Join us for a special evening at Black Pearl Books featuring Tiana Clark, author of Scortch Earth, and Donika Kelly, author of The Natural Order of Things!
Date: November 6, 2025
Time: 7:00 p.m. CT
Location: Black Pearl Books, 7112 Burnet Rd, Austin, TX 78757
This event is free and open to the public. Donations are appreciated.
Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collections Scorched Earth; I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, which won the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize; and Equilibrium, which won the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Clark’s other honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State University, where she studied Africana and women’s studies. She is the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College. Find out more at TianaClark.com.
Donika Kelly is the author of The Natural Order of Things, The Renunciations, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary, the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a Kate Tufts Discovery Award. A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and Pushcart Prize winner. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing.
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 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, and retreats.
This event was made possible with support from the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, the Austin Community Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and Black Pearl Books.
Won't you celebrate with us?
Please consider donating to support Torch and help fuel our flame for generations to come.
Celebrate Herstory
$25.00 - Celebrate the vast contributions of Black women writers throughout history.
Winner's Circle
$50.00 - Celebrate Torch receiving the inaugural AWP Writing Organization Award in 2025.
Features
$75.00 - Torch Magazine has featured emerging and established writers, including LaToya Watkins, Lisa B. Thompson, Debora DEEP Mouton, Ebony Stewart, Sapphire, 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. Torch Magazine has been recognized by the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses.
About This Event
Join us for a special evening at Black Pearl Books featuring Tiana Clark, author of Scortch Earth, and Donika Kelly, author of The Natural Order of Things!
Date: November 6, 2025
Time: 7:00 p.m. CT
Location: Black Pearl Books, 7112 Burnet Rd, Austin, TX 78757
This event is free and open to the public. Donations are appreciated.
Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collections Scorched Earth; I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, which won the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize; and Equilibrium, which won the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Clark’s other honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State University, where she studied Africana and women’s studies. She is the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College. Find out more at TianaClark.com.
Donika Kelly is the author of The Natural Order of Things, The Renunciations, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary, the winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a Kate Tufts Discovery Award. A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and Pushcart Prize winner. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of Iowa, where she teaches creative writing.
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 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, and retreats.
This event was made possible with support from the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, the Austin Community Foundation, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and Black Pearl Books.
Won't you celebrate with us?
Please consider donating to support Torch and help fuel our flame for generations to come.
Celebrate Herstory
$25.00 - Celebrate the vast contributions of Black women writers throughout history.
Winner's Circle
$50.00 - Celebrate Torch receiving the inaugural AWP Writing Organization Award in 2025.
Features
$75.00 - Torch Magazine has featured emerging and established writers, including LaToya Watkins, Lisa B. Thompson, Debora DEEP Mouton, Ebony Stewart, Sapphire, 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. Torch Magazine has been recognized by the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses.
Getting There
Black Pearl Books
7112 Burnet Rd.
Austin, Texas 78757
United States
