The Writer’s Center welcomes poet Shaheen Dil for a reading of her new collection, Letters to My Younger Self. Shaheen is joined by poets Grace Cavalieri, Holly Karapetkova, and Lyubomir Nikolov.
FREE & open to the public. RSVP below.
Grace Cavalieri is an award-winning poet, playwright, and radio host of the Library of Congress program The Poet and the Poem. In 2019 Cavalieri was appointed as the 10th Poet Laureate of Maryland. She has published 26 books and chapbooks of poetry and fiction. She co-founded the Washington Writers Publishing House with John McNally in 1976 and served on its editorial board from 1976 to 1982. In addition, in 1979 she founded The Bunny and the Crocodile Press/Forest Woods Media Productions, Inc., a publishing house and media production company.
Shaheen Dil is a recovering banker and consultant who is now out of the closet as a poet. She was born in Bangladesh and lives in Pittsburgh. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She has published three collections of poetry: Acts of Deference (Fakel 2016), The Boat-maker’s Art (Kelsay Books 2024), and Letters to My Younger Self (Gyroscope Press April 2025). More information is available on her website: shaheendil.com.
Holly Karapetkova is Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington, Virginia, and recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship for her work with young poets. Her poetry, prose, and translations have appeared widely in print and online. She is the author of three books of poetry, Dear Empire (Gunpowder Press), winner of the 2025 William Meredith Prize and the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize; Towline (Cloudbank Books), winner of the Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize; and Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Prize for Poetry. She teaches at Marymount University in Arlington, VA.
Lyubomir Nikolov is an award-winning poet and translator. He was born in Bulgaria and lives in Poolesville. His first poetry collection, Summoned by the High Tide, was awarded the National Southern Spring Award for best first book by a young poet in 1981. Nikolov’s fifth book, Idle Lava, was awarded The Third Annual Settlement House American Poetry Prize. His poems have been translated into seven languages. Nikolov’s poems are widely anthologized in books published in Bulgaria, Germany, and Great Britain.
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