Join us for an AWP off-site reading hosted by Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City, featuring a showcase of past, new, and forthcoming titles by seven of fabulous Acre authors: CD Esklison, Jose Hernandez Diaz, Malia Márquez, Dan O’Brien, James Stewart III, Jessica E. Johnson, and Jenn Scott.

CD Eskilson is a trans nonbinary poet and translator. They are a recipient of the C.D. Wright / Academy of American Poets Prize, and their work appears in The Kenyon Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, the Offing, Passages North, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and others. They were once in a punk band.

Jose Hernandez Diaz is the author of The Fire Eater and the forthcoming book The Parachutist. A 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow, he has had work appear in American Poetry Review, Border Crossing, Cincinnati Review, Circulo de Poesia, the Hooghly Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, the London Magazine, Missouri Review, the Moth, the Nation, Poetry, Poetry Wales, the Progressive, Southern Review, TriQuarterly, Witness, Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches generative workshops for Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, The Writer’s Center, and elsewhere. He serves as a poetry mentor in the Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program. He lives in Norwalk, California.

Malia Márquez was born in New Mexico and grew up in New England. She holds a BFA in 3D Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art & Design and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She writes and teaches in Los Angeles. Find out more about her work at maliamarquez.com.

Dan O’Brien is a poet, playwright, and essayist whose recognition includes the UK’s Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama, and two PEN America Awards for playwriting. His previous poetry collections are Our Cancers, New Life, Scarsdale, and War Reporter. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

James Stewart III is a Black writer and arts organizer from Chicago. His debut novel, Defiant Acts, is forthcoming from Acre Books in May 2025. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Lampblack, Zone 3, Midwest Review, The Forge, and 580 Split. He is a co-founder of the reading series and artist collective Exhibit B. Stewart earned an MFA from SAIC, an MA from North Central College, and a BA from Columbia College Chicago. He lives with his wife and daughter at the end of Dusable Lake Shore Drive.

Jessica E. Johnson is the author of the book-length poem Metabolics, the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other, and is a contributor to the anthology Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in Paris Review, Tin House, New Republic, Poetry Northwest, River Teeth, Diagram, Annulet Poetics, Southeast Review, and Sixth Finch. She teaches at Portland Community College and cohosts the Constellation Reading Series at Tin House.

Jenn Scott’s debut collection, Her Adult Life, was long-listed for the PEN America/Bingham Award in 2018. Her work has appeared in journals including Fiction, Gettysburg Review, Cincinnati Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Santa Monica Review, and Gulf Coast. A native of Pennsylvania, she now lives and writes in Oakland, California.