Join us for a special reading event, as we welcome Alina Pleskova to the Unicorn Stage, touring in support of her new poetry collection, Toska (Deep Vellum, 2023), with readings from Hanif Abdurraqib, Stephanie Cawley, Raena Shirali, and Kelly Xio.

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. Her poetry collection, Toska, is out now from Deep Vellum.

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His books include the poetry collections The Crown Ain't Worth Much and A Fortune For Your Disaster, and the books They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Go Ahead in the Rain, and A Little Devil in America. Hanif is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

Stephanie Cawley is the author of My Heart But Not My Heart, chosen by Solmaz Sharif as winner of the Slope Book Prize, as well as the chapbook A Wilderness, selected by Khadijah Queen as winner of the Gazing Grain Press All-Genre Chapbook Contest. They live in Philadelphia.

Raena Shirali is the author of the poetry collections summonings, with Black Lawrence Press, and GILT, with YesYes Books. Born in Houston, Texas, & raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Raena earned her MFA from The Ohio State University. She lives in Philadelphia with her partner & their pit mix.

Kelly Xio is an Emily-Dickinson-With-Wifi living in the DMV. Kelly works at a grocery store and loves the smell of fresh green figs and that initial gust of sticky glutinous air when the rice is done.