Words Like Blades: Shangyang Fang, Jane Miller, & Lisa Olstein

Shangyang Fang, Jane Miller, and Lisa Olstein will read on Zoom as part of the "Words Like Blades" reading series, hosted by Jennifer Franklin, Jane Huffman, Nathan McClain, and Ren Wilding. A Q&A will follow. Admission is free, but registration is required. Registered guests will receive a Zoom link and password prior to the start of the event. Registered guests will have the opportunity to send donations directly to the readers (to be split three ways) before, during, and after the event via Venmo or PayPal.

This event will be held on Sunday, November 23, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. eastern time (ET).

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Shangyang Fang grew up in Chengdu, China. The author of the poetry collection, Burying the Mountain (Copper Canyon Press, 2021)and a translation book, Study of Sorrow (Copper Canyon Press, 2025), he is an Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Jane Miller has written twelve poetry books, most recently Paper Banners and Who Is Trixie the Trasher? and Other Questions, and two collections of essays, Working Time: Essays on Poetry, Culture, and Travel and From the Valley of Bronze Camels: A Primer, Some Lectures, & A Boondoggle on Poetry. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Lisa Olstein is the author of six poetry collections published by Copper Canyon Press: Radio Crackling, Radio Gone; Lost Alphabet; Little Stranger; Late Empire; Dream Apartment; and Distinguished Office of Echoes. Her nonfiction includes Pain Studies (Bellevue Literary Press/Dreamscape/Hanser), a book-length lyric essay on the intersection of pain, perception, and language; and Climate (Essay Press), an exchange of epistolary essays co-written with poet Julie Carr. Olstein is the lyricist for the rock band Cold Satellite, fronted by songwriter Jeffrey Foucault, and in 2025 Lost Alphabet for voice, five musicians, and electronics, an adaptation of her poems by composer Januibe Tejera, premiered with Ensemble Phace (Vienna). Olstein’s honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, Lannan Writing Residency, Hayden Carruth Award, Writers League of Texas Discovery Book Award, and Sustainable Arts Foundation Award. She is the Ellen Clayton Garwood Centennial Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin.

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About the series: During this dark time for the country & the world, poets and scholars Jennifer Franklin, Jane Huffman, Nathan McClain, and Ren Wilding have come together with the goal to gather once a month to listen to poets read their new work as an act of refuge and an act of resistance. Our series is founded on James Baldwin's belief that, "You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... If you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it." The four curators plan to pair a diverse group of established poets & emerging poets (with new or recent collections) and, when possible, focus on Mentors and Mentees reading together to calm, center, and inspire activism and positive change. At its core, this series will focus on inclusivity and celebrating connections.