Coffee and Poetry: Victoria Dym's Swan Song!

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow!

The Featured Reader for October is the Poet-in-Residence at The Jack Kerouac House of St. Petersburg, Victoria Dym. Victoria has hosted Coffee & Poetry since September of 2025 and will be moving back to her beloved Pittsburgh in early November. This reading will be her swan song, a goodbye poetry party, a bittersweet ending to a twelve-plus-year life in Tampa Bay.

She is planning to hold the event in the round, outside and in Jack's backyard on 10/25 from 3-6 pm. Shelley Jaffe has offered to bake. As always, there will be an open mic (sign-up at the event, 1-2 poems). Ms. Dym will have her books available for sale and signing.

Tickets $10 plus tax

Victoria Dym is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College with a degree in Humility, a Bachelor of Arts, in Philosophy, from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Masters of Fine Arts, Creative Writing-Poetry from Carlow University. Her two poetry chapbooks, Class Clown, and When the Walls Cave In were published by Finishing Line Press in 2015 and 2018. Victoria’s chapbook, Spontaneous, was selected by Northwest Florida Poet Laureate Katherine Nelson-Born as the winner of the 2021 Poem-A-Day Chapbook Challenge Contest, won a cash prize and subsequently was published by the West Florida Literary Federation in 2022. Ms. Dym's full-length manuscript, The Hatchet Sun, was published by Finishing Line Press in August 2023.

Victoria was cast for the Risk! Live from Orlando storytelling show and her story, One Shot was selected for the podcast. Her short story, The Linzer Torte was published in The Scribe, 2020 and she performs at The Commodore Theater, regularly, and yearly, at The Countdown Improv Festival. Her solo improv characters include The Haiku Lady and Judge Trudy. Ms. Dym is also the host and producer of Poetry on the Lighter Side, where poetry and improv collide.

Victoria, a Certified Laughter Yoga Leader and a Certified Narrative Therapy Practitioner lives in Tampa Florida, where she hosts the Annual October Haiku Challenge, teaches poetry, improv, storytelling, and facilitates Laughter Yoga workshops. She is employed as a Patient Actor with Nova Southeastern University, and is both the Storyteller-in-Residence and the Poet-in- Residence at The Jack Kerouac House in St. Pete, and hosts monthly events in both genres there.