Join Torch Literary Arts at the Carver Museum for this special National Poetry Month event celebrating Texas Poet Laureate and Torch Founder, Amanda Johnston. Johnston is the founder and executive director of Torch Literary Arts and the first Black woman to hold the position of Texas Poet Laureate.
Special guests will share remarks and original works.
This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Amanda Johnston is a writer, visual artist, and the 2024 Texas Poet Laureate. She has over 20 years of experience in nonprofit management and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, The Moth Radio Hour, Bill Moyers, Poetry Magazine, The Rumpus, and the anthologies, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from the Academy of American Poets, Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, American Short Fiction, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. She is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, cofounder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder of Torch Literary Arts.
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an award-winning, multi-hyphenate literary artist, director, performer, critic and the first Black Poet Laureate of Houston, TX. Formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World (PSI), Her work has appeared in Houston Noir by Akashic Press (2019), Black Girl Magic by Haymarket Books (2019), the Texas Observer, and Fjords Journal, and on such platforms as NPR, BBC, ABC, Apple News, Blavity, Upworthy, and across the TedX circuit. Honored by Houston Business Journal as a part of their 2021 40 Under 40 class, She has served as a contributing writer to Texas Monthly, Glamour Magazine, Muzzle, and ESPN’s Andscape.
KB Brookins is a Black queer and trans writer, educator, and cultural worker from Texas. KB’s chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut collectionFreedom House won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s memoir Pretty (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024) won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award and the Dorothy Allison/Felice Picano Emerging Writer Award. Follow them online at @earthtokb.
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Torch Magazine has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events.
This event was made possible with support from the City of Austin Economic Development Department, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, and the Carver Museum.
Won't you celebrate with us?
Please consider donating to support Torch in honor of the occasion and help fuel our flame for generations to come.
Celebrate Herstory
$25.00 - Celebrate Amanda being the first Black woman to serve as Texas Poet Laureate.
Winner's Circle
$50.00 - Celebrate Torch receiving the inaugural AWP Writing Organization Award in 2025.
Features
$75.00 - Join the excitement for Torch publishing the work of a Black woman writer every Friday in Torch Magazine (online). Torch Magazine has featured emerging and established Texas writers including LaToya Watkins, Lisa B. Thompson, Debora DEEP Mouton, Ebony Stewart, and Andrea Vocab Sanderson.
Trailblazer
$100.00 - Honor how Torch helps to light a path for Black women writers to have their voices, stories, and perspectives heard and held here in the U.S. and abroad. For two straight years, Torch Magazine has been recognized by the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses.
About This Event
Join Torch Literary Arts at the Carver Museum for this special National Poetry Month event celebrating Texas Poet Laureate and Torch Founder, Amanda Johnston. Johnston is the founder and executive director of Torch Literary Arts and the first Black woman to hold the position of Texas Poet Laureate.
Special guests will share remarks and original works.
This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
Amanda Johnston is a writer, visual artist, and the 2024 Texas Poet Laureate. She has over 20 years of experience in nonprofit management and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key, and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter. Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, Callaloo, Poetry Magazine, The Moth Radio Hour, Bill Moyers, Poetry Magazine, The Rumpus, and the anthologies, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. She has received fellowships, grants, and awards from the Academy of American Poets, Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, Tasajillo, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, The Watermill Center, American Short Fiction, and the Austin International Poetry Festival. She is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, cofounder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder of Torch Literary Arts.
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an award-winning, multi-hyphenate literary artist, director, performer, critic and the first Black Poet Laureate of Houston, TX. Formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World (PSI), Her work has appeared in Houston Noir by Akashic Press (2019), Black Girl Magic by Haymarket Books (2019), the Texas Observer, and Fjords Journal, and on such platforms as NPR, BBC, ABC, Apple News, Blavity, Upworthy, and across the TedX circuit. Honored by Houston Business Journal as a part of their 2021 40 Under 40 class, She has served as a contributing writer to Texas Monthly, Glamour Magazine, Muzzle, and ESPN’s Andscape.
KB Brookins is a Black queer and trans writer, educator, and cultural worker from Texas. KB’s chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut collectionFreedom House won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s memoir Pretty (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024) won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award and the Dorothy Allison/Felice Picano Emerging Writer Award. Follow them online at @earthtokb.
Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women. We publish contemporary writing by experienced and emerging writers alike. Torch Magazine has featured work by Colleen J. McElroy, Tayari Jones, Sharon Bridgforth, Crystal Wilkinson, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, and others. Programs include the Wildfire Reading Series, writing workshops, retreats, and special events.
This event was made possible with support from the City of Austin Economic Development Department, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, and the Carver Museum.
Won't you celebrate with us?
Please consider donating to support Torch in honor of the occasion and help fuel our flame for generations to come.
Celebrate Herstory
$25.00 - Celebrate Amanda being the first Black woman to serve as Texas Poet Laureate.
Winner's Circle
$50.00 - Celebrate Torch receiving the inaugural AWP Writing Organization Award in 2025.
Features
$75.00 - Join the excitement for Torch publishing the work of a Black woman writer every Friday in Torch Magazine (online). Torch Magazine has featured emerging and established Texas writers including LaToya Watkins, Lisa B. Thompson, Debora DEEP Mouton, Ebony Stewart, and Andrea Vocab Sanderson.
Trailblazer
$100.00 - Honor how Torch helps to light a path for Black women writers to have their voices, stories, and perspectives heard and held here in the U.S. and abroad. For two straight years, Torch Magazine has been recognized by the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses.
Getting There
The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center
1165 Angelina St.
Austin, Texas 78702
United States
