance.
• thanks for bringing poems that are fit for all ages 14+

Kelly Gray is a writer living nine miles and seven fence posts away from the ocean on unceded Coast Miwok and Southern Kashaya Pomo Land. Kelly was selected by poet Justin Phillip Reed for her manuscript “The Mating Calls of the Specter'" to receive the Tusculum Chapbook Prize, which will be published this November. She's also the recipient of the Neutrino Prize from Passages North, the Creative Sonoma Cohort Grant, and a recent attendee of the Kenyon Review’s Workshop in Poetry. Kelly's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Southern Humanities Review, Lake Effect, Lunch Ticket, Storm Cellar, Rust & Moth, Permafrost, Northwest Review, Witness Magazine and Action, Spectacle. Her collections include Instructions for an Animal Body (Moon Tide Press) and Tiger Paw, Tiger Paw, Knife, Knife (Quarter Press, Gold Medal Winner from IPPY). She's been nominated for four Push Carts and is a Best of the Net finalist, but her most thrilling moment as a poet is working with students through Cal Poets in the Schools. When she's not in poet mode, she's hanging out with her family wandering the woods, looking for mushrooms, and making poems out of found objects. You can read more of her work at writekgray.com.

Carlos Ornelas is a Mesoamerican Poet, Artist and Author from Lynwood, California. His first poetry collection, "Ketchup: Sopa de Gato", has been a part of classrooms in underserved communities throughout southern California. His upcoming poetry collection, "Villains Vernacular", is to be released in 2024 by Riot of Roses Publishing House.