Steven Reigns

Inheritance (Lethe Press) A launch party for the latest poetry collection by this acclaimed local poet! "Steven Reigns explores the inexhaustible power of family to affect our lives and loves, and does so in a candid yet passionate manner remarkable for its evocative and wounding moments." --Wanda Coleman, author of Heavy Daughter Blues and Mercurochrome: New Poems "This is such a naked book. It falls neatly into no school of poetry, nor does 'gay poetry' sum it up. I turned the pages of Inheritance pretty hungrily, glad to encounter such honesty about a gay life lived with pleasure and bitterness and companionability." --Eileen Myles, author of Sorry, Tree and Skies Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles-based poet and educator. His newest collection, Inheritance, came out in 2010 by Lethe Press. After earning a degree in Creative Writing at the University of South Florida, he published his début poetry collection, Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat, in 2001. Since then, Reigns has published four chapbooks: Ignited, Cartography, In the Room, and As if Memories Were Not Enough. A two-time recipient of The Los Angeles County’s Department of Cultural Affairs' Artist in Residency Grant, Reigns organized and taught the first-ever autobiography poetry workshop for GLBT seniors and edited an anthology of their writings, My Life is Poetry. He has taught writing workshop around the country to GLBT youth and people living with HIV and recently received his Masters in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University. Currently he is involved with S(t)even Years, a 7-year endurance performance under the mentorship of performance artist Linda Montano. Visit him at www.stevenreigns.com. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MAY 23, 2010.