Event with Dan Kaplan, Bill Carty, and Jae Nichelle

Join Powell’s Books for a special signing event with Dan Kaplan, Bill Carty, and Jae Nichelle to celebrate their new books.

Dan Kaplan’s 2.4.18 (Spuyten Duyvil) is an erasure of the February 4, 2018 issue of The New York Times, a book that distorts fact, erodes context, and considers what may (not) be newsworthy. Poet Simone Muench describes the book as “…the brilliant oddball at the party who shows up donned in a ‘costume of bubbles’ inquiring about the ‘geometry of a wing.’ It’s the person you keep conversing with long after the party’s over.”

We Sailed on the Lake (Bunny Presse), Bill Carty’s second collection of poetry, consists of lyrics of spiraling awareness. As a signal lamp, unused, mirrors the sky, these poems reflect approaching storms, near-misses, and the violence inherent in nature, country, and economy.

Rising star and spoken word poet Jae Nichelle debuts her luminous thoughts in God Themselves (Andrews McMeel), a new collection of stirring poetry. Nichelle taps into her experiences of growing up in the South as a queer Black woman to courageously confront the effects of a forced religion and the inherent dangers of living life in a female body.

Dan Kaplan is the author of 2.4.18 (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023), an erasure of the February 4, 2018 issue of The New York Times; Instant Killer Wig (Spuyten Duyvil, 2018); Bill’s Formal Complaint (The National Poetry Review Press, 2008); and the bilingual chapbook SKIN (Red Hydra Press, 2005). His work has appeared in American Letters & Commentary, VOLT, Denver Quarterly, Ninth Letter, Poetry Northwest, the anthology Flash Fiction Forward (W. W. Norton & Co.), and elsewhere. He is editor of Burnside Review Press and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Bill Carty is the author of Huge Cloudy (Octopus Books, 2019), which was long-listed for The Believer Book Award. He has received poetry fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Artist Trust, and Hugo House. Originally from Maine, Bill lives in Seattle, where he is Senior Editor at Poetry Northwest and teaches at Hugo House, the UW Robinson Center for Young Scholars, and Edmonds College.

Jae Nichelle is a Tulane University graduate, a lover of sweet potatoes, and a storyteller on the page and the stage. She is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary) , the inaugural poetry winner of the John Lewis Writing Award from the Georgia Writers Association, and her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, The Washington Square Review, The Offing Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, and elsewhere. Her spoken word poems have been featured by Write About Now, Speak Up Poetry Series, and Button Poetry. Jae writes for her younger self who never dared to dream her voice was worthy of being heard.