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.

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

July’s reading will be hosted by Courtney O’Banion Smith and the featured reader will be Yolanda Movsessian.

Yolanda Movsessian is an Armenian born in Iran who currently resides in Houston, Texas. Her writing, art, and photography have been featured in various publications such as Mississippi Review, Synkroniciti, Defunkt, and Equinox Magazine. Her short stories have received recognition as the winner of Mississippi Review‘s 2020 prize for best fiction, finalist for Kallisto Gaia Press’ Chester B Himes Memorial Short Fiction Prize, and placing in the top three of the first round of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge in 2021.

In 2021, Yolanda served as the art editor for table//FEAST literary magazine. She has a passion for collaborating with other artists, exemplified by her video poem collaborations with filmmaker Mitchell Collins. Their last three projects have received awards, including Judges’ First Prize at the ReelPoetry Festival 2022, the Audience Award at ReelPoetry Festival 2023, an Honorable Mention at ReelPoetry Festival 2024, acceptance into Aurora Picture Show’s Extremely Shorts Festival 2023, and inclusion in Moving Poems, an anthology of the best poetry videos from around the web. Yolanda is dedicated to fostering creativity and poetry within her community. She serves on the board of Mutabilis Press, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and publishing poets, and is one of the hosts of the 2023/2024 Poetry Reading Series in Houston.

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