April F-bomb: 4/16 at Mercury Cafe, Hosted by Leah Rogin and Featuring Leah Scott and Suzi Q. Smith

Join us on Tuesday April 16 at Mercury Cafe for the April F-bomb at 7:30 PM. Our host will be long-time F-bomber Leah Rogin and will feature Leah Scott and Suzi Q. Smith. Plus, 4-minute open mic slots will be available for those who want to share their own original work. Please join us if you can!

As a special note, we will not be in our typical space at Mercury Cafe this month; instead, we’ll be in the Rose Room, the main restaurant/bar space.

HOST LEAH ROGIN’s first published novel, Burying Norma Jeane, is coming out on Marilyn Monroe’s 98th birthday, June 1, 2024, with Blackwater Press. She is interested in what a world where Norma Jeane lived to be 98 would look like, among other time / space preoccupations. She lives in the mountains west of Denver where she wrangles children and other creatures.

FEATURED READER LEAH SCOTT is a writer, editor, and translator from Denver. She spent several years as senior poetry editor of F(r)iction and currently works on research that explores reproductive health activism through the experiences of feminists in Latin America. You can read some of her poems in Pacifica Literary Review.

FEATURED READER SUZI Q. SMITH is an award-winning poet, author, interdisciplinary artist, music maker, and dreamer of dreams who lives in Denver, Colorado. The author of poetry collections Poems for the End of the World, A Gospel of Bones (winner of the 2019 Electric Press Award), and the chapbook collection, Thirteen Descansos, Smith is the Lead Editor for Creative Nonfiction for Revolute! Literary Magazine. Smith is also the co-editor of two anthologies, Tell It Slant: An Anthology of Creative Nonfiction by Writers from Colorado’s Prisons and All the Lives We Ever Lived, Volume I, both Finalists for the Colorado Book Award.

March F-Bomb: 3/19 at Mercury Cafe, Hosted by KB Jensen and Featuring Helen Starbuck

Join us at Mercury Cafe on Tuesday March 19 at 7:30 PM to celebrate the March F-bomb! We’ll be hosted by KB Jensen, with featured reader Helen Starbuck. Plus, 4-minute open mic spots available for all those who want to share their work. Join us if you can!

This month’s (optional) theme: Strong Women, Murder and Mayhem!

HOST K.B. JENSEN is an award-winning author, with two novels, Painting With Fire, an artistic murder mystery, and A Storm of Stories, which veers literary and handles love, craziness and impossibility. Her recent collection of short stories, Love and Other Monsters in the Dark, is out. K.B. lives in Littleton with her family and rescue mutt. She enjoys skiing and writing poetry. Her work has appeared in Progenitor, Cherry Magazine, New Feathers Anthology, Poetry Potion, and more. A former crime reporter and journalist, K.B. shifted to the publishing world in 2014, and is a senior publishing consultant and youth writing camp director for My Word Publishing. 

FEATURED READER HELEN STARBUCK, no relation to the coffee bunch, is a Colorado native, former OR nurse/nurse editor, and the author of the award-winning Annie Collins Mystery Series and standalone romantic suspense novels Legacy of Secrets, Finding Alex, The Woman He Used to Know, and The Killer Without A Face. She loves mysteries, suspense, romance, and any book that is well written. She’s a huge fan of books with independent, strong, women characters and, as Neil Gaiman says, “…stories where women save themselves.” When not writing you can find her ballroom dancing and gardening.

February F-Bomb: 2/20 at Mercury Cafe, Hosted by Nicole Servino and featuring Ella Toupin

Join us on Tuesday February 20 at 7:30 PM at Mercury Cafe for the Anti-Valentine’s F-Bomb! Our host will be Nicole Servino, with featured reader Ella Toupin. Plus, 4-minute open mic spots available on a first-come first-served basis. Come share your own stories of good love gone bad!

HOST NICOLE SERVINO is a passionate educator who brings over two decades of experience as a Professor of English to the realm of academia. A graduate of Naropa University, where she cultivated a deep love for language and literature, Nicole has dedicated her career to inspiring students and fostering a profound understanding of the written word.

Outside of academia, Nicole remains an avid reader and writer, constantly seeking new avenues for personal and intellectual growth. Exploring contemporary literature, she finds solace and inspiration. Her favorite font is Georgia.

Nicole holds a deep belief in the transformative power of education and remains committed to empowering students to become thoughtful, engaged citizens of the world.

(Special thanks to ChatGPT for writing this!)

FEATURED READER ELLA TOUPIN is a writer, artist, and student based in Denver, Colorado. They began writing fiction at the encouragement of their parents at a very early age, and found poetry soon after. Ella is the executive director of Stain’d Arts, a non-profit working to provide paid platforms to local artists, writers and creators.

Special F-Bomb Reading! Join us at AWP on February 10!

Denver’s famous F-Bomb reading series is coming to the AWP!

Join us for an exclusive reading inside the historic Kansas City Library Film Vault—behind a 35-ton steel bank vault from 1925!

On Saturday, February 10th at 2:30pm, Leah Rogin and Kona Morris will be hosting a special AWP F-Bomb with featured readings from Ron Austin, Lisa Barr, Jonathan Montgomery, Stina French, and more! Limited open mic slots available.

Saturday, February 10th
2:30pm – 4:00pm

Central Library: Vault Level
14 West 10th Street
Kansas City, MO 64105

Seating is limited. 

HOST KONA MORRIS is a writer, storyteller, and comedian. She has performed at storytelling events for The Moth, and most recently for the live RISK! show at The Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles. She was a regular on Monday Night Live L.A., a starring cast member of Denver’s Live Drunk History Comedy Troupe, and the Founder and Head Writer of the satirical comic book company Godless Comics. Kona has been featured at events around the world, and her stories have appeared in a variety of publications. https://www.instagram.com/kona_morris/

https://www.youtube.com/@konamorris

https://www.facebook.com/konamorris/

http://konamorris.com/

HOST LEAH ROGIN spends an inordinate amount of energy trying to imagine appropriate metaphors for time and to spend the fleeting moments enjoying being a hairy bag of sentient meat water on a dying planet. She was a college professor for nearly 20 years before riding the Covid train to the next station. She lives in the mountains west of Denver with a cat, two dogs, a frog, a passel of sea monkeys and what might be dragon fly nymphs she fished out of Bear Creek, as well as children and other creatures. Her first published novel Burying Norma Jeane is out with Blackwater Press in Summer 2024. You can find more info about it at https://www.instagram.com/whereisnormajeane/

January F-bomb: 1/16 at Mercury Cafe, Hosted by Nick Morris and Featuring Dakota Yaffe

Join us for the first F-bomb of the new year on Tuesday January 16 at Mercury Cafe! Our event starts at 7:30 PM, with open mic sign-up for 4-minute slots starting around 7:00. Bring your flash fiction (or whatever else you’d like to share) and join us for a fantastic event, hosted by OG F-bomber Nick Morris and long-time sensational reader Dakota Yaffe as our feature! We hope to see you there!

HOST NICK MORRIS is the curator of the F-Bomb Reading Series, as well as a professor of humanities at Community College of Denver, a musician, the author of the short story collections Tapeworm and The Boy in the Well, an expatriate of the Deep South, a graduate of Arkansas Tech University and Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, a former editor of the literary journals Nebo and Bombay Gin, a resident of Denver, and a mostly-capable moderator of F-bomb Zoom Rooms.

FEATURED READER DAKOTA YAFFE is a lover of the human need for connection, even if she’s too ornery to admit it. A poet, a giant nerd and endlessly fascinated by all things with wheels. Her writing is somewhere between and often both maniacal musings and heart felt pleas for those on the outskirts of society. She is passionate about issues such as mental health, gender, religion and love. She can generally be found on her motorcycle or working on cars. She has ridden solo across the country multiple times on an old Harley she built and takes any chance to disappear into the far reaches of the world. Her writing can be found on https://theunicornandthemonster.wordpress.com/ or on Instagram @theunicornandthemonster

November F-bomb on 11/21, Hosted by Kit Tara Eret

Join us on Tuesday November 21 at 7:30 PM for the F-Bomb Reading Series at Mercury Cafe! Our host will be Kit Tara Eret, and we will have 4-minute open mic spots for all who wish to share their creative work. We hope to see you there!

Suggested-but-not-required themes: rebirth or the Winter Solstice. You can also find prompts here from our illustrious founder Nancy Stohlman.

HOST KIT TARA ERET writes fiction and poetry of the fantastic and sensual imagination. She caught the writing bug after reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series when she was 12. Since then, she’s been published in several magazines including The Quantum Muse, Aoife’s Kiss, Drabbler, Scifiakuest, Circlet Press, and Cliterature Journal. She even has self-published erotica. To improve her craft, Kit has graduated from the writing workshops Taos Toolbox and Paradise Lost. When not writing, Kit binges on Netflix shows, reads not enough sci-fi novels, and gets fur on her dresses when she cuddles with her two cats.

October 17 F-bomb: The Fantastic Other (G)Host Within, Hosted by Jomil Ebro, Featuring Steven Dunn and Brian Byrdsong

What happens to our worlds when the supernatural, the fantastic, the “fictional,” or the marginalized (be it others or the “otherness” in ourselves) form a part of everyday life? How do they connect to our own “normal” or “centered” senses of self? To our relationship or perception of others? What does it mean to live as if the terms “real” and “imaginary,” “normal” and “weird,” are not at odds with one another? How does the “imaginary” or “unreal” have the potential to destabilize, interrogate, revitalize, and, indeed, haunt and animate what it is we regard as “real” and “true?” How is the eccentric (ex-center) the true center? How is the strange and discarded the new essential?

For this month’s F-Bomb, you are invited to reflect on these themes in your writing. In the spirit of All Hallows’ Eve, readers and guests alike are welcomed to dress in costume! Feel free to dress as your alter ego/egos (they could be figures from the past, from the present, fictional or real, familial or futural, from cartoons or movies, from childhood or current adult imaginings) and speak to them or even as them in your writing. Maybe the “ghosts” that haunt us (and not always in a negative way) and the ghosts that we ourselves worry about becoming intersect to holistically envelope—to accept and (g)host—who we are.

Join us at Mercury Café on Tuesday October 17 at 7:30 PM! Four-minute open mic spots available to share your work, on theme or not.

HOST JOMIL EBRO is a professor of Composition, Creative Writing, and Journalism, Philosophy and the Humanities at Arapahoe Community College. His Ph.D. is in Comparative Literature and Consciousness Studies from the University of Iowa, where he also trained at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. At New York University, he received an M.A. in Communication and an M.A. in Cultural Studies. His poetry and critical essays include “Seizure of Happiness, Or, Two Almonds” in Cobra Milk (Fall 2020); “A State of Otonomy: Henry Miller’s Obscene Autobiographical Form” in the Modern Horizons Journal (June 2018); “The Calligraphy of Trees: Towards an Ethics of ‘Mysreading’ in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy” in the Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies Vol. 3, Issue 2 (February 2018); “I’ll-iterate Thinking: Poetry, Perception, and the Dissolution of Center/Periphery Duality” in the Peripheral Matters Journal from the City University of New York (CUNY, Fall 2017); and “The Nearness of Elsewhere: Place and the Ethics of Remembrance in The Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin and Li Po” in the Modern Horizons Journal (June 2012). 

FEATURED READER STEVEN DUNN a.k.a. Pothole (cuz he’s deep in these streets) is the author of two novels, Potted Meat and water & power. His third novel, Tannery Bay, is co-written with his homie Katie Jean Shinkle, is forthcoming from FC2 in February 2024. He teaches in the MFA programs at Regis University and Stetson University.

A graduate of the University of Northern Colorado, FEATURED READER BRIAN A.S. BYRDSONG is the author of a short story collection titled, The Queerest Touch. He is also the creator and writer of “A Byrd Mind“, a fiction anthology podcast. When he’s not writing, spending time with his husband or “parenting” his adorable cats, Brian can often be seen around town (and sometimes out of it), performing as the bearded drag diva, Shamy Lee. Brian aims to bring fantasy to the mundanity of life using the power of the written word and the magic of drag.

September F-bomb: Tuesday 9/19, Hosted by Jamey Trotter featuring Brian Dickson

F-bomb returns on Tuesday 9/19 to the Mercury Cafe at 7:30 pm (apologies if our previously listed time was confusing). Our host will be the inimitable long-time F-bomber Jamey Trotter! Our featured reader will be Brian Dickson. In honor of our featured reader, the theme of the show is:
-Mile high musings / escapades
-city street minutiae 
-humanity’s hive

…of course, writer/readers do not have to follow the theme, it’s just there for you in case you need that spark. Limited Open Mic slots (max of 4 minutes) open to all until filled! We are a welcoming group and embrace all, from the newbie to the jaded. No entry fee. Show starts at 7:30 and ends around 9:30 with an intermission.  

Jamey Trotter is an OG FBomber who writes on the sidelines of his daughters’ soccer practices (if he’s not grading papers or chasing the toddler who enjoys putting himself in harm’s way), and teaches writing and literature at a local college. As the annual Virgo host, he strives to produce a unique experience for a (hopefully) large audience, consisting of students new and former, of friends and family. Set those tacos aside—you can always have Taco Thursday, ya know?—and get your ass down to Fbomb!

Trotter on the Featured Reader: Brian Dickson is a poet of the streets of Denver. Literally. He roams concrete paths without clear direction, stopping to capture unique refuse imagery with the lens, the particular sound the bounce of a basketball makes on a specific court. Dickson’s poetry, prose, and photography provide the reader an opportunity to take in the Mile High City through a lens that connects humanity’s mundaneness and urban necessity to beauty usually only found within. 

He’s also just a nice fuckin’ guy, a fellow community college professor, keeping the torch of empowerment through creativity, through writing, aflame in the hearts & minds of students who wander down those same sidewalks and into his classroom.                                                                           

August F-Bomb: 8/15 at Mercury Cafe, Hosted by Leah Rogin and Featuring Aerik Francis

Join us on Tuesday August 15 at Mercury Cafe for the next F-bomb! The show starts at 7:30 PM, with long-time F-bomber Leah Rogin hosting and Aerik Francis featuring. Plus, open mic spots available for those wanting to share their work. Please join us if you can!

FEATURED READER AERIK FRANCIS is a Queer Black & Latinx poet based in Denver, Colorado. They are the author of the poetry chapbook MISEDUCATION (NDR 2023), named the winner of the 2022 New Delta Review Chapbook Prize, and poetry chapbook BODYELECTRONIC (Trouble Department 2022). Aerik is the recipient of poetry fellowships from SAFTA, The Chrysalis Institute, CantoMundo, and The Watering Hole. Their website phaentompoet.com includes more of their work.

HOST LEAH ROGIN spends an inordinate amount of energy trying to imagine appropriate metaphors for time and to spend the fleeting moments enjoying being a hairy bag of sentient meat water on a dying planet. She was a college professor for nearly 20 years before riding the Covid train to the next station. She lives in the mountains west of Denver with a cat, two dogs, a frog, a passel of sea monkeys and what might be dragon fly nymphs she fished out of Bear Creek, as well as children and other creatures. Her first published novel Burying Norma Jeane is out with Blackwater Press in Summer 2024. You can find more info about it at https://www.instagram.com/whereisnormajeane/

July F-bomb: 7/18 at The Merc, Hosted by Kona Morris and Featuring Rob Geisen

The F-bomb returns to Mercury Cafe on Tuesday July 18 at 7:30 PM. Our host for July will be the ever popular Kona Morris, with featured reader Rob Geisen celebrating the release of his book I Don’t Think This Is Going To Help (Boulder Poetry Scene Press). Plus, a special musical performance by Girls Just Wanna Have Us!

4-5 minute open mic spots are available, so be sure to get there early to sign up! This Months Theme = Things you don’t think are going to help.

HOST KONA MORRIS is a writer, storyteller, and comedian. She has performed at storytelling events for The Moth, and most recently for the live RISK! show at The Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles. She was a regular on Monday Night Live L.A., a starring cast member of Denver’s Live Drunk History Comedy Troupe, and the Founder and Head Writer of the satirical comic book company Godless Comics. Kona has been featured at events around the world, and her stories have appeared in a variety of publications. https://www.instagram.com/kona_morris/

https://www.youtube.com/@konamorris

https://www.facebook.com/konamorris/

http://konamorris.com/

FEATURED READER ROB GEISEN is the author of Beautiful Graveyards, Paper Thin, Avenge Me, The Aftermatch etc, and the forthcoming I Don’t Think This Is Going to Help. He plays guitar and broken-romantic for the pop-poetry band Girls Just Wanna Have Us. Once upon a time he was the co-host of a weekly open mic series that took place at Album’s Bistro, The Burnt Toast, and The No Name Bar in Boulder, Colorado on The Hill. Currently, he’s focused on writing science fiction novels and learning everything there is to learn about the 1979 Disney classic The Black Hole.