ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS (July 12, 2023) — The Young Emerging Writers Summer Internship Program, the SPECTRA Reading Series, and the Great River Writers retreat are proud to present a special collaboration on Thursday, July 27, at Rozz-Tox (2108 3rd Ave, Rock Island, Illinois).
The event will start at 6PM with a social hour, followed by a feature reading from memoirist and Davenport native Ben Miller, award-winning poet Ann Pierson Wiese, and Dee Robb, winner of the Great River Writer’s Retreat (see bios below). Following the feature reading will be a special Young Emerging Writers showcase, featuring poetry and prose readings from some of the 2023 YEW staff and interns, starting at 8PM.
Event will be livestreamed to Midwest Writing Center (MWC)’s YouTube page:
https://www.youtube.com/midwestwritingcenter
Space is limited for this special event. Event is free and open to the public, with a $5 suggested donation to support youth writing programs at MWC.
The SPECTRA Reading Series manifests thanks to the generous support of the Illinois Arts Council Agency and Illinois Humanities. The Great River Writer’s Retreat is generously sponsored by Dr Nicolas Shammas and the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Funding and material support for the 2023 Young Emerging Writers Summer Internship Program generously provided by the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Scott County Regional Authority, Modern Woodmen of America, Illinois Humanities, the CD Wiman Memorial Trust, the Melvin McKay Charitable Trust, the Rock Island Public Library, and Rozz-Tox.
Bios for Feature Readers:
Ben Miller is the author of the forthcoming Pandemonium Logs: Sioux Falls, South Dakota 2020-2022 (Rutgers University Press) and River Bend Chronicle: The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll Amid the Curious Glory of Urban Iowa (University of North Carolina Press). His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, as well as grants from the South Dakota Arts Council and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Anne Pierson Wiese was born in Minnesota, raised in New York City, where she lived for many years, and currently resides in South Dakota with her husband, writer Ben Miller. Her first poetry collection, Floating City, received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Additional honors for her work include the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship and a Discovery/The Nation Poetry Prize.
Dee Robb holds degrees in Communication, Education, and English as a Second Language, with a certificate in Creative Writing from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her poetry can be found in the Highland Community College press, Oprelle’s Rise Up Anthology, Illinois Reading Today, and The Illinois Reading Council Journal. She was a short-story first-place winner of Galesburg Public Library’s Big Write in 2022, and a second-place winner of poetry in 2023. She is a member of the American Academy of Poets, the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Midwest Writing Center. She currently teaches English as a Second Language (ESL) in the Galesburg School District and serves on the Mercer County Family Crisis Center Board of Directors.
