Free and open to the public

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 are curated and hosted by local community members.

On August 4, First Friday presents Kelly Ann Ellis. She holds an MA in English Literature from the University of Houston, where she currently teaches. A member of Poets in the Loop, she is the co-founder of hotpoet, a literary nonprofit and small press that publishes the online journal, Equinox, for which Ellis serves as managing editor. Her work has been included in several juried poetry festivals and has appeared in various journals and anthologies. Her collaborative cinepoems were featured in the REELpoetry Festival for three years consecutive years, and her poetry was showcased in the Houston Fringe Festival in 2019 in the  music and dance production, It’s About Love. Her fiction placed 2nd in The Short Story Show‘s 2020 contest and was re-released in a “best-of” podcast in 2021. Ellis was twice nominated in 2020 for a Pushcart prize, and in 2023 Lamar University Literary Press published her poetry collection, The Hungry Ghost Diner.

Readings are held on the first Friday of each month. The program will include a featured reader, followed by an open mic.

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