Iowa City poets Chad Abushanab and Kam Hilliard will read from their recent poetry collections.

Chad Abushanab is the author of The Last Visit, winner of the 2018 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. Jericho Brown praised “the speaker’s search for self and struggles with drink after surviving a childhood laden with domestic violence… I really do believe in this book and find it extraordinary as an early twenty-first century debut. ” Abushanab’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Believer, Best New Poets, Ecotone, Southern Poetry Review, and 32 Poems, among others. He earned his PhD in literature and creative writing at Texas Tech University. He is an associate editor at Iron Horse Literary Review. 

Writers’ Workshop student Kam Hilliard is the author of the chapbooks Perceived Distance from Impact and Distress Tolerance. Of their work, Ploughshares wrote: “Hilliard is preparing for their future—and preparing us to face ours—with their saints of the past and saints of the present leading the way.” Hilliard’s work has appeared in West Branch, Salt Hill, Entropy, and elsewhere. They currently serve as a poetry editor for Jellyfish Magazine, and are a member of the Big Lucks chapbook editorial squad. They studied at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.