5 x 5 Reading + Open Mic
This event was held on Tuesday, February 3rd, at 7:00pm, at Moon Palace Books, and featured five fantastic artists: Ari Tison (Bribri), BakiBakiBaki, Jeffrey Dorr-Slowey, Heid E. Erdrich, and Isha Camara.
After the main reading, there was a short break for refreshments, followed by an open mic period. This reading, and the open mic afterward, were hosted by Davi Gray and Erin Sharkey; both reading and open mic featured ASL interpretation.
Masks are required at Moon Palace Books and are available on-site. This is a free event.
Better Things is a series of events sponsored by the ReEntry Lab, in partnership with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop (MPWW) and Moon Palace Books. The ReEntry Lab is an organization working to connect writers and other artists leaving incarceration to a community that’s ready to receive them.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Ari Tison (Bribri) (she/her) is an award-winning poet and the author of YA hybrid poetry & prose novel Saints of the Household (FSG/Macmillan) which was the winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Amelia Walden Award, and a finalist for the William C. Morris Award. Her poem “The Storyteller Gets Her Name” is a part of national K-4th ELA curriculum reaching over 5 million young readers. Her next YA novel Together We See (FSG) is slated for June 2026. Ari teaches at Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.
BakiBakiBaki (they/them) is an Afro-indigenous multidisciplinary artist who believes freedom lives at the crosscurrents of art and spirituality. Through zines/self publishing and puppetry BBB leads community workshops, builds moments of expression, and crafts both personal and community altars. They have worked with institutions like the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and The Walker Art Museum as well as is an artist in residence at Public Functionary.
Jeffrey Dorr-Slowey (he/him) is a 46-year-old Indigenous father. He is the principal and owner of Amik Agabow Consulting, LLC, as well as a community organizer with TONE UP and an inaugural fellow with the Just Lead Fellowship. He is working hard for systematic change and liberation for self and community.
Author of nine books of poetry and prose Heid E. Erdrich (she/her) is a curator and teacher. Erdrich edited the anthology New Poets of Native Nations and co-edited the newly published Boundless: Abundance in Native American Art and Literature. She served as the inaugural Minneapolis Poet Laureate supported by an Academy of American Poets award. Erdrich held the 2025 James Welch Distinguished Visiting position at University of Montana Missoula. Erdrich’s on-going project is Poetry Service Announcement (PoeS.A.) which promotes poetry as public art. She serves her communities through formal and informal mentorship, poetry interventions, and in activating collaborative response between communities.
Isha Camara (she/her) is a Gambian-American poet and visual artist from South Minneapolis, Minnesota. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Masters at Randolph College in Creative Writing. Her work has been featured in MUZZLE Magazine, Poets.org,The Mahalat Review, and Southeast Review. She has performed for the Madison Public Library, Walker Art Center and American Composers Forum. Isha seeks to sate her curiosities by layering myths with modern desires, questions, obsessing over these old stories by polishing them inside poetic forms and digital art.
Erin Sharkey (she/they) is a writer, arts and abolition organizer, cultural worker, and film producer based in Minneapolis. She is the editor of A Darker Wilderness: Black Nature Writing from Soil to Stars (Milkweed Editions ’23). Erin is a founding co-op member of the Fields at Rootsprings, a retreat and respite space in central MN, and co-founder, with Junauda Petrus, of an experimental arts collective called Free Black Dirt. She is the producer of film projects, including Small Business Revolution, which explored challenges and opportunities for Black-owned businesses in the Twin Cities in the summer of 2021. Sharkey has received fellowships and residencies from the Loft Mentor Series, VONA/Voices, the Givens Foundation, Penumbra Theatre, Coffee House Press, the Bell Museum of Natural History, Black Visions, Headwaters Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and was a teacher for several years with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop.
Davi Gray (she/they) is a queer, trans, nonbinary poet, writer, performer, artist, producer, activist, and abolitionist. They live in Minneapolis (Bde Óta Othúŋwe), within Mni Sóta Makoce, unceded lands of the Dakota and Ojibwe. Her work has been published in Poetry, Water~Stone Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rogue Agent, and elsewhere, and her first poetry collection, This Body, This Fruit, a finalist for the 2025 Louise Bogan Award, will be published in February 2027 by Trio House Press. She is a recipient of 2025 and 2026 Arts Experiences grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and can often be found performing around the Twin Cities. You can learn more about her work, including upcoming events, at davigray.com.
Louise Waakaa’igan (she/her) is an enrolled member at Odaawaa-Zaaga’iganiing in northern Wisconsin. Her first chapbook, This Is Where (Aquarius Press), was published in 2020. She is also the first-place winner of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop’s Broadside Competition (2016). Louise’s work has been previously published in PEN America, 21 Mythologies, The Moon Magazine, Night Colors, 27th Letter, Words in Gray Scale, and Doors Adjacent. She is ready to publish her second collection.
Better Things is a series of events sponsored by the ReEntry Lab, in partnership with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop (MPWW) and Moon Palace Books.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
The ReEntry Lab is an organization working to connect writers and other artists leaving incarceration to a community that’s ready to receive them. You can learn more about its mission, volunteer to help, and sign up for the newsletter at reentrylab.org.
* 5×5 format inspired by the 555 Reads series, developed by Elizabeth R. Tannen.