Cracked Walnut presents Literary Bridges

April is the first full month of spring and a time of renewal. Why not join us and get revived by these marvelous writers!

Carolyn Holbrook is a writer, educator, and an advocate for the healing power of the arts. Her memoir, Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for memoir and nonfiction. She is co-editor with David Mura of the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, and co-author with Josie Johnson and Arleta Little, of Hope in the Struggle. She teaches at The Loft and various community venues, and at Hamline University where she won the Exemplary Teacher award in 2014.

Roy G. Guzmán (they/them) is a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts fellow and a 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg poetry fellow. Their debut collection, Catrachos (Graywolf Press 2020), was named a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry and the 2021 Kate Tufts Poetry Award, from Claremont Graduate University.

In fifth grade Beth Spencer won first place in a contest with a poem called “Why I Like to Read Good Books.” Her prize was an atlas showing a world much changed since then. She has allowed that early success to persuade her to “keep at it…writing, that is.” She has been published in

Wisconsin Review, Rag Mag, Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, and Carve Magazine, among others. Beth’s essay on teaching appeared in the Geraldine R Dodge project, A Passion for Teaching. Her first book, C- in Conduct is available for purchase at all fine places.

Khary Jackson is a writer, dancer and musician. Khary has been a recipient of generous grants, including the 2019 Jerome Artist Fellowship and 2022 McKnight Fellowship in Writing. Khary's poetry book, Any Psalm You Want, was published with Write Bloody Publishing in the spring of 2013.