Events & Announcements

Save the dates for these Center for Literary Arts events, and check back or keep an eye on our Instagram and our Facebook group for links and further details. 

Please join us at these Fall 2025 Center for Literary Arts Events 

(fuller descriptions below) 

9/25: Savage Mountain Punk Arts Poetry Slam featuring Lori Jakiela, Clatter, 7 PM

9/26: Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh, Main Street Books (2 E. Main St.), 7 PM 

Followed by The Downstrokes at the Deep End (16 W. Main St.)

9/27: Indie Lit panels, workshops, readings and a small-press book fair, 11-5 

Open Mic hosted by Chuck Joy, Clatter, 6 PM 

10/4: Coffee with a Writer: Jennifer Browne, Center for Literary Arts, 10 AM 

10/23: Jennifer Sutherland, Main Street Books*, 7:30 PM 

11/1: Coffee with a Writer: Len Shindel, Center for Literary Arts, 10 AM 

11/8: One-Act Play Festival, Palace Theatre (31. E. Main St.), 7 PM

11/20: David Alberto Fernández, Lewis J. Ort Library (3rd Floor), 7:30 PM

12/6: Coffee with a Writer: Brad Barkley, Center for Literary Arts, 10 AM 

Reading Series 

9/26: Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh 

Indie Lit Kickoff Reading, Main Street Books (2 E. Main St.), 7 PM 

Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh (she/they) is a biracial Nisei and the author of five volumes of poetry, most recently tsunami vs. the fukushima 50 (Milkweed Editions, 2019), named a “Best Book of 2019” by the New York Public Library and listed as a poetry finalist in the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards. Her fiction collection, Reveal Codes, winner of the Moon City Press Short Fiction Award, was published by Moon City Press in 2023, and their chapbook, #stringofbeads, a winner of the Diode Chapbook Competition, was published by Diode Press in 2023. Her book of lyric essays, unMothered, unTongued, winner of the Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction in the 2024 AWP Award Series, was published by the University of Georgia Press in September 2025.

10/23: Jennifer Sutherland 

Main Street Books*, 7:30 PM 

Jennifer A Sutherland is the author of Bullet Points: A Lyric, a finalist for Foreword Indies Poetry Book of the Year and the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur, and the forthcoming collection, House of Myth and Necessity. Her work has appeared or will soon appear in Plume, Arcturus (Chicago Review of Books), Chicago Quarterly, Birmingham Poetry Review, EPOCH, Hopkins Review, Best New Poets, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is a Hollins MFA graduate and she lives and works in Baltimore.

11/20: David Alberto Fernández

Lewis J. Ort Library (3rd Floor), 7:30 PM 

David Alberto Fernández (b.1972) is a poet based in Washington DC who was born in Miami, Florida to Cuban parents. He published his novel Alexstasia in 1997, was a sports editor for the Avery Journal in North Carolina (2001-2002), translated and co-edited the non-fiction works Anarchism in Cuba (2001) and Proof of Contact (2004), and published the poetry chapbook Flowers beyond here (2020). He has worked as a librarian at the Library of Congress for over 20 years.

Festivals 

9/25-9/27: Western Maryland Independent Literature Festival (Indie Lit) 

Indie Lit celebrates the writers, publishers, and readers of small press and independent publishing. The weekend features a poetry slam, readings, roundtable discussions, practical “how to” sessions, and a small press book fair in Frostburg, Maryland.

Savage Mountain Punk Arts Poetry Slam featuring Lori Jakiela 

Thursday 9/25, 7 PM, Clatter (15 S. Broadway)

Lori Jakiela is the author of seven books, most recently They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So (Atticus Books). Her memoir, Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe (Atticus Books/Autumn House Press) received the Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University in 2016, and her latest poetry collection, How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen? Poems at Mid-Life, won the Wicked Woman Prize from Brickhouse Books in 2022. Her work has been published in The New York Times/Modern Love column, The Washington Post, Pittsburgh Magazine, Pittsburgh Quarterly, The Chicago Tribune, LA Cultural Weekly, Brevity, Lit Hub, and more. She directs the undergraduate writing program at The University of Pittsburgh's Greensburg campus and lives in Trafford, Pa. with her husband (and author) Dave Newman, their two children, one rescue rabbit (Waxahatchee Kardashian), and a very spoiled poodle named Dinkus/***. Her author website is http://lorijakiela.net.

Indie Lit Kickoff Reading featuring Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh 

Friday 9/26, 7 PM, Main Street Books (2 E. Main St.)

Followed by rock and roll with The Downstrokes at the Deep End (16 W. Main St.)

Panels, workshops, readings and a small-press book fair

Saturday 9/27, 11-5 

City Place (14 S. Water St), Mountain City Traditional Arts (25 E. Main St.) and the Frostburg Public Library (65 E. Main St.), 

See the CLA website for a list of authors and publishers attending the book fair and for a table of individual Saturday events. 

Open Mic Hosted by Chuck Joy

Saturday 9/27, 6 PM, Clatter

See https://www.frostburg.edu/center-for-literary-arts/Festivals/indie-lit-festival.php for updates. 

11/8: One-Act Play Festival 

The Palace Theatre (31. E. Main St.), 7 PM 

features staged readings and production of three new one-act plays, the winning plays of our One-Act Playwriting Competition; a talkback with writers, actors, and directors. 

Coffee with a Writer

These informal readings and wide-ranging, organic discussions begin at 10 AM in the Center for Literary Arts, RM 237 Lewis J. Ort Library

10/4: Jennifer Browne 

Jennifer Browne is the author of American Crow (Beltway Editions) and the poetry chapbooks Before: After (Pure Sleeze Press), In a Period of Absence, a Lake (Origami Poems Project), whisper song (tiny wren publishing) and The Salt of the Geologic World (Bottlecap Press). Her poems have recently appeared in Untelling: The Literary and Art Magazine of Hindman Settlement School, Gulf Stream Magazine, and Steel Jackdaw. She directs the Center for Literary Arts at Frostburg State University, where she has taught since 2008. Her students frequently describe her as “passionate,” “knowledgeable,” and “boring.” Find her at linktr.ee/jenniferabrowne. 

11/1: Len Shindel

Len Shindel began working at Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point Plant in 1973, where he was a union activist and elected representative in local unions of the United Steelworkers. He frequently published newsletters about issues confronting his co-workers. His nonfiction and poetry have been featured in numerous publications. After leaving Sparrows Point in 2002 after Bethlehem’s bankruptcy, Shindel, a father of three and grandfather of seven, began working as a communication specialist for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in Washington, D.C. The International Labor Communications Association frequently awarded his writing. He retired from the IBEW in 2014 and moved to Garrett County. After relocating, Shindel led efforts to win a state historic road marker commemorating the Garrett County Road Workers Strike of 1970. In 2025, he published “The Strike that Changed Maryland’s Wilderness County.” Information, photos and interviews about the strike can be reviewed at www.garrettroadstrike.com. A master naturalist at Deep Creek State Park, Shindel enjoys writing, cross-country skiing, kayaking, hiking, and fighting for a more peaceful, sustainable and safe world for his grandchildren and their generation.

12/6: Brad Barkley 

Brad Barkley is the author of the novels Money, Love and Alison's Automotive Repair Manual, two collections of short stories, and three YA novels with Penguin (including Scrambled Eggs at Midnight).  His work has been translated into five languages. His short stories have appeared in 40+ magazines, including Fractured Lit, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, and USA Today.  He’s won numerous awards, including Four Individual Artist Awards from the State of Maryland, and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

All Center for Literary Arts events are supported by the Allegany Arts Council, the Community Trust Foundation, the City of Frostburg, MD, the Lewis J. Ort Library, and several offices at Frostburg State University, including the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Department of English and Foreign Languages.

FSU is committed to making all of its programs, services, and activities accessible to persons with disabilities. You may request accommodation through the Americans with Disabilities Act Compliance Office, 301.687.3035, TDD 301.687.7955.

FSU's campus parking lots are open to all in the evening, no permit required.

Some past Center for Literary Arts Events have been archived on YouTube.