A Night of Women in Power and Poetry in honor of Future Tense

Join Old Town Books for a special poetry reading and conversation in honor of Kelly Grace Thomas’ Future Tense.

On Wednesday, October 28 at 7PM we are very excited to welcome three local poets, Hannah Grieco, Courtney LeBlanc, and Jillian Stacia, along with Kelly Grace Thomas for a reading and panel event!

Hannah Grieco is the author of "First Kicking, Then Not," out now from Stanchion Books. She writes a literary column for Washington City Paper, edits prose at a variety of small presses and literary journals, and teaches literature at Marymount University. Read her work in The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, Brevity, Wigleaf, Shenandoah, Poet Lore, Fairy Tale Review, and more. Find her at www.hgrieco.com.

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the four full-length collections, most recently Her Dark Everything and Her Whole Bright Life (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize). She is the Arlington County Poet Laureate Emerita and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She’s also the founder of the Poetry Coven, a monthly generative workshop. She loves pitbulls, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com.

Jillian Stacia is the author of the poetry collection, SET THE BONE, published by Arcana Poetry Press. She was selected as an Honorable Mention for the 2025 Jack McCarthy Book Prize and short-listed for the 2026 Central Avenue Poetry Prize. She has been nominated for several awards, including 2025 Best of Net and the 2025 Pushcart Prize. Her poetry has been featured in several literary magazines and anthologies. Find her online @jillianstacia to read more of her work.

Kelly Grace Thomas, poet, writer, and coach, is the author of Future Tense (Alice James Books, 2026) and Boat Burned (YesYes Books, 2020). She’s the winner of the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle. Her poems appear in: The Sun, The Adroit Journal, 32 Poems, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. She is the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write, and Perform Classic and Spoken Word Poetry, taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She holds an MFA from Randolph College. Kelly lives in Benicia, California, where she coaches writers online. www.kellygracethomas.com