
Thank you to Tammy Paolino and the Collingswood Book Festival for inviting us to read. And thank you to these wonderful poets for representing The Night Heron Barks.
Lineup
Elizabeth Catanese
Elizabeth Catanese is a writer and artist who holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College and Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. Her poems have most recently appeared in Ran Off With the Star Bassoon, The Night Heron Barks, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, The Stillwater Review, OVS, Anomalous Press, Referential Magazine, and Calx, and her most recent books include, The College of Mindfulness Workbook (Kendall Hunt, 2021), A Student’s Companion for How to Write Anything (Macmillan, 2019), Steam Jobs You’ll Love: Architecture and Construction (Rourke, 2018) and Mt. Olympus Theme Park (ABDO, 2021). As a visual artist, Elizabeth’s mixed media paintings and installations have been exhibited in galleries at the College of Saint Elizabeth, Brn Mawr College, Mercer County College, and the Philadelphia Sketch Club. Her Instagram account @singlemomtwins provides a cartoon chronicle of her life as a parent. Elizabeth lives in Philadelphia with her toddler sons and is an associate professor of English at Community College of Philadelphia.
Listen to Elizabeth read two of her poems from our Spring 2021 issue
Books:
The College Mindfulness Workbook
Mount Olympus Theme Park
Steam Jobs You’ll Love: Architecture and Construction
Additional links:
Judging Community College of Philadelphia’s Drop the Mic (all seasons available on YouTube)
Reading Collaborative Poetry with Darla Himeles
Cartoons
Darla Himeles
Darla Himeles is the author of Cleave and the chapbook Flesh Enough, both published by Get Fresh Books. You can also find her writing in recent issues of Honey Literary, Orange Blossom Review, Ran off with the Star Bassoon, NAILED Magazine, the Massachusetts Review, and Lesbians Are Miracles. She lives in Philadelphia with her wife, kid, and two orange cats.
Listen to Darla read her poem in our Winter 2021 issue
Books:
Amy Beth Sisson
Amy Beth Sisson is struggling to emerge, toad-like, from the mud in a small town outside of Philly. Her poetry has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, The Night Heron Barks, and Ran Off With the Star Bassoon. Her fiction has appeared in The Best Short Stories of Philadelphia, Enchanted Conversation, and Sweet Tree Review. Her last day job was in software development. She told programmers what business people want and business people why they can’t quite have it. In fall of 2021, she started an MFA in Poetry at Rutgers Camden.
Listen to Amy Beth read two of her poems in our Winter 2021 issue
Additional links:
Amy Beth highlighted by the Diablo Writers Workshop
Reet Starwind
Poetry events such as the Collingswood Book Festival brought Reet Starwind into contact with The Night Heron Barks. Performing now for the third time in as many years, he represents the spirit of the journal with pride through his rhythmic poetic renditions. This year’s festival marks a transition for the ‘Interstellar Storyteller’ as he forays from spoken word poetry into his dream field of screenwriting. After being published in the inaugural issue of The Night Heron Barks, Reet became an assistant poetry editor with the journal.
Listen to Reet read his poem from our inaugural issue
Additional links:

J. C. Todd
J. C. Todd’s recent books are Beyond Repair (2021), a special selection for the 2019 Able Muse Press Book Award, and The Damages of Morning (Moonstone Press 2018), an Eric Hoffer Award finalist. Winner of the Rita Dove Poetry Prize and twice a finalist for Poetry Society of America annual awards, she has received fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Leeway Foundation, and residency programs. Her poems have appeared in the Baltimore Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Mezzo Cammin, The Night Heron Barks, The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, and other journals. She has taught at Bryn Mawr College and the Rosemont MFA Program and will offer “The Resonant Poem,” a six-week, online, generative workshop, at the Rosemont Writers’ Studio in the upcoming Fall 2 session.
Listen to J. C. read her poem in the Fall 2020 issue
Books:
Beyond Repair
The Damages of Morning
Additional links:
Rosemont Writers’ Studio Workshop enrollment
BJ Ward
BJ Ward’s most recent book is Jackleg Opera (North Atlantic/Random House). His poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, The Normal School, Painted Bride Quarterly, The New York Times, The Sun, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.
Listen to BJ read his poem in our Winter 2021 issue
Books:
