Join us for a night of poetry and prose featuring Kate Asche, Bethany Humphries and Celeste Leon.
Kate Asche, M.A., writes poetry, essays and short stories. A graduate of the UC Davis Creative Writing Program, she is a writing teacher and literary community builder in Sacramento, CA. Her first poetry collection, the chapbook Our Day in the Labyrinth, was published by Finishing Line Press in September 2015, and she has poems forthcoming in Natural Bridge. Her poem “Incoming” was selected by Camille Dungy for the summer 2015 issue of Colorado Review, and her poem for two voices was a finalist for the 2011 Audio Prize at The Missouri Review. Her poetry has appeared in Bellingham Review, RHINO, Pilgrimage, the 2012 anthology Late Peaches: Poems by Sacramento Poets and elsewhere. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Under the Gum Tree. She received a fellowship to the 2015 Writing By Writers Workshops at Tomales Bayas well as two Elliot Gilbert Prizes in Poetry and an Academy of American Poets Award. She was associate director of Arts, Humanities and Writing at UC Davis Extension, where she coordinated The Tomales Bay Workshops under the direction of Pam Houston, and Kate also helped to establish the award-winning I Street Press at Sacramento Public Library.
Bethanie Humphreys is a writer, editor, mixed media visual artist, and curator for the Sacramento Poetry Center Art Gallery. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in several literary magazines. She was Editor in Chief of the 2015 American River Review, and is currently on the staff of the Tule Review. Her artwork has been in several juried and group shows in the Sacramento area, chosen as curator’s pick for Sac Open Studios 2014, and featured in February 2013 Sac Bee: “top five picks for exhibits to fuel the imagination.” Her goal is to further the cross-pollinization of the literary and visual arts.
See more at kitchentangents.com.
Celeste León is an award winning author. Her passion for the past ten years has been writing Luck is Just the Beginning, the novel inspired by her father’s life; it was just released by Floricanto Press on November 23, 2015. When nineteen-year-old Ramón León wins the Puerto Rican lottery, his dream of establishing the first dental and medical clinic in his village becomes achievable. But an unexpected chain of catastrophic events intervenes. Luck is Just the Beginning is not only an enchanting story of the joys and sorrows of family, but also the saga of one man's determination to see never give up on his dream.
Celeste’s award winning short stories, "A Lucky Man," and "Sharing Luck," were published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Celebrating People Who Make a difference, as well as in www.beliefnet.com and The Preservation Foundation. Both stories are adaptations that ultimately grew into her novel Luck is Just the Beginning. Celeste is a 2013 alumnus of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She is the recipient of First Prize in the annual contest for the High Sierra Writers group in Reno,Nevada for her essay, "Finding Home," about her travels to Puerto Rico in search of her family roots. Celeste is a physical therapist and lives in Truckee, CA with her family. Please visit her website at www.celesteleon.com.