October 21: Jessica Purdy and Open Mic at Gibson’s

Jessica Purdy is the author of Lung Hours which won The Dryden-Vreeland Book Prize in 2026 from Gunpowder Press. STARLAND and Sleep in a Strange House (Nixes Mate, 2017 and 2018), The Adorable Knife (Grey Book Press, 2023), You’re Never the Same (Seven Kitchens Press, 2023), and Learning the Names (Finishing Line Press, 2015). She holds an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry from Emerson College. She has worked as an art teacher and a writing teacher. Currently, she teaches Poetry Workshops and Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and at Noble High School, North Berwick, Maine. Her poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, Best Spiritual Literature, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. Her flash fiction has been nominated for Best Micro Fiction. Her poetry, flash fiction, and reviews appear in Sixth Finch, Does It Have Pockets, Book of Matches, About Place, On the Seawall, Radar, The Night Heron Barks, SoFloPoJo, Litro, Heavy Feather Review, and elsewhere.