In this panel discussion Pettit, Leidner, McDonnell, and Stone will discuss their recent poetry, fiction, and comic publications in conjunction with specific and intimate outside influences, inspirations, imitations, and inquiries. They will present examples of the ideas, authors, forms, and practices which helped them generate their own most recent work, as well as discuss how writers might discover creative motivation in the world around them. Participants will leave with a list of recommended art, literature, music, film, and other imagination-sparking influences.

Emily Pettit is the author of Goat in the Snow, a book of poetry, and the editor of notnostrums and Factory Hollow Press, as well as the publisher of jubilat. She teaches poetry workshops at Flying Object in Hadley, Massachusetts. Mark Leidner is the author of Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me, a book of poetry, and The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover, a book of aphorisms. Madeline McDonnell is the author of a tiny collection of short stories, There Is Something Inside, It Wants to Get Out, and teaches for both the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. Bianca Stone is the author of the poetry comic I Want To Open the Mouth God Gave You Beautiful Mutant. She recently collaborated with Anne Carson on Antigonick, a comic and translation.