Calling all fans of poetry, tragedy, horror, and Bay Area lit for an introduction to the poignant and sometimes macabre world of dark poetry! Come hear award-winning local author Sumiko Saulson read from their Bram Stoker Nominated poetry collection, The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry. The reading will be followed by an audience Q&A with Saulson and a discussion on how poetry can be used to explore the darker side of life.
Sumiko Saulson is a Bram Stoker Nominated poet for their 2022 collection The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry (Dooky Zines), and an award-winning author of Afrosurrealist and multicultural sci-fi and horror whose latest novel Happiness and Other Diseases is available on Mocha Memoirs Press. They are also the winner of the HWA Scholarship from Hell (2016) BCC Voice "Reframing the Other" contest (2017), Mixy Award (2017), Afrosurrealist Writer Award (2018), HWA Diversity Grant (2020), HWA Richard Laymon Presidents Award (2021), and Ladies of Horror Fiction Readers’ Choice Award (2021). Sumiko has an AA in English from Berkeley City College, writes a column called "Writing While Black" for a national Black Newspaper, the San Francisco BayView is the host of the SOMA Leather and LGBT Cultural District's "Erotic Storytelling Hour," and teaches courses at the Speculative Fiction Academy.