Join us in the Literature Department, on Parkway Central Library's 2nd floor, for a reading set to live musical accompaniament.

olga mikolaivna (reader) was born in Kyiv and works in the (intersectional/textual) liminal space of photography, word, translation, and installation. Her debut chapbook is out with Tilted House, another is forthcoming with Ursus Americanus Press, and her translation of Stanislav Belsky’s first full length collection in English will be out with Dialogos / Lavender Ink. She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Temple University.

Gabrielle Woolley (reader) is from Baltimore, Maryland, and currently lives in Philadelphia. She is a community TA for ModPo, a free poetry course hosted through the Kelly Writers House.

Jacob Brunner (reader) is a songwriter and poet from Philadelphia. His work explores strange affinities between the sacred and the profane. Incorporating found and generative elements, his poems challenge traditional notions of authorship through a Buddhist lens. He runs a small-issue record label called Peace Isn’t Luck, which includes audio/visual releases of poetry in addition to music. Since 2006 he has released music as Strawberry Hands and collaborated with many other artists, such as Weyes Blood, Karl Blau, and Little Wings.

Laura Anne Whitley (reader) is a poet and memestress who recently relocated to Philadelphia. Laura Anne’s work is driven by her earliest intrusive thought: The Words Are Nothing Like The Feeling. Laura Anne wrote, performed and taught stand up comedy for almost a decade in Portland, Oregon. She believes comedy and poetry both stem from one’s desire to be witnessed. She is the author of many meme formats including “Magic is Real, but It’s Hard to Explain” which was infamously stolen by Dr. Pepper in 2024. Laura Anne is a proud teacher and student of Mind Palace Poetry.

Ed Halliday (reader/organizer) is a poet, furniture maker, student and event planner. Born and raised in and around Seattle, he's lived in five cities around the country throughout the Northwest, the Northeast and the South. He's currently a student at CCP with hopes of eventually studying Linguistics and Psychoanalysis.

Anna Bradley is a filmmaker, writer, and Irish-American princess from Philadelphia. Her work is largely dedicated to exploring the perverted, the unclassy, and the stupid except for the days in which her work is largely dedicated to exploring the sappy idiosyncrasies that define everyday life. She wants everyone to know that Philly is the greatest place in the world and that she loves James Cameron more than she loves some of her own family members.

Samuel Lang Budin (reader/organizer) was co-editor of their high school lit mag.

Jordan Burgis (musician) is a multi-instrumentalist, improviser and record producer living in Philadelphia.  After fifteen years setting off garage-jangle bottle rockets with lo-fi rockers Honey Radar, Jordan now splits his time between gothic drone trio Systolic Murmurs, free-folk performance art ensemble Wrinkle, and Chris Forsyth’s ditch-centric Neil Young cover band Coca Leaves & Pearls, as well as performing around the world with Japanese folk legend Sachiko Kanenobu.  In 2025 Jordan resurrected the improvisational outsider jazz outfit The Other Side Of A Dream, along with synthesists Darian Scatton, Tim Burns and guitarist Mary Beth Ray. In 2019 Burgis, Scatton and Allison Stout participated in the Free Library’s Song Poem series as Magnetic Bells, producing an evening of kosmiche-minimal-wave meditations as soundtrack to the library’s extensive collection of concrete poetry.