The Grotto's Literary Salon reading series celebrates National Poetry Month in April and will feature: Maw Shein Win, Devi Laskar, MK Chavez, Lenore Weiss, Sabina Khan-Ibarra, Shikha Malaviya and Heather Bourbeau, with Terry Tierney as Emcee.
As always, there will be snacks and drinks.
Maw Shein Win's most recent full-length poetry collection is Percussing the Thinking
Jar (Omnidawn) which was shortlisted for the 2025 Northern California Book Award in
Poetry. Her previous full-length collection Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn) was longlisted for the PEN America 2021 Open Book Award, and shortlisted for the Golden Poppy Award for Poetry.
She is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA, the recipient of the 2026 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature, 2025 Berkeley Poetry Festival Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2025 Nomadic/SF Foundation Literary Award for Non-fiction. She is a member of The Writers Grotto and a co-founder of Maker, Mentor, Muse. She teaches poetry in the MFA Programs at the University of San Francisco, Dominican University, and Saint Mary’s College of California. mawsheinwin.com
Devi S. Laskar is a poet, novelist, artist, photographer, songwriter, former newspaper reporter. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks; and her debut poetry collection, Self-Portraits Ex Machina is out now from Finishing Line Press. Laskar is the author of the award-winning novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blues, and recently, Circa. Her third novel, Midnight, At The War is out now from Mariner Books and her first spoken-word album is coming out in spring 2026. She holds degrees from Columbia University, University of Illinois and UNC-Chapel Hill.
MK Chavez is a writer and educator whose body of work explores mixed-race identity,
social justice, ecological resilience, and horror cinema. At Ouroboros Writing Lab, Chavez cultivates literary experimentation as a radical act of liberation and supports the creative growth of QTBIPOC writers and allies committed to igniting meaningful change. They are co-director of Berkeley Poetry Festival, host of Bay Area Book Festival Mixed- Race Affinity Group, and poetry editor at The Fabulist. Chavez has received the Pen Josephine Miles Award, San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award, among others. Their published works include Dear Animal, Mothermorphosis, A Brief History of the Selfie, and other chapbooks
Raised in the Bronx and now based in Oakland, Lenore Weiss is the author of a novel, Pulp into Paper, and multiple poetry collections, including Video Game Pointers (2024) and a trilogy exploring love, loss, and mortality. Her prize-winning flash fiction chapbook, Holding on to the Fringes of Love, was published by Alexandria Quarterly Press. A member of the Writers Grotto and Associate Creative Nonfiction Editor for Mud Season Review, she has collaborated across disciplines, most recently on Life into Light, a chapbook about photosynthesis written with scientist Dr. John Bedbrook, and an ongoing "Quiltings" project with poet Maw Shein Winn.
Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a Pashtun Muslim American poet, writer, and educator based in Northern California. Her work explores inheritance, language, displacement, and the complexities of being othered in America. She is the author of the forthcoming poetry chapbook, a new vocabulary, and is currently at work on her novel, The Poppy Flower.
Her writing has appeared in journals including Anomaly Literary, SWWIM, Rising Phoenix,and iO Literary. Her work has been recognized with fellowships from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and the Brainard Fellowship, as well as the Wilmer Award. She received an Honorable Mention from CRAFT in Dialogue and her poetry collection has been a two-time semifinalist. She was also shortlisted for the SmokeLong Award for Flash Fiction.
A VONA alum, Sabina serves as Director of Rooted & Written, a tuition-free writing fellowship for emerging writers of color. She teaches poetry and creative writing at The Writers Grotto, Litquake and San Diego Writers Ink, and is a former instructor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University.
Shikha Malaviya is a poet, writer, and publisher. Her latest book, Anandibai Joshee: A Life in Poems (HarperCollins India), reimagines the groundbreaking journey of India's first female physician and the first Indian woman to study medicine in the US in the 19th century. Longlisted for the KLF Poetry Prize and named a Hindustan Times New Reads Pick, it was also featured in the Times of India, Indian Express, Tupelo Quarterly and more. Shikha’s earlier collection, Geography of Tongues, explores themes of immigrant identity and belonging. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and featured in Prairie Schooner, PLUME, Catamaran, SWWIM and other distinguished journals. As co-founder of The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, curator at the South Asian Literature & Arts Festival (SALA), and a Mosaic America Fellow, she works to amplify diverse voices in South Asian literature.
Heather Bourbeau’s award-winning poetry and fiction have appeared in The Irish Times, The Kenyon Review, and The Stockholm Review of Literature. Her writings are part of the Special Collections at the James Joyce Library, University College Dublin, and her latest poetry collection, Monarch, examines overlooked histories from the US West. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. She is currently working on a poetry collection and multimedia exhibition about national protected lands at risk of losing significant acreage or their protections.
Terry Tierney is the author of the poetry collections Why Trees Stay Outside and The Poet’s Garage and the novels Lucky Ride and The Bridge on Beer River. His poems and stories recently appeared in The Shore, Poetry Online, wildscape, Discretionary Love, The Bellevue Literary Review, Ghost Parachute, Flash Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere.