Monsters of Poetry

media release: Monsters of Poetry Presents: Carson Faust, Sasha Debevec-McKenney, Heather Christle, and Steven Espada Dawson!

Saturday, November 22, 2025 at 7pm. 402 E. Mifflin St, Madison, WI. BYOB. $3 donation gets you a ticket for our absurd literary raffle. Who knows what useless/beautiful things we'll give away?

The Readers Are:

Carson Faust is the debut author of If the Dead Belong Here, which was published by Viking this fall and was longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. He is the recipient of artist fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Camargo Foundation. His stories have been published in numerous literary journals and have appeared in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. He is two-spirit and an enrolled member of the Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe of South Carolina.

Steven Espada Dawson is the author of LATE TO THE SEARCH PARTY (Scribner, 2025). From East Los Angeles, and the son of a Mexican immigrant, he is a former Ruth Lilly Fellow and Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellow. His poems appear in many journals and have been anthologized in Best New Poets, Pushcart Prize, and Sarabande’s Another Last Call. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves as Poet Laureate.

Sasha Debevec-McKenney is the author of the poetry collection Joy Is My Middle Name. She received her MFA from New York University. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut and is currently an Assistant Professor of Writing at Grand Valley State University. She is on a lifelong journey to visit the grave of every President of the United States.

Heather Christle is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Paper Crown. She has also written two works of nonfiction: In the Rhododendrons: A Memoir with Appearances by Virginia Woolf and The Crying Book. She is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University in Atlanta.