The August edition of the new Bridge Open Readings series and Open Mic will take place at the Open Books Pilsen store, 905 W. 19th St. on Saturday, August 26th from 3-5pm. Readings and open mics will be recorded and archived at bridge-chicago.org. Readers for our August edition are:

Meghan Lamb, in addition to serving as Bridge Fiction Editor, is also author of COWARD (2022), Failure to Thrive (2021) All of Your Most Private Places (2020) and Silk Flowers (2017). She served as the Philip Roth Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University, and teaches creative writing through the University of Chicago, Story Studio, and GrubStreet. Her work has appeared in Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, Redivider, and Passages North, among other publications. She runs the shadow text reading series Significant Others, a project dedicated to elevating new books and the “behind-the scenes” texts that inspired them. In addition to being the fiction editor for the Bridge Journal, she serves as the nonfiction editor of Nat. Brut, a Whiting Award-winning journal of art and literature dedicated to advancing inclusivity in all creative fields. She is also the front woman of Kill Scenes: an 80s horror film-inspired dark wave band.

Stacy Hardy is a writer, researcher and editor whose work explores the intersections of embodiment, the individual, and society. Her writing has appeared in various anthologies and journals including the New Orleans Review, New Contrasts, The Evergreen Review, Black Sun Lit and many more. Her first short fiction collection, Because the Night, was published by Pocko, London in 2015, and An Archaeology of Holes, was released in translation by Rot-Bo-Krik in France in 2022. Her plays and librettos have been performed globally. Hardy is also a lecturer in creative writing, an editor at pan-African platform Chimurenga, a partner in African creative writing teaching initiative Saseni, and a founder of Ukuthula, a project that develops new writing from and against gender-based violence. She is currently a visiting  fellow at The University of Chicago, where she is collaborating with anthropologist Kaushik Sunder Rajan, poet Daniel Borzutzky, and musician Neo Muyanga to build “breathing machines,” new multi-and-interdisciplinary forms and forums for the expression of collectivity through the act of conspiring together.

Hosted by Bridge Editor-in-Chief Michael Workman. Readings start at 3, and the open mic after. For the open mic portion, please plan on reading no more than 10-15 minutes, max. All readings will be archived and available for streaming at the Bridge website in the readings archive.

Readings from 3-4pm; walk-in readers welcome from 3-4pm