Free and open to the public

Inprint is proud to serve as a host for the First Friday Poetry Reading Series. The First Friday Series is the oldest poetry series in Houston and has been held monthly on the first Friday of each month since 1975. The series is coordinated and curated by Robert Clark. Each reading begins with a featured poet, followed by an open mic. On March 1, 2019, First Friday presents Elina Petrova.

For more information on the First Friday Series click here or visit the group on Facebook here.

Until 2007, Elina Petrova lived in Ukraine and worked in engineering management. She has many Ukrainian and Russian publication credits, and a book of Russian-language poems, White Square. Her poetry has been published in Texas Review, Texas Poetry Calendar, FreeFall (Canada), Ocotillo Review, Voices de la Luna, Melancholy Hyperbole, Illya’s Honey, Panoply, Poetry of the American Southwest (series by Dos Gatos Press), various anthologies by Mutabilis Press, Echoes of the Cordillera (Sul Ross State University), Selfhood (India), several anthologies of the Houston, Austin and Waco poetry festivals, and an upcoming Bosch and Bruegel Anthology. Elina, a frequent Pushcart Prize nominee, won top honors in the 2018 Ekphrastic Poetry Contest of the Friendswood Public Library, and was a finalist for the post of Houston Poet Laureate in 2015. Her first book of poetry in English, Aching Miracle, was released in 2015, and her next collection, Desert Candles, is ready for publication.