LexPoMo Participants

Total poets:
85
Renee Rigdon
Reason for signing up:
a.renee@gmail.com
Laura
Bronson O'Quinn
Photo of Bronson O'Quinn
Bio:
Writer
Coder
Father
Brother
Lover
Hater
Watcher
Player
Giver
Taker
Fixer
Breaker
Reason for signing up:
In the immortal words of my favorite film character:
"It's TIME to SLIME!"
- Ray Ghostbuster, aka "Slimey"
John Warren McCauley
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Bio:
John writes non-fiction and poetry. His work has been published in Kentucky Monthly Magazine, KentuckyLiving.Com, The Martha's Vineyard Times, and the University of the Cumberlands Alumni Magazine. Four of his poems are scheduled to be published later this year in Trajectory. John serves on the Jesse Stuart Foundation Board of Directors and is a member of the Bluegrass Writers Coalition. He served in the administration of President Barack Obama and on the Governor's Commission on Literacy, where he chaired the Local Issues Task Force. John and his wife Rebecca live in Lexington and on beautiful Lake Cumberland.
Reason for signing up:
I have been writing poetry for years but only started sharing my work several years ago. I was inspired by Byron Crawford's Back Page article in Kentucky Living Magazine, "For Whom the Dinner Bells Toll. It was this story that encouraged me to submit a poem that I had written about my Great-Grandmother's 1899 dinner bell, that I still have and ring. Kentucky Living liked the poem and made a (no poetry) exception and published it on January 31, 2023. Most of my poetry is what Kentucky's first poet laureate Cotton Noe called the simpler verse. I mostly write metrical poetry and influenced by the verse of Noe and Jesse Stuart and stay true to my Appalachian roots.
Autumn Cook
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Bio:
Autumn writes poems, songs and stories centered around whatever.
Reason for signing up:
If I don’t write I’ll die so I might as well.
PBSartist
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Bio:
Trish is an artist, author, and instructor. She's lived in Lexington for 9 years now, on East Loudon in the big limestone 'castle' where artist studios and retreats exist!
Reason for signing up:
To share and enjoy the community of writing!
Carrie Elam Spillman
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Bio:
Carrie likes to walk around barefoot and be by herself. While she is a recluse she enjoys the company of good people, family and animals. Carrie will remain in the EKY hills till death and beyond that. If you need her she can be found baking, chasing her babies, or sitting quietly watching the sunset.
Reason for signing up:
Following my dreams one year at a time
Bethany Robinson
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Bio:
Bethany, Beth, is a short story writer and poet originally from Eastern Kentucky. She is a researcher, a lover of nature, a yoga instructor, and an advocate/council member of the Bluegrass Survivors Council and volunteer for multiple organizations in Lexington, Kentucky. Finally, Bethis a freelance sports writer with Queer KY and a burlesque dancer with BurLex.
kj
Bio:
she/they KJ likes to write sometimes.
Reason for signing up:
I always need more practice writing.
TTPD secretary
Bio:
The secretary tries her hand at poetry.
Louise Tallen
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Bio:
Gobsmacked by the natural world, Louise is a lover of all things wild and furry. She believes in magic, mystery, and mischief.
Reason for signing up:
Here I am doing this for a fourth year. I am a glutton for self-doubt.
Ryan Oppegard
Bio:
Ryan is a lover of his only son, only dog, and bacon… lots of bacon. He also avoids cholesterol tests, enjoys gardening and working in his yard.
Reason for signing up:
To improve, to vent, and to connect with a community that enjoys writing.
stefani heller
Amy Le Ann Richardson
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Bio:
Amy Le Ann Richardson was born and raised in Morehead, KY and holds an MFA from Spalding University (‘09). Amy works for Community Farm Alliance and is a farmer, writer, artist, and teacher who has received grants and fellowships from the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She is the author of Who You Grow Into, Finishing Line Press 2024, and her work has been featured in multiple journals. She lives and works on her Kentucky farm.
Reason for signing up:
Community and accountability.
Kerfoot
Bio:
Someone like you
Reason for signing up:
For the push to write daily and to read/share with others
Haley Biddle
Bio:
Haley is a creative with expertise in media and marketing. Most of all, she is a dreamer, a humble dreamer with a lust for the present. Without an ethereal mix of soul, r&b, and alternative music, her head would be uninspired. Haley has been pen pals with Juliet in Verona, written love notes in Lexington, and buried letters in Nicholasville. For it is the ceremony of pen and paper that sends her into a honeymooned bliss.
Reason for signing up:
I believe a lot of people like to hide behind their writing. Sometimes so much so that the fire meets it first. Sometimes I see that fire dance on my walls in the candlelight. Where fragrance meets fear, cement meets roadblock, and heat meets headache. This act of choosing is a waterfall. I have a voice, and I want to be heard.
River Alsalihi
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Bio:
River is eighteen years old & will never stop writing.
Manny Grimaldi
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Bio:
His currency is his word.
Reason for signing up:
I signed up for #LexPoMo because National Poetry Month in Lexington is not in April, but reigns in June.
Abby Kane
Bio:
Abby Kane is a sophomore at DePaul University studying animation with a minor in screenwriting. In her limited free time, she loves writing anything from stories, to songs, to poems, and beyond. She recently published her first novel, "Song of the Stars," and is working on the sequel.
Reason for signing up:
I don't write poetry nearly as often as I would like to, so I always love a way to hold myself accountable!
Katerina Stoykova
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Bio:
Katerina Stoykova is the author of several books, most recently Between a Bird Cage and a Bird House (University Press of Kentucky, 2024) and The Poet's Guide to Publishing: How to Conceive, Arrange, Edit, Publish and Market a Book of Poetry (McFarland, 2024).
Reason for signing up:
I need to write a few new poems, y'all!
Ariana Alvarado
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Bio:
Ariana Alvarado is a graduate student at the University of Louisville pursuing her MA in English. Her work has been published in The White Squirrel Magazine, Preposition: The Undercurrent Anthology, Sanctuary Magazine, and two editions of the Ariel Magazine. Her poem “I ask my father why he believes.” won the Flo Gault Student Poetry Prize in 2022 from Sarabande Books.
Reason for signing up:
To be in community with other pets and encourage others in their work.
Dana Wangsgard
Photo of Dana Wangsgard
Reason for signing up:
To get encouragement from friends
Sean L Corbin
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Bio:
Sean L Corbin is the Poetry Gauntlet Coordinator for the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. He is the author of THE LEPER DREAMS OF SNOW (Finishing Line, 2018).
Reason for signing up:
Always.
Karen George
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Bio:
Karen George, a native Kentuckian, has published Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), and forthcoming Caught in the Trembling Net (2024). She published her debut fiction, How We Fracture, a collection of short stories, in January 2024. She enjoys photography and visiting art museums, cemeteries, gardens, the woods, mountains, and historic river towns.
Reason for signing up:
Because I’ve been writing a poem-a-day in June with other LEXPOMO poets since the beginning. I've always found it inspiring. Having a daily deadline is a good thing for me. I work well under pressure.
Sue Neufarth Howard
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Bio:
Sue Neufarth Howard: Published poet and visual artist, past member of Greater Cincinnati Writers League (GCWL), Linton Street Writers. Received Third Prize and/or Honorable Mention in several Ohio Poetry Day Contests. Poetry chapbooks: TreeScapes, EarthWords, In and Out of the Blue Zoo and Haiku Moments, available on amazon.com
Reason for signing up:
Challenging me to write some new poems to enter in this May event.
Lee Chottiner
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Bio:
Lee Chottiner is a poet and journalist living in Louisville, Kentucky. His poetry has appeared in several print and digital journals. An alumnus of the Poetry Gauntlet, Lee is currently working on his first chapbook, which he hopes to have out later this year. This is Lee’s second LexPoMo.
Reason for signing up:
SOBs like me need a swift kick at times to keep writing.
Nollie Palmer
Bio:
Nollie is a visual artist based in Lexington Ky
Brigit Truex
Bio:
Impressions, emotions, viewpoints are all aspects that inspire Brigit Truex in her poetry as well as her paintings.
Reason for signing up:
I definitely need the impetus of LexPoMo to get me focused on my writing, and what a great opportunity to see what other posts are sharing!
Alissa Sammarco
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Bio:
Alissa Sammarco is a writer and attorney. She lived in the West and South before coming home to the Ohio River Valley. Through sharp imagery, much of which is drawn from the oceans, rivers and forests where she lived. Her work has appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Black Moon Magazine, Change Seven, Quiet Diamonds, Main Street Rag, Stone Canoe, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, Rat’s Ass Review, But There was Fire in the Distance (Workhorse Press) and elsewhere. She is the author of four chapbooks, Beyond the Dawn, I See Them Now, Moon Landing Day, and coming soon, Cupcake Day (December 2024). www.AlissaSammarco.com.
Reason for signing up:
Ya gotta go to da mattresses!
H.A.
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Bio:
H.A. lives and loves boldly. She enjoys finding quiet moments among the chaos of existing on this little blue pebble in the vast universe.
Reason for signing up:
LexPoMo is a wonderful community of writers, thinkers, readers, and adventurers. The poets in this community inspire me.
Dangerfield Yella
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Bio:
Born
Living
The rest to be determined
Reason for signing up:
Its what I do
A. J. Knight
Bill Brymer
Bio:
Photographer and writer from Louisville, Ky.
Ian Brenner
Bio:
One foot in the grave and I need six
Reason for signing up:
a girl
Katrina Rolfsen
Bio:
Writer by day, superhero by night.
Reason for signing up:
This is my third year of LexPoMo! I loved the first two, and I’m excited to write and read more poetry!
Chelsie Kreitzman
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Bio:
Chelsie Kreitzman is a native of Michigan who now lives and writes in Lexington, Kentucky.
Reason for signing up:
For motivation, community, and fun!
Maya Pemble
Bio:
Maya is a college student who loves writing, cooking, and being in the forest.
Reason for signing up:
Gotta keep tradition.
Lav
Coleman Davis
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Bio:
Coleman spends most of his time in a world made of poetry.
He splits his time between Lexington and Berea taking care of multiple buildings, and pets and plants.
Reason for signing up:
To be in a community of poets for a month. It's fun :-)
Kris Gillis
Bio:
Kris teaches high school English and lives near a river.
Reason for signing up:
At this point, this is what I must do in June.
Magnolia
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Bio:
Magnolia enjoys using creative writing as a form of therapy.
Saikrish Kolli
A.R. Koehler
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Bio:
Ayla is your typical existential twenty something with a dash rhymes and an amateur obsession with soil.
Linda Bryant
dustin cecil
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Bio:
dustin cecil is dustin cecil. he is as dustin cecil as dustin cecil is dustin cecil.
Reason for signing up:
to share and read some poems.. :)
Shelda Hale
M R Heltzel
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Bio:
Maggie Heltzel would not call herself a writer. The practice of writing has always just… been? It has been an act of self-exploration, of processing global happenings, of playing with new words, and of screaming quietly. She is a journalist turned third-grade teacher, a lover of all things art and outdoors, and an aspiring extrovert (because being introverted has stifled opportunities to experience the world).
Reason for signing up:
LexPoMo is, and always will be, the highlight of her year. Maggie loves the opportunity to hear from talented writers and to engage with them in small, but mighty, ways.
lhmartin
Bio:
Lisa is a retired (5 yrs ago) 8th grade ELA teacher, reading specialist and librarian. Lisa is a writer who finds solace and grounding in writing and talking about writing.
Reason for signing up:
I want to try to write 20 poems this year--one day I will get to 30........
Makia Adkins
Bio:
Makia is a quiet poet. She is originally from Detroit, MI. She started writing at a very young age. She loves to write in different genres. Poetry and Children's Literature are her favorite. She has a cat named Promise that has influenced a few of her writing pieces.
Reason for signing up:
I wanted to challenge and push myself with my writing.
Sam Arthurs
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Bio:
Sam is a Kentucky native, born and raised in the hills and hollers of EKY. She's a horror author and poet, and sometimes the two cross-over in various projects.
Reason for signing up:
I did it last year and it was really inspiring!
Courtney Music
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Bio:
Courtney is poet of Eastern Kentucky and a past winner in the Kentucky Monthly Magazine.
Reason for signing up:
This is a tradition that my husband and I do together every year.
Sue Leathers
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Bio:
Sue Leathers worked as a high school teacher and college adjunct for 30 years before she discovered the delirium of teaching middle school. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. Too whooped to write poetry during the school year, Sue journals, saving ideas for the stretch of summer, and devotes spare energy instead to playing with her grandsons, devouring books, and disc golfing. Sue lives in Casey County, Kentucky, with three dogs and one mean gray cat.
Reason for signing up:
Community beyond county lines and the headrush of deadlines
Roberta Schultz
Reason for signing up:
Come for the accountability, Stay for the fun.
Maddie Coleman
Josey Bryant
Bio:
Poet eager to explore identity, and share poetry with readers.
L. Holbrook
Bio:
My name is Lauren Holbrook and I am 35 years old. I am the mother of 2 teenagers, and I have custody of my niece. My children are my world. I love spending time with my family, reading, and enjoying the small things in life.
Reason for signing up:
I love to write and it's a way to express myself. I have recently started writing again and found the joy I once had writing my thoughts down.
Gregory Friedman
Bio:
Greg is a Franciscan priest, living in the Southwest, working as a retreat director, pilgrim guide, as well as accompanying the Pueblo People in several mission parishes, where he is a learner and seeker.
Reason for signing up:
LexPoMo is a needed jump-start to my writng every year.
Christopher McCurry
Bio:
Christopher McCurry lives in Lexington, Kentucky with his wife, daughter, and two dogs. With a baby and new book of poetry on the way this year, Chris is nearly full to the brim with gratitude and anticipation.
Reason for signing up:
Because I'm a poet at heart!
Linda Angelo
Bio:
Linda had a hunch she would like writing, and when her professional life as a psychologist slowed down, she was ready to give it a try. Now she can’t stop. Her fondness for nature, painting, dance, jazz, and people’s idiosyncrasies find expression in her work, with a bit of humor thrown in.
Reason for signing up:
To keep at it and enjoy our community of writers.
Tom Hunley
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Bio:
Tom C. Hunley is the author of eight full-length poetry collections, eight chapbooks, and two textbooks. He also wrote and co-directed You’re Not Alone, a short film produced by Forerunner TV., Inc., and he and Dr. Alexandria Peary co-edited Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century (Southern Illinois University Press, 2015). Tom holds degrees from University of Washington (BA), Eastern Washington University (MFA), and Florida State University (Ph.D.), where he held the Kingsbury fellowship. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Western Kentucky University, where he has taught since 2003. He has been married to Ralaina since 1996, and they raised four children together.
Reason for signing up:
This is my third summer with Lexpomo. It's a great community of writers.
Anesa
Reason for signing up:
miraculous5814@gmail.com
Jazzy
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Bio:
Eugenia Johnson-Smith, owner and CEO of Positive Power, LLC. Training and Development is an Author, Coach, and International Speaker. She's a freelance writer for The Lextropolis Magazine and the author of Positive Power 31 Devotions To Help Unleash Your Positive Power. She teaches writing classes and enjoys encouraging other writers to pursue their writing dream.
Reason for signing up:
It's fun, I enjoy the challenge of writing a poem a day, and the satisfactions of knowing I stuck with it and completed my goal.
SpitFire1111
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Bio:
SpitFire interprets life through the poems she writes therefore life is a poetic journey.
Reason for signing up:
I signed up to challenge myself to write a poem everyday,
Kel Proctor
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Bio:
Kel is an undergraduate student at Bellarmine University majoring in English and minoring in both Creative Writing and Women and Gender Studies. Kel is published in Ariel Literary Magazine and The White Squirrel and was runner up in the Annette Allen Poetry Contest.
Reason for signing up:
Some of my friends mentioned LexPoMo to me and I figured this was the best way to ensure that I write poetry over the summer!
Meredith McCurry
Bio:
Meredith lives in Lexington with her husband, daughter, and doggies. She’s expecting a baby boy and looks forward to a hot summer of poetry.
Reason for signing up:
Because I love Christopher McCurry and the communities he creates.
Lennart Lundh
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Bio:
Lennart Lundh is a poet, photographer, historian, and short-fictionist. His work has appeared internationally since 1965.
Reason for signing up:
It’s become a habit.
Joseph Nichols
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Bio:
Joseph Allen Nichols has been a LexPoMo participant long enough he doesn’t remember how long he has been a LexPoMo participant. He currently lives in Frankfort with his two sons, his mom, and a thousand pets and spirit guides.
Reason for signing up:
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Except Halloween.
Sonya Pavona
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Bio:
Sonya is a poet who is trying to rediscover her love for writing poetry again. She is an English Major at Georgetown College and is headed to Oxford in the spring!
Reason for signing up:
snpavona@outlook.com
Nancy Jentsch
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Bio:
Nancy has been writing poetry since 2008 and is currently participating in the Stafford Challenge by writing a poem a day. Her work can be read in numerous on-line and print journals, in her collection "Between the Rows" and in her chapbooks.
Reason for signing up:
I have great respect and admiration for this writing community and the support for poets it provides.
LittleBird
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Bio:
LittleBird gazes into the abyss of the existential challenge before her as she tries to write her biography. At midlife, that seems fitting. She lives in Austin, TX with her two kids and dog. She has a job she loves and she is working toward a Masters degree. She's saving up for her farm dream back in KY, and likes to write poetry to release the words that bounce around in her heart.
Reason for signing up:
I love the challenge of writing something each day and enjoy reading the contributions from my creative peers.
Jennifer Barricklow
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Bio:
Jennifer Barricklow is a writer and freelance editor in Lexington KY. In addition to writing poetry, she studies tarot, putters in the garden, and makes stuff out of yarn. She participates in the literary ecosystem, locally and globally, as much as possible.
Reason for signing up:
I signed up because I love being part of Lexington's amazing poetry community!
Jennifer Elam
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Bio:
Jennifer has spent her life writing and is now part of the Coming of Age women’s writer’ s group. As a psychologist, dancer and writer, she is just completing her book called “Dancing through the Fires”; a personal narrative about healing grief and trauma through (co)creativity, together, with God, Self and Others.
Reason for signing up:
To share my writing and creativity with others in the hope that someone will find it helpful.
Website:
Gwyneth Stewart
Bio:
Gwyneth is a retired lawyer and practicing poet.
Reason for signing up:
I have participated for several years and love the challenge to write daily and the community of poets.
Toni Menk
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Bio:
As an Air Force Brat, Toni had to move a lot. She was born on Guam and lived in England, Ohio, North Carolina and Massachusetts. She eventually settling in Kentucky. Toni has been writing poems as long as she can remember. In middle school her parents told her that if she wrote 100 poems they would buy her a guitar. She wrote the poems and got her guitar. Toni attended the University of Kentucky where she earned a BA in Anthropology. As a sophomore in college, needing a summer job, she hired on as a telephone operator at GTE in Lexington. Thirty years later she retired as an Equipment Technician. In 1981 she moved to rural Casey County Kentucky where she raised children, blackberries and shiitake mushrooms. After retiring Toni grew organic vegetables and sold them at the farmers market. Needing a new creative outlet, Toni taught herself the ancient art of Lampwork and eventually started doing craft shows as Cyrilda’s Torch. She is a member of KGAC (Kentucky Guild of Artist and Craftsmen) and the Sheltowee Artisans.
Reason for signing up:
Kim Shaver made me do it.
Debra Glenn
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Bio:
Debra has published two poetry collections, "a pretty, long walk" and "light moves". Debra participated in the Carnegie Center's Poetry Gauntlet in 2020 and is a frequent reader at open mic events.
Reason for signing up:
I have participated the last few years and find it a good challenge to write a poem a day!
Eric W. Willis
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Bio:
Eric W. Willis is a writer, reader, sometimes editor, visual artist, traveler, and caretaker of two lively fish and two even more lively felines. He is a graduate of the Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University. He lives and works in the heart of Kentucky.
Reason for signing up:
The challenge of it.
Sav Noël Hoover
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Bio:
Sav is an Appalachian poet living in Ravenna, Ky with her two kids, two cats, and two dogs. She only has one husband.
It is her hope that her work can offer comfort and provoke thought in a world that isn’t always comfortable.
Reason for signing up:
I want to further challenge myself and my work!
Misty Skaggs
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Bio:
artist, activist, barefooted backwoods poet.
HAROLD SHERMAN
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Bio:
Harold Sherman is a freelance musician and has been for most of his adult life. He is also a Donovan Scholar at UK, having previously received his MM in Composition in 1999. He once taught piano lessons to rising standup comic star Ariel Elias and recorded a Christmas CD with Laura Bell Bundy. He did not, however, invent the internet--nor has he ever dated Taylor Swift.
Reason for signing up:
I heard about it at Writing Practice at Carnegie Center.
Cathy Perkins
Bio:
Cathy Perkins, broke and broken multi-talented human whose part-time jobs include horse-crossing guard, zero-turn mower operator and a small business general partner, spends many hours a day writing poetry and comedy, going down internet rabbit holes, staring out the window in a total state of mindless meditation. Cathy is the author of Udder Uproar, 2024 Accents Publishing. https://accents-publishing.com/udderuproar.html
Reason for signing up:
I signed up because I am part of the Lexington Poetry family. I wouldn't miss LexPoMo for any reason except for illness or death and I would try to figure out how to be part of the LexPoMo community from the bed or from the grave.
Lucy James
Bio:
Lucy James writes from a little hilltop in Eastern Kentucky.
Reason for signing up:
I like the challenge of writing every day. It motivates me to write.
Ann Haney
Bio:
Ann is a painter who also loves poetry. She taught studio art for many years and now takes time to experience and explore art forms that she finds of interest.
Reason for signing up:
I learned about LexPoMo from Deanna Mascle and it has been a great expereince!
Bernard Deville
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Bio:
Bernie is a retired middle school teacher, currently designing role-playing games. Known for Post-Pomo trainwrecks.
Reason for signing up:
Haven't missed one yet.
Mary Potts
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Bio:
Mary is a Lexington native, mother and social worker.
She brings her inner battles, perspectives and experiences to the pages before her, to connect, ground and express herself.
Mary is entering her second year of participating in LexPoMo. Last year's participation changed her life and perspective.
The 2024 year has already brought about grief and heartache like no other. With new challenges, she is ready to fill these pages.
Reason for signing up:
To experience another year of growth and challenge my ability to think and write outside the box and connect with such a beautiful community. Ready to pour it on the page!
Liz Prather
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Bio:
Liz Prather is a writer and teacher.
Reason for signing up:
It is June.