The League of Minnesota Poets is proud to announce its 3rd annual Agates IndyBookStore Tour that showcases its highly anticipated Agates Volume 88, a vibrant poetry collection celebrating the creative spirit of Minnesota’s literary community.

Established in 1934, the League of Minnesota Poets is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting poets and promoting poetry throughout Minnesota. Through annual publications, contests, and public events, the League fosters a vibrant and inclusive literary community.

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

On the first Friday of each month, a puzzling group of people gathers to do a jigsaw puzzle or two. Over the highs, lows, and drama of completing a puzzle, friendships and interesting conversation emerge from the woodwork. Puzzlers of all ages and skill levels are welcome.

Local musical acts Big Big Brain!, Ducksmithsonian, and Better Devils will perform on Saturday, November 29th, at 6:00 PM.

Please help us inaugurate our new Local Art Showcase program with an exclusive “gala” for our first showcase pick: Lilyan Lauzon, (aka, Onetiredartist).

We will be gathering for an informal meet-and-greet on Sunday, November 23rd at 2 PM.

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

Bring a project to share! Can be a work-in-progress, sketch, outline, or anything else.

We will be having an open discussion about our artistic goals with an opportunity to share our own projects for those who would like to do so!

Dougie Padilla will be reading from his 2 newest poetry books - 40 feet down and Old dog sleeping on the couch along with new unpublished poems.

Dougie Padilla is a MN/WI poet and artist. He has published four chapbooks and three full length books of poetry (all with Luna Brava Press).

Please join us for a reading from Iowa Weird, Vol. 1, a short story collection about the monsters lurking in the cornfields and the spirits haunting the farmhouse down the lane. This is the latest release from Hayseed Press, a new independent publishing company operating out of Cedar Falls, Iowa.

A selection will be read by this volume’s star contributor Anton Jones.

Anton Jones, MFA (Iowa Playwrights' Workshop) and two-time Jerome Many Voices Fellow, is the recipient of the 2025 Citizens League Civic Changemaker Award and a passionate advocate and leader in the education and non-profit sector. He also happens to be training for the USATF Indoor and Outdoor Nationals.

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

On the first Friday of each month, a puzzling group of people gathers to do a jigsaw puzzle or two. Over the highs, lows, and drama of completing a puzzle, friendships and interesting conversation emerge from the woodwork. Puzzlers of all ages and skill levels are welcome.

From the Guthrie’s website:

Inspired by the small-town Yellowed Pages bookstore featured in Primary Trust, we’re hosting a book fair where you can find your next great read and pair it with mugs, teas, candles and more. Shop a variety of books and other goods curated by local bookstores. This event is free and open to the public. Bring your friends and loved ones!

Featured vendors include Once Upon a Crime, Mashkiki Studios LLC, Diivine Scents, The L Spot Shop, ImoKim Pottery, Eat My Words Bookstore, The Book House, Lightning Stone Arts, Graywolf Press, William Sturdivant and The Violet Shelf.

Please join us for a reading of A Migraine in Room 3, A Stroke in Room 4: A Physician Examines His Profession by Dr. Paul Schanfield, MD.

Dr. Schanfield is a Minnesota Neurologist, who retired in 2015 after forty years in private practice. As a University of Minnesota Clinical Professor of Neurology, he continues to teach medical students and residents in Family Practice and Neurology. His book endeavors to rekindle the commitment to the human side of medicine by emphasizing patient-centered care. This book is a valuable educational text for medical students and physicians, yet anyone who has been a patient will appreciate and benefit from it.

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

Bring a project to share! Can be a work-in-progress, sketch, outline, or anything else.

We will be having an open discussion about our artistic goals with an opportunity to share our own projects for those who would like to do so!

Local poet and NE Minneapolis community mainstay, Mary Cassidy, will read from her poetry, accompanied by poets Julie Quinn Nichols and Julie Becker.

Join us as these three women with distinct voices carry us through all the highs and lows that life has to offer.

Please join us for an evening of poetry, organized by Elaine Klaassen. Elaine Klaassen is a writer, musician, mother, grandmother, and friend who is committed to the spirit and skills of nonviolence.

Marquise Bowie and Coley Gates, who met Elaine in 2020 at George Floyd Square, have both released books recently. They are brothers, both incarcerated for long periods of time, each with his own long and complex story.

The trio will read from their recent books, La Penultima (With A Rose In Its Eye), If My Tears Could Talk #2,  and The Last Drop of Maddog 30/30.

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

On the first Friday of each month, a puzzling group of people gathers to do a jigsaw puzzle or two. Over the highs, lows, and drama of completing a puzzle, friendships and interesting conversation emerge from the woodwork. Puzzlers of all ages and skill levels are welcome.

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

Bring a project to share! Can be a work-in-progress, sketch, outline, or anything else.

We will be having an open discussion about our artistic goals with an opportunity to share our own projects for those who would like to do so!

Please join us for a reading of TICK TOWN by Christopher A. Micklos.

TICK TOWN is a fun, fast-paced pulp horror adventure about a small northern Wisconsin tourist town that becomes the feeding ground for a band of giant, mutant ticks. Told in a breezy, cinematic style and inspired by the b-movies of the 1950’s and the pulp horror paperbacks and comics of the 1970’s and 1980’s, it blends suspense, playful gore, and adventure, all designed to keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Christopher A. Micklos is a life-long horror junkie, an award-winning filmmaker, and a frequently published writer of horror-themed fiction and non-fiction.

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

Please join us for the dulcet tones of local pianist Nick Bhalla.

Nick's solo piano music has an open, spacey sound that leaves room for listeners to disappear into introspective ruminations and hopes for the future.

Nick’s latest album Empire (April 2024) is a spacious suite of explorations for solo piano, with plenty of room for improvisation & surprising twists of harmony.

Please join us just months before the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald for a reading of Wrecked: The Edmund Fitzgerald and the Sinking of the American Economy by Thomas Nelson.

Wrecked links the story of America’s most infamous shipwreck to the story of an even larger disaster—the wreck of the American industrial economy. When the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, more was lost than the ship and the twenty-nine lives on board.

Thomas Nelson is the Outagamie County Executive (Appleton-Fox Valley, Wisconsin) and former majority leader of the Wisconsin State Assembly. He has written for or has been covered by numerous national publications including, Washington Post, New York Times, The Nation, Politico, NBC News, Chronicle of Higher Education, NPR, The Progressive and American Prospect. 

Now at our new home at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414.

On the first Friday of each month, a puzzling group of people gathers to do a jigsaw puzzle or two. Over the highs, lows, and drama of completing a puzzle, friendships and interesting conversation emerge from the woodwork. Puzzlers of all ages and skill levels are welcome.

Book lovers are invited to the grand opening of Eat My Words Bookstore’s new location at 201 6th Street SE, Suite 220, Minneapolis, MN 55414. The event, which will go from noon to 8 PM on Saturday, August 16th, is free and will feature performances from local poets and musicians. Eat My Words staff are happy to answer any questions at eatmywordsbooks@gmail.com.

From the MPLS Creatives' Support Group!

MPLS Creatives' Support Group is for creatives of all types to receive kind constructive criticism for their work. We'll help each other take the next step to getting our art into the world.

Artists of all skill levels are welcome to join in! Bring a project you've been working on!

Join us to celebrate the release of Scott Vetsch’s latest book, Tilt-A-Whirl.

Tilt-A-Whirl cranks you from the quicksand of innocence to the dark end of the baby boom. Set during the cultural revolution of the 60s and 70s, these stories bridge the Mississippi and generations, in a time that crosses the borders of tradition, music, friendship, and love. From the hope and expectations of home, to the world of psychedelics and rock and roll radio, these poetic snapshots chronicle the trials and experiments of a boy’s life.

Scott Vetsch often hears things wrong, which makes them right. He’s a carpenter who works in old houses, a child in a man’s body, a soul in exile. He likes a good story, whichever way it comes. Loves cats and crows, inhabits worlds of his own making. He’s afraid things aren’t getting better, but hopes he’s mistaken. He burns wood, craves hamburgers and eats tofu, scoffs at money, envies the contented, and drives a truck. When he’s happy he wants beer. When he’s sad he wonders why. He knows one thing for certain, he’s a writer in a post-literate world.

Join us for a lovely pre-launch reading of Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s latest book, The Magic Eye.

From Caryn:

Nothing could have prepared me for being diagnosed with a rare and deadly eye cancer in the middle of trying to save the Kansas land where my husband and I live. From the 2019 diagnosis through the pandemic, I entered into both a risky plan to buy our fifth-generation farm and daunting treatment to survive the large tumor in my right eye. The Magic Eye tells the story of saving a life (my own) and a place, a 130-acre farm we had been actively turning into a wildlife refuge for three decades.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, a writer, teacher, and facilitator, and coach and consultant who explores how the spoken, written and sung word can help us live more vibrant lives.

Please join us for a reading by Minneapolis poets Karen Sandberg and Pat Barone. Karen will be reading from her new book of poetry, Dreams of the Floating House. She writes poems of growing up beside Lake Superior and recovering from too many deaths.

From Karen Herseth Wee, author of The Book of Hearts:

Dreams of the Floating House is a waltz in summer time, holding the breath of the world. It invites one to join the poet's life-journey of search, becoming, and overcoming. "Days float past like clouds," days (and poems) of water, wind, darkness, loss, trees, and butterflies. The sun always comes out.

Karen Sandberg lives and writes in Richfield, Mn. This book contains her brief account of one person’s journey through times of joy, sorrow and amazement. She studied at The Loft in Minneapolis, attended Northwoods Writers Conference in Bemidji, Mn twice, and since 1995, been a member of Northfield Women Poets. Karen has published in Midwest Quarterly, Clackamas Literary Review, Grey Sparrow, Vita Brevis, Main Street Rag and others.

On the first Friday of each month, a puzzling group of people gathers to do a jigsaw puzzle or two. Over the highs, lows, and drama of completing a puzzle, friendships and interesting conversation emerge from the woodwork. Puzzlers of all ages and skill levels are welcome.

From the MPLS Creatives' Support Group!

MPLS Creatives' Support Group is for creatives of all types to receive kind constructive criticism for their work. We'll help each other take the next step to getting our art into the world.

Artists of all skill levels are welcome to join in! Bring a project you've been working on!

Join Pat Arneson for a rousing discussion of hope and healing, Equine-Assisted Therapy, lies sabotage, and murder.

Pat Arneson is an author, a licensed clinical therapist, and a life-long book lover.

Tony Wentersdorf will read from his 2020 self-published memoir – Born in

the Year Zero. This memoir describes Tony’s boyhood in Germany, his

emigration to the U.S. at the age of nine, his life abroad in Paris, Zurich,

and Marburg (Germany), and his adult years in Minnesota. The memoir

also contains pictures, poems, and songs. He will intersperse the reading

with songs and poems.

Peter Ruddy is a fingerstyle guitarist who plays an eclectic mix of Celtic folk, swingy jazz, blues and much more on 6 and 12 strings.