Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On February 22, Mignon Ariel King returns to celebrate Black History Month, bringing with her a selection of poets that have been published in her online journal MoJo!
Black Women Writers with MoJo! are five writers from greater Boston (Bridgit Brown, Coleen T. Houlihan, Joyce Jellison, Mignon Ariel King, and Lolita Paiewonsky) who have published in the online journal MoJo! These five women work with individual styles and different messages in a variety of writing genres, but their work reflects a collective sisterhood
that the journal celebrates.
Mignon Ariel King was born in Boston City Hospital in1964, a third-generation New Englander. She has had a public library card since age 5 and has been writing poetry since the age of 11. Ms. King holds a Master of Arts in English degree from Simmons College and was adjunct professor of English in various Boston-area colleges for more than a decade. An active writer who has been reading poetry at open-mic venues since 1998, King is also a book reviewer and memoirist. Her first book of poems The Woods Have Words (2009) is available from Ibbetson Street Press.
Bridgit Brown has been writing since the age of 12. She became a serious poet at 17 when she entered college to study writing, literature, and publishing. Since then, Bridgit has acquired a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and has participated in the Ploughshares Fiction Writers Conference in Well, Holland, received the Nadya Aisenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Writers Room of Boston, and has had her poetry published in Ibbetson Street journal. She is currently a contributing writer for the Bay State Banner, Color Magazine, Exhale Magazine, and WGBH’s Basic Black Perspectives.
Coleen T. Houlihan studied writing at Wellesley College. She has featured at several poetry venues in Massachusetts such as: Stone Soup, Best Sellers, Borders, the Sherman Cafe and Walden Poetry Series. Her poetry has been published in Poesy, The Alewife, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Ibbetson Street, Spoonful: A Gathering of Stone Soup Poets, and Spare Change, as well as abroad.
Joyce Angela Jellison is the author of two books, Where Everything Fits Beautifully and Black Apple. She describes her poetic style as “[sometimes] a bit provocative. I often use anatomy as metaphor in the tradition of Hattie Gossett.” She is also the director of "Write Out Loud: Transforming Our Lives Through Writing Our Truths."
Lolita Paiewonsky writes librettos, drama, fiction and, especially, poetry (since the second grade). She has presented her poetry with classical and jazz music and original choreography and exhibited it as “poetage” (visual poetry); she has been featured poet at many venues. Her poetry has appeared in a number of publications, including The Harvard Dudley Review, Harvard ALANA journals, Wilderness House Literary Review, Bagelbard anthologies, and Bradley University Journal.
Visit the MoJo! web site.
