Join nonprofits Yellow Arrow Publishing and the Highlandtown Arts & Entertainment District and Highlandtown Main Street in celebrating local writers at Literary Night, our August 2nd takeover of the Highlandtown First Friday Art Walk. From 5 to 9 PM, participate in hands-on writing activities and a scavenger hunt, and meet dozens of local authors, writers, and small presses spread throughout Highlandtown’s participating galleries, shops, and eateries! From 6 to 8 PM, join us for food and drinks as we listen to local writers read their work from our main stage at RoofTop Hot. Drinks and refreshments will be available throughout the art walk.
Be sure to find Yellow Arrow’s Writer-in-Residence for August, Jessica Gregg, at her table, and join us as she performs her work on our main stage.
There is plenty of free and paid parking in Highlandtown, so come on down to 339 S Conkling Street in Baltimore from 5 to 9 PM and join us for a memorable night of literature.
Continue reading to learn more about the venues, authors, and organizations participating in our very first Highlandtown Literary Night!
Filippo’s Restaurant & Lounge featuring 2019 University of Baltimore MFA graduates
418 S. Conkling St
Live entertainment and art. Drink specials available inside Filippo’s Lounge.
Born and raised in Gary, Indiana, Nikita C. Anderson holds an M.A. degree in English from Morgan State University, with a concentration in Screenwriting and Cinematic Storytelling and an MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. She currently resides in Baltimore, MD.
Shunda Colvin is a southern fiction writer currently based in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her MFA from the University of Baltimore. When she’s not working as a web content editor, she’s planning her next road trip.
Bailey Drumm is an MFA graduate from the University of Baltimore’s Creative Writing and Publishing Arts program. She writes short stories, book reviews, and creative non-fiction. Her written work has been published in Grub Street, and artwork featured as the cover art of Welter. Bailey-Drumm.square.site
Eva Quintos Tennant is a DC/MD-based writer, photographer and creative director. The youngest daughter of Filipino-American parents, she is a graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of Maryland and earned her MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore. She and her husband share their home with two rambunctious rescue collies and a lifetime collection of books. Her work has appeared in Welter, River River, and other publications. Pain of the Littlest Finger, her thesis short story collection, is available at eqtennant.com. Follow her on Twitter @picasandprose
b.a.w. lives, writes, and designs in Baltimore City where she tries her best and minds her business. Her writing is inspired by black women, bizarre news headlines, and early 2000s TV dramedies. When not writing about dead bodies, she’s partial to reading modern romance novels and listening to podcasts. No matter where she is, when it is, or what she’s doing, there’s a 99.9% chance that she is tired. You can follow her online at bawthewriter.com.
Highlandtown Gallery featuring Ann Quinn
248 S. Conkling St, Gallery A
Cool off this summer with a show celebrating “The Blues” and featuring work by Jason Tompkins, Sandi WIlson, Rae Hamilton, Ann Crostic and Deborah Ponder.
Live music and sangria.
Ann Quinn, M. Mus. and M.F.A. in creative writing. Ann leads writing groups for all ages. She has found that writing is an amazing way to access inner wisdom and memory, and has developed ways to help others in that process, while creating a warm sharing environment. Her work is published in Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Broadkill Review, and other journals and is included in the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women. Ann lives in Catonsville, Maryland with her family where she teaches reflective and creative writing and music and plays clarinet with the Columbia Orchestra. Her chapbook, Final Deployment, is published by Finishing Line Press. Please visit online at www.annquinn.net.
Night Owl Gallery featuring Ink Press Productions
248 S. Conkling St, Gallery C
Ink Press Productions is a collaborative effort devoted to blurring the lines of writing, visual, and performance art in the Baltimore community and beyond. Established in 2012, IPP aims to connect through the production of handmade publications, DIY workshops, and other experimental events.
The Laughing Pint featuring MoonLit
3531 Gough St
$5 greyhound drink special & kitchen is open until 10:30pm.
MoonLit is a small, artist run organization that aims to creatively connect community through low-cost and accessible literary programming in DC, Baltimore, and Virginia. Learn more at moonlitdc.com.
Rust-N-Shine featuring Jocelyn Broadwick and H.L. Brooks
410 S. Conkling St
Jocelyn Broadwick is a writer, editor, and college professor living and working in downtown Baltimore. Her essays and flash nonfiction have appeared in The Aerie, Paradigm Literary Magazine, Seltzer, Writers & Words, and the Yellow Arrow Journal. She's also been a featured blogger for Neither Liberal Nor Arts and The Baltimore Sun's #MDreads Community Network and a guest podcast host on Return 2 Sender. Currently, she is working on a memoir of unexpected freefall after her marriage and a collection of essays in which she desperately tries to grow up before turning 30. Jocelyn earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College. Find her reading vintage smut during Highlandtown’s First Friday Art Walks and online at www.jocelynbroadwick.com.
H.L. Brooks writes contemporary fairy tale re-tellings with dashes of eroticism and romance. She places an emphasis on strong female characters of various ages and body types. She also likes to tackle social and political issues since the fantasy format lends itself as a perfect platform. H.L. also has published an adult coloring book and is currently working on her third book in the Red August series. An additional non-fiction work is in development in the form of a photography and body-image focused book, The Goddess Next Door.
Roll Ice Cream & Coffee featuring Timothy Young
3222 Eastern Ave
See the new mural inside Roll Ice Cream & Coffee by José Vigo. Come experience the culinary art of rolled ice cream. All our ice cream is made to order right in front of you. We take it from liquid to solid in less than 3 minutes.
Aside from being the author/illustrator of 11 books including I Hate Picture Books!, If You Give the Puffin a Muffin, Do Not Open The Box! and I’m Going To Outer Space!, (a winner of the Family Choice Award), Timothy Young has also designed toys, worked in animation and built puppets for the Muppets. He has also illustrated books for other authors and has written and illustrated two creative drawing books. His newest picture book is the unusually titled untitled.
His career highlights include being the Head Model-Maker for the Penny cartoons on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, designing and building Muppets for Jim Henson Productions and sculpting the very first Simpsons character toys. He has been the design director for two toy companies and worked under contract with dozens of others. He had a brand new toy out recently, the inflatable pool toy The Chicken Fight Game.
Snake Hill Tavern featuring akinoga press
418 S. Clinton St
Happy Hour until 7pm
Kitchen Open until 11pm
akinoga press is a baltimore-based micro-press that specializes in small editions of hand-bound chapbooks and is committed to publishing work that is quiet, small, odd, easily-missed, and 100% needs to be read.
Y:ART Gallery & Fine Gifts featuring Jessica Gregg, Victoria Kennedy, Charita Cole Brown and Lines + Stars
3402 Gough St
Jessica Gregg is the editor of Baltimore Style magazine and also oversees Baltimore's Child and Washington Family magazines. She is a Baltimore booster, proud rowhouse dweller, the mother of two teenagers, and an avid poetry reader. Her poetry collection "News from this Lonesome City" will be published this year by Finishing Line Press. Jessica is also the summer Yellow Arrow writer-in-residence for the Highlandtown Art Walk.
Victoria Kennedy writes about the complexity, resilience, and beauty of Black love. In Where Love Goes (2016) she explores the dynamics of love across the Diaspora. Included in this is The Uninvited Guest a short story which has been adapted into an eponymous stage play. Her debut novel, Sometimes Love, was published in 2017 by Brown Girls Books. She is the founder of Zora’s Den, a sisterhood of Black women writers who gather virtually and in real life to provide support, encouragement, and fellowship within the local and global communities. In Our Own Words is their monthly reading series. Victoria holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts and her second novel Don’t Walk Away, was released in March 2019.
Since 2006, the literary journal Lines + Stars -- which operates jointly out of Baltimore and Washington, DC -- has published seasonal issues featuring poetry, short prose, and book reviews. Through L+S Press, our book-publishing arm, we host the annual Mid-Atlantic Chapbook Series, which publishes an emerging poet’s first chapbook-length collection. L+S Press also publishes best-of anthologies, broadsides, and other projects. Find out more: www.linesandstars.com.
Charita Cole Brown was diagnosed with a severe form of bipolar disorder while finishing her final semester as an English major at Wesleyan University. Doctors predicted she would never lead a “normal” life. Despite that prognosis and because she sought treatment, Charita went on to marry, raise a family, earn a master’s degree in teaching and enjoy a fulfilling career in education. Her powerful story is chronicled in her debut book, Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life (Curbside Splendor Publishing, June 2018).
Ideals of Highlandtown featuring Sherry Burton Ways
3319 Eastern Ave
Stop in for a refreshment and the unique wood furniture pieces at this home goods shop.
Sherry Burton Ways, an award winning Author, Speaker, Designer, Certified Design Psychology Coach, Certified Feng Shui Consultant, Certified Interior Color Consultant, Certified Interior Environment Coach, and Certified Color Therapist. Her mission is to use her creative gifts to inspire and educate people and organizations to create peaceful and productive interior environments.
Sherry is the author of the award winning, Amazon Best Selling book, Feel Good Spaces: A Guide to Decorating Your Home for the Body, Mind and Spirit (2012). The book also was a winner of the "How-To" Category at the 2013 National Green Book Festival. Ways has also contributed to two other books: The Art & Science of Loving Yourself: 'Cause Your Business Should Complete You, Not Deplete You, edited by Margo DeGange and Simply Color for Everyday Living, edited by Diantha Harris. www.sherryburtonways.com
Off the Rox featuring Rissa Miller
3232-A Eastern Ave
Make Word Clouds with author Rissa Miller. Pick up a free book from the giveaway table. Books for kids and adults alike while supplies last.
Rissa Miller is a working artist living in Maryland. She loves early morning light filtering through stained glass, hot green tea in antique teacups, huge salads picked fresh from the garden and walks in the woods. She studied writing at New York University/Tisch School of the Arts and photojournalism at Western Kentucky University. Several years as an editor at the Baltimore Sun instilled her with a love of the city. She’s sure she can feel the pulse of Baltimore’s gritty telltale heart each time she walks the streets of Remington, Fells, Highlandtown and every other inch of Charm City. When she’s not writing, Rissa finds her way to local theater, loves baking vegan cupcakes, and as often as possible, gets lost in libraries. She works as Senior Editor for the Vegetarian Journal. Goodnight, Poet is her second chapbook.
Creative Alliance featuring the Southeast Anchor Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library
3134 Eastern Ave
Come visit librarians from the Southeast Anchor branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library to find out about their amazing line up of programs, offerings, and community services! You can also sign up for a library card or our summer reading program, which wraps on 8/14. Don't miss your chance to enter our prize raffle!
DOUBLE AND UP FEATURING THE BALTIMORE SCIENCE FICTION SOCIETY
3514 Bank St
BSFS (normally located at at 3310 E Baltimore St, on the north side of the Highandtown Arts District) is setting up exhibitor tables at the Double and Up building.