Past Event
About
Gulf Coast Reading Series featuring Christopher Hewitt, James Braun, Ona Akinde, and Randall Tyrone.
Ona Akinde is a Nigerian writer, born and raised in Lagos. Her work has appeared in Xray Lit Mag, Oyster River Pages, Arts and Africa, and other publications. She is currently an MFA Fiction candidate in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, where she serves as an Assistant Nonfiction Editor for Gulf Coast and the Graduate Advisor for Glass Mountain. She is also a recipient of the Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellowship.
James Braun‘s work has appeared in the Missouri Review, Fiction International, Puerto del Sol, DIAGRAM, filling Station, Bayou Magazine, and elsewhere. Braun is a 2024 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he won the John Logan Poetry Prize.
Christopher Hewitt was raised in Dallas, Texas, and lived for many years in California and New York State before coming to Houston. His first book The Summer After was selected as the winner of the 2024 New Criterion Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Able Muse, The Adroit Journal, The New Criterion, 32 Poems, and elsewhere.
Randall J. Tyrone holds an MFA from the University of Wyoming. His poems have appeared in Electric Literature’s Okey-Panky, Oversound Poetry, Indiana Review, Southern Indiana Review and Nomadic Press. He has been anthologized in the Bodies Built For A Game Anthology by Prairie Schooner. His work is forthcoming in Gulf Coast. He has received a scholarship to attend the Tin House Summer Workshop and was awarded the Bentley-Buckman Poetry Fellowship to attend the Writers Week at the Idyllwild Arts Foundation. His forthcoming collection City of Dis will be released in Fall 2025 by Texas Review Press. Currently, he leads Writers Who Aren’t Writing, a collective where Houston-area writers and artists gather to workshop their writing, exchange ideas, and find community support. He’s very excited for you.
Series
Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts presents the poetry and prose of UH graduate students, paired with prominent featured visiting writers, at Lawndale Art Center. Participating students come from the MFA and PhD programs in Creative Writing. The monthly Gulf Coast Reading Series supports the journal’s mission to spotlight the work of both esteemed and emerging writers with voices as diverse as the Gulf itself.