Readings by Lauren Camp and Seth Brady Tucker

Readings by Lauren Camp and Seth Brady Tucker @ East Window

Lauren Camp, New Mexico Poet Laureate (2022-25), created the New Mexico Epic Poem Project, a community-centered, crowd-sourced initiative designed to help people in rural and arts-underserved communities express themselves. Undertaken in partnership with New Mexico Arts, the Project has reached 25 of New Mexico’s 33 counties. Letterpress broadsides of each community poem will be printed, disseminated across the state, and exhibited at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. Lauren is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Since this time, Lauren has brought “Poetry Under the Stars” programs to four national parks and monuments, voicing poems about the dark from across time and cultures to audiences in the dark. These readings, followed by a laser-guided constellation tour, are designed to encourage people to slow down, look and listen, and to advocate for preserving our dark skies. Lauren has also collaborated with many divisions of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs to create a free coloring book, entitled “Imagine Nature,” with poetry and activity prompts from Lauren and illustrations commissioned by fifteen artists from around the state. The book has been distributed to more than 50,000 people across New Mexico. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute, and has been awarded a Dorset Prize and a New Mexico Book Award.

Seth Brady Tucker is a poet and fiction writer originally from Lander, Wyoming. His first book won the 2011 Elixir Press Editor’s Poetry Prize (Mormon Boy), and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. His second book won the Gival Press Poetry Award (We Deserve the Gods We Ask For) and went on to win the Eric Hoffer Book Award. He has led poetry and fiction workshops for graduate and undergraduate students alike, and is currently an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Seth is also the founder and co-director of the Seaside Writers’ Conference (which takes place annually in May), and volunteers his time teaching veterans and veteran caretakers through the Writers’ Guild (East)/Wounded Warrior Project. Seth has been an editor for a number of different literary journals, and is currently a senior editor at the Tupelo Quarterly Review. Recently, his fiction won the Bevel Summers Fiction Prize from Shenandoah and a Flash Fiction Award from Literal Latte, and he was also a finalist for the Jeff Sharlet Award from the Iowa Review, the Lamar York Nonfiction Prize from the Chattahoochee Review, and the James Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review. Seth has served as a Carol Houck Smith Scholar in Poetry at Bread Loaf, and as the Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction at Sewanee.

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