April First Friday
We are thrilled to partner with Fact & Fiction Books to support local authors & performers:
Local authors will include:
📚 Keetje Kuipers
📚 Gabrielle Bates
📚 Henrietta Goodman
Performances by:
✨ McKenzie Shoults
✨ Gracie Niswanger
Join us on April 4th for First Friday at Sacred Ally, a healing and empowering arts center dedicated to collaborating with our community and local artisans. This will be a wonderful evening of poetry readings by local authors accompanied by performances by local pole and aerial dancers.
Keetje Kuipers is launching her newest book, “"Lonely Women Make Good Lovers".
“These unforgettable love poems - queer, complicated, and almost always compromised - engage in poetics of humility, leaning into the painful tendernesses of unbridgeable distance.”
The poems are sensual and vulnerable, and negotiate ideas of humility and love.
Authors Gabrielle Bates and Henrietta Goodman will be joining alongside to share their most recent works.
Dancers from the local community and Pole Fiction will entertain you throughout the evening.
There will be refreshments with book merchandise glasses for sale. Come buy a book and get it signed by the author, purchase a glass, and enjoy the incredible works of local poets and performers during an unforgettable night.
Keetje Kuipers
You can follow Keetje on IG @keetjekuipers and learn more and about her by visiting: https://keetjekuipers.com/books/lonely-women-make-good-lovers/
Gabrielle Bates
Learn more about Gabrielle by visiting:
https://www.gabriellebat.es/
Gabrielle’s poems have appeared in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, Kenyon Review, and Sewanee Review. Her debut collection, Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023), was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR and Electric Lit and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award in Poetry. Originally from Alabama, Bates is currently based in the Pacific Northwest, where she works for Open Books: A Poem Emporium, co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon, and serves occasionally as visiting faculty for the University of Washington Rome Center and the Tin House Writers' Workshops.
You can follow her on ig (@gabrielle_bates_) and twitter (@GabrielleBates).
Henrietta Goodman
Henrietta is the author of three poetry collections: All That Held Us (BkMk Press, 2018), Hungry Moon (Mountain West Poetry Series, University Press of Colorado, 2013), and Take What You Want (Alice James Books, 2007), winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books. She lives in Missoula, Montana.
Learn more by clicking here.
Follow Fact & Fiction on Instagram: @factandfictionbooks
or online at: https://www.factandfictionbooks.com/
As always, our incredible team of practitioners will be offering mini-sessions throughout the evening to help you ground, connect, release, and relax.
Come sample the talented services our practitioners provide, or indulge in a delicious cup of ceremonial-grade cacao.
✨ Stop by anytime between 5-8pm. ✨
We look forward to welcoming you and celebrating the vibrant artistry of our community!
This is a free event, open to all ages.
We ask that all children remain supervised while visiting Sacred Ally to help us maintain our peaceful and professional space.
If you are interested in collaborating as a Featured Artist or Artist in Residence for a future First Friday, please contact: empower@sacredally.love.