Juniper Bends, a quarterly reading series curated by Locke Hunter and Alli Marshall, features poetry, prose, and music from established and emerging writers and artists.
The theme for this month is “the secret life of plants”—digging into gardening, connecting to nature, and nurturing inner and outer growth.
Featuring….
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Aliah Lavonne Tigh is the June 2024 resident at Asheville’s own Residency at 821 through Lamplight AVL. She is the author of Weren’t We Natural Swimmers, a 2022 chapbook with Tram Editions, with poems appearing in the Academy of American Poets‘ Poem-A-Day, Mizna, Guernica, The Texas Review, Matter: A Journal of Political Poetry and Commentary, The Rupture, and others. Tigh has joined other writers for the Tin House Summer Workshop, read for Houston’s Poison Pen Reading Series and Hess Reading Series and The Brooklyn Rail. Tigh holds poetry and philosophy degrees from the University of Houston and an MFA from Antioch Los Angeles, and lives in Houston, Texas.
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Shanita “NitaJade” Jackson is an Affrilachian poet who is the current Wilma Dykeman Writer-in-Residence in Asheville. Jackson is published in Inverted Syntax, Auburn Avenue and the Zora's Den: The Fire Inside Volume II anthology, among others. Recently, they accepted the role of assistant professor of English at Emory and Henry College in Virginia.
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Chelsea Lynn LaBate (Ten Cent Poetry) is an award-winning songwriter and poet. She is the First Prize Winner of Eddie’s Attic Shoot Out (other winners Indigo Girls, John Mayer), Asheville’s Brown Bag Songwriter Competition, and a finalist in the Brooklyn Songwriter (top 9 of 600). She teaches songwriter classes, poetry classes and retreats nationally – at camps, community centers and universities. She is the composer for her own Ten Cent Orchestra, author of Songcrafter™ A Songwriter’s Companion and producer of Songcrafter™ Radio. She has released five albums including Appalachian Eyes produced by Grammy Award Winning producer, Neal Merrick Blackwood.
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Shae Savoy lives on Bearwallow Mountain, where she practices herbalism and works as a high school English teacher. Her poems have been published most recently in WomenArts Quarterly; Jet Fuel Review; Common Ground Review; Sinister Wisdom; and she won SLAB Literary Magazine’s Elizabeth R. Currie Poetry Prize.
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Zondo hails from Liberia, West Africa. After having endured war for 13 years, he emerged a musician who bridges worlds and inspires positive change. With his guitar and voice, Zondo juxtaposes traditional Liberian roots with American folk & pop, creating music that our hearts understand. Born from struggle, his songs heal, unite, and ignite our spirits, empowering us to resonate with Truth & love amidst adversity. His work as a musician is dedicated to restorative justice, peace, and the liberation of all peoples. As his fellow Africans have said it: Ubuntu! I am because we are.
About Juniper Bends | Launched in 2009, Juniper Bends ran for 10 years before taking a two-year hiatus during the pandemic. Juniper nurtures the voices of new writers while providing a space for local established writers to showcase their work.