So happy to have Chris Gabbard read with us at JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival on Saturday, October 13th.

Chris Gabbard teaches courses in British Enlightenment literature, Disability Studies in the Humanities, and creative nonfiction at UNF. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and moved to Jacksonville in 2001. From 1983 to 1989, he was the chief editor of The Short Story Review. More recently, he has published on disability issues appearing in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. In 2019, Bloomsbury Press will publish a book he is coediting, A Cultural History of Disability in the Long Eighteenth Century. Also in 2019, Beacon Press will publish A Life Beyond Reason: A Father’s Memoir about his significantly impaired son, August.

We are grateful to Cultivate, one of our beautiful JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival venues. Check’em out!

Cultivate is your neighborhood homestead & urban supply store with a commitment to U S made, healthy-lifestyle products for every stage of the place you call home. Enjoy a selection of carefully curated goods for your garden, house and child. You will find items to assist you in planting your garden and beautifying your home as well as creating in your kitchen with style and ease. We also offer engaging toys and all natural clothing for young children, and more.

Carmen Calatayud is the daughter of a Spanish immigrant father and Irish immigrant mother. Her book In the Company of Spirits was a runner-up for the Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award, and a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Book Prize. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies, and her writing has won a Best of La Bloga Award and a Larry Neal Poetry Award. From 2010-2015, Carmen was a poet moderator for Poets Responding, a Facebook group that featured poetry and news about Arizona’s 2010 immigration law that legalized racial profiling, and now focuses on a variety of human rights issues.

Carmen will read at JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival on Saturday, October 13. Very exciting!

We are thrilled to welcome poet Ben Atkinson to the JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival on Saturday October 13, 2018.

Ben Atkinson writes poetry to capture moments that transcend the mundane. Active with Ancient City Poets, Ben often reads his work at the Corazon Cinema and Café in St. Augustine. He also reads locally at several venues around town in Jacksonville. Ben holds a Ph.D. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida. He likes turtles. Ben is an assistant professor of natural sciences at Flagler College. His first collection of poems, “Spider Lightning” is underway. Ben lives in Avondale with his wife Meg, daughter Zoe, rescue mutt Marley, and a son who’s due to debut soon.