Give Praise: A Celebration of Texas Poet Laureate Amanda Johnston, 7PM

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.

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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 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.

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.