Shawn Aveningo Sanders overcame a lifelong fear of birds when in 2013 she moved to Oregon and fell in love with the adorable Dark-Eyed Juncos in her backyard. Over 250 of Shawn’s poems have been published worldwide in Australia, Croatia, England, France, the Netherlands, South Africa and the United States. Her work has appeared in journals such as ONE ART, CALYX, Verseweavers, Quartet, Timberline Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Cloudbank, and recent best-selling anthology, Love Is for All of Us (edited by James Crews).
Shawn is multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and has received awards from the Oregon Poetry Association, Benicia Literary Arts, Sacramento News & Review, as well as winning the El Dorado County Poetry Slam. She is the author of What She Was Wearing, and her newest collection Pockets (from MoonPath Press) was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest.
A proud mother of three and Nana to one adorable little girl, she shares the creative life with her husband Robert in Beaverton, Oregon, where together they run an independent press, The Poetry Box.
Carolyn Martin is a recovering work addict who’s adopted the Spanish proverb, “It is beautiful to do nothing and rest afterwards” as her daily mantra. She is blissfully retired––and resting––in Clackamas, Oregon. Since the only poem she wrote in high school was red-penciled Extremely maudlin, she is amazed she has continued to write. Her poems have appeared in more than 200 publications around the world and her sixth collection, Splitting Open the World, was released by The Poetry Box in March 2025. In August, her third chapbook, Metrophobia: an irrational fear of poetry, was published by Lingua Ink Books. Carolyn is also the winner of the 2025 Howard-Fowler Prize for Poetry from the University of Central Arkansas. For more: www.carolynmartinpoet.com.
The Open Mic is open to all audience members. Participants can sign up before the start of the reading or during the break. In the interest of time, Open Mic readers are asked to limit their reading to three minutes.
View clips of featured poets reading at the Studio Series on Instagram @poet_landia and on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1281329966139780/
The Ross Island Grocery and Café is a cozy space with capacity for 40 or so people. Tables are available, so people who arrive early can enjoy a light supper (i.e., a sandwich, salad or burger) while waiting for the reading to begin. If we run out of table space, folding chairs are available. A mic will enhance the readings. There is plenty of unrestricted parking on the streets around the Café.
Questions? Please contact host Leah Stenson at leahstenson@comcast.net.
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