Diya Abbas

media release: Read “Al-Eashiq” at Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine

Diya Abbas is a first generation Pakistani poet, performer, and playwright from the Midwest. Her poems are featured or forthcoming in RHINO, Foglifter, Adroit, diode, The Offing, BAHR Magazine, and others. They were named the 2020 St.Louis Youth Poet Laureate, 2022 George B. Hill Poetry Prize, 2023 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Awardee and the 2024 Lyman S.V. Judson Awardee in the Creative Arts. She is currently studying Creative Writing and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison through the First Wave program. Find more of their work at diyabbas.com.

Since 2011 Shake Rag Alley has provided residencies to award-winning Wisconsin writers, offering time and space to create. In 2025, we’re partnering with Wisconsin People & Ideas, the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission through the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Arts + Literature Laboratory, and the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets to offer the Winter Writers Reading Series. In 2025, we’ll be adding the Swanson Emerging Poet Fellowship with the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets (stay tuned!).

Writers stay in Shake Rag Alley’s historic lodging facilities surrounded by the creative community of Mineral Point. Visiting writers participate in community outreach activities, including readings, workshops, and school visits as part of the Winter Writers Reading Series. 

We are excited to partner with Mineral Point’s independent bookstore for our 2025 reading series. Unless noted, readings will be held at Republic of Letters Books, 151 High St., Mineral Point.