Slapering Hol Press Presents: A Reading of First Poetry Collections with Sara Daniele Rivera, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Katie Berta, & Christian J. Collier

Please join the Slapering Hol Press coeditors, Liz Marlow & Luisa Caycedo- Kimura, as they welcome four poets who have just published their first full-length collections. This reading will tale place on Zoom and is free and open to the public. As always, donations towards the honoraria for the Slapering Hol Press Reading Series is encouraged and appreciated!

We are thrilled for this incredible line-up:

• Sara Daniele Rivera (winner of the 2023 Academy of American Poets First Book Prize), whose book The Blue Mimes was published by Graywolf Press in April 2024.
• Cindy Juyoung Ok (winner of the 2023 Yale Younger Poets Prize), whose book Ward Toward was published by Yale University Press in March 2024.
• Katie Berta (winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize), whose book retribution forthcoming was published by Ohio University Press in March 2024.
• Christian J. Collier, whose book Greater Ghost is published by Four Way Books (September 15, 2024).

Sara Daniele Rivera is a Cuban Peruvian American artist, writer, translator, and educator. She is the author of The Blue Mimes (Graywolf Press, 2024), winner of the 2023 Academy of American Poets First Book Award. She is also a co-translator of The Blinding Star: Selected Poems by Blanca Varela (Tolsun Books, 2021) and co-editor of Not Your Papi’s Utopia: Latinx Visions of
Radical Hope (Mouthfeel Press, 2025). Her honors include a 2017 St. Botolph Club Emerging Artist Award, the 2018 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry (Solstice Magazine) and a 2022 Tin House residency.

Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Ward Toward from the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the translator of The Hell of That Star forthcoming from the Wesleyan Poetry Series, and an English professor.

Katie Berta’s debut poetry collection, retribution forthcoming (Ohio University Press, 2024) won the 2023 Hollis Summers Prize. She has received residencies from Millay Arts, Ragdale, and The Hambidge Center, fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and an Iowa Review Award. She is a visiting assistant professor at Oberlin College.

Christian J. Collier is a Black, Southern writer, arts organizer, and teaching artist who resides in Chattanooga, TN. He is the author of Greater Ghost (Four Way Books, 2024) and the chapbook The Gleaming of the Blade, the 2021 Editors’ Selection from Bull City Press. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Atlantic, Poetry, December, and elsewhere.