Alina Pleskova presents her poetry collection Toska, with Lonely Christopher and Richard Loranger, at Brickbat Books in Philadelphia.
Alina Pleskova is a poet, editor, and Moscow-born immigrant turned proud Philadelphian. She co-edits bedfellows magazine and is a 2020 and 2022 Leeway Foundation grant awardee. Her chapbook, What Urge Will Save Us, was published in 2017, and her writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, Thrush, Peach Mag, the tiny, and elsewhere.
Lonely Christopher is a multidisciplinary queer experimental writer of poetry, fiction, and drama for stage and screen. He is the author of five books, most recently the poetry collections In a January Would and the 10th anniversary reissue of Death & Disaster Series. He is the founding creative director of Inter Poets Theater, managing director of the Segue Foundation, and an editor for Roof Books. His plays have been presented in Canada, China, and the United States. His film credits include several international shorts and the feature MOM, which he wrote and directed. He has worked for a decade in the field of HIV treatment and prevention for homeless youth, at the Ali Forney Center and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and dog.
Richard Loranger is a multi-genre writer, performer, musician, and visual artist who has been working around the United States for over forty years. He has lived in many parts of the country, including New York, Austin, Boulder, Ann Arbor, Chicago, and San Francisco, and he currently lives and works in Oakland, CA. He is the author of the recent book of poetry and flash prose Mammal (Roof Books, 2023), as well as Unit of Agency (Collapse Press, 2021), Be a Bough Tit (Be About It Press, 2020), Sudden Windows (Zeitgeist Press, 2016), Poems for Teeth (We Press, 2005), The Orange Book (International Review Press, 1990), and ten chapbooks, including 6 Questions, Hello Poems, and The Day Was Warm and Blue. His work has been included in over one hundred magazines and journals, and thirty anthologies.