Hello! We are excited to announce our springtime of 2021 Open Mic, which will connect our local community with the international community. On Saturday, March 27th, 7pm EST our program director Sean Lynch, and the Puppet Laureate of Camden Rocky Wilson, will stream live from the Nick Virgilio Writer’s House. They will be joined by renowned haiku poet Hifsa Ashraf from Pakistan.

The reading will still take place virtually, so anyone can join and read in the open mic.

You can register for the zoom link and sign up for the open mic reading by clicking the link below.

Hifsa Ashraf lives in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. She is one of the finalists for the Sable Books Contest 2020 for women, and an award-winning poet, and a story writer. She is an editor and a founder of a bilingual online magazine ‘Saawan Rut’ that is for the promotion of the short forms of creative writing. She is also an editor of the Haiku Commentary blog. She writes poetry in English, Urdu, and Punjabi. Her first individual chapbook about workplace Islamophobia is Working with Demons by Proletaria Publishing, Singapore. Her first collaborative chapbook with Alan Summers is The Comfort of Crows by Velvet Dusk Publishing, USA. Her two books about women issues Her Fading Henna Tattoo and Running After Shadows by Human/Kind Publishing Press, USA and available on Amazon. Please visit her blog to view her published work. http://hifsays.blogspot.com or follow her on twitter at @hifsays

Rocky Wilson is a poet, performance artist and Walt Whitman interpreter. For over 25 years, the author has hosted PIZZA AND POETRY, one of the longest running poetry series in New Jersey and in 2019, received the Camden County Freedom Medal for his celebration of the city. “Rocky Wilson is not just the muse of Camden, New Jersey, the poorest city in these rich, un-united states, he is its soul…” Peter Murphy, Stockton University.