Occidental Center for the Arts Literary Series presents Autumn Muses, An Afternoon with poets, Marjorie Stein, Kathleen Winter, Claire Drucker and Todd Melicker. Join us for a relaxed Autumn afternoon of poetry from our four esteemed poet friends, with tea and cookies! This free event will include selected readings by each poet, with handpan interludes from Judith Lerner, followed by audience Q&A, book sales & signing.
About the Poets
Marjorie Stein is the author of unRavel, which was selected by Elaine Equi for the 2025 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize An Atlas of Lost Causes, Marjorie’s first book, was published by Kelsey Street Press in 2011. Another poetry project, In the Hinges of the World, was shortlisted for the Lost Horse Press 2020 Idaho Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming in American Poetry Journal, Blood Orange Review, The Denver Quarterly, Interim, Marsh Hawk Press Chapter One Series, Mary, New American Writing, VOLT, and other publications. Marjorie lives in Northern California, with her wife, where she is privileged to spend time playing with words.
Kathleen Winter is the author of Transformer, I will not kick my friends, and Nostalgia for the Criminal Past. Her collection Serial Fabulist is forthcoming from Texas Review Press in early 2027. Her poems have appeared in The New Republic, The New Statesman, Cincinnati Review, Agni, Yale Review, Gulf Coast, Tupelo Quarterly, and Michigan Quarterly Review. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Texas Institute of Letters, the University of Texas at Austin, Heinrich Böll Cottage, Maison Dora Maar, Cill Rialaig Project, James Merrill House, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Awards include the Poetry Society of America The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award and the Rochelle Ratner Memorial Prize. Kathleen lives in Glen Ellen, California.
Claire Drucker is the current Sonoma County Poet Laureate. She is a Jewish lesbian mom, educational consultant, poet, and dancer. Her first book-length collection of poems, The Life You Gave Me, was published in 2023 by Kelsay Books. Her chapbook, The Fluid Body, was published in 2014 by Finishing Line Press. Claire’s poems have been published in numerous journals, including CA Quarterly, Jewish Literary Journal, Rust & Moth, Epiphany, Puerto del Sol and Women Artists Datebook. She taught English at Santa Rosa Junior College for many years and was also a poet-teacher with CA Poets in the Schools. She is currently the poetry curator for The Sitting Room, a community library dedicated to women’s literature and art in Penngrove.
Todd Melicker is the author of rendezvous (Winner of the Black Box Poetry Prize, Rescue Press) and is this the body / if hovers (lyric& Press). Originally from the Northern Sierra, he lives with his family in Sonoma County.