Free and open to the public

Doors @ 7 pm
Pop-up poet Wafa Shaikh @ 7:30 pm
Featured poet Stephen Schwei @ 7:40 pm
Short break @ 8:10 pm
Open mic @ 8:15 pm

Inprint is proud to serve as the host for the First Fridays Reading Series. The First Fridays Reading Series is the oldest poetry series in Houston and was organized by Robert Clark from 1975-2019. Today, First Fridays events are curated and hosted by local community members.

The June featured reader will be Stephen Schwei, a gay poet from Wisconsin, currently living in Houston. He is the author of the collection Bluebonnet Whispers, as well as a collaboration with Terry Jude Miller, Catch Me at the Carnival. He has published more than 100 individual poems. The reading will include a book sale and signing. Learn more about Stephen at stephenschwei.com.

The opening Pop-up poet will be Wafa Shaikh, a Pakistani-American writer and editor residing in Texas. She studied Creative Writing at Texas Christian University, where she was awarded the Sandra Brown Excellence in Literary Fiction Scholarship. Her writing explores the inevitable carrying of grief and love within womanhood and other tender effects of living. Wafa is the Director of Community & Operations at Rawhead Journal and co-founder of HTX LIT, now known as Vocable. A 2021 Glascock Poetry Contest nominee, her work has appeared in Defunkt Magazine and eleven40seven. You can find her at @wafifi_ on Instagram.

For more information about the First Fridays Reading Series, click here. To join the First Fridays Facebook group, click here.