5 x 5 Reading + Open Mic
This event took place on Tuesday, June 2nd, at 7:00pm, at Moon Palace Books, and featured mk zariel, Antonio Duke, Willard Malebear Jr., Adrien Wright, and Eemanna.
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.
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 a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
mk zariel (it/its + masc terms) is a transmasculine neuroqueer theater artist, Best Of The Net and Monarch Award nominated poet, movement journalist, and BashBack aligned anarchist. it is fueled by folk-punk, Emma Goldman, and existential dread. the author of VOIDGAZING (2026, Whittle Micropress), DIFFERENT WITH HIM (2026, Rockwood Press), and BOY APPARITION (2025, Vinegar Press), it can be found online at https://mkzariel.carrd.co/ , creating conflictually queer-anarchic spaces, writing columns for Asymptote and the Anarchist Review of Books, and being mildly feral in the great lakes region. it is kinda gay ngl.
Antonio Duke (he/him) is a Twin Cities based actor and playwright. He is the program director of The Ifẹ̀ (Ee-fay) Lab which is a fellowship highlighting black solo performing artists. The fellowship combines film and live performances culminating into a multimedia, multidisciplinary, Afro-futuristic showcase. His goal is to provide easily accessible digital theater that motivates, inspires, and replenishes black communities. Digital theater is live theater that is filmed and streamed online. After graduating from The University of Minnesota/Guthrie B.F.A. Actor Training Program he received The Naked Stages Fellowship with Pillsbury House + Theatre where he created his first solo play Ashes of Moons. His second solo play Tears of Moons was accepted into The Guthrie Theatre’s Solo Emerging Artist Celebration. Tears of Moons was filmed and streamed with Park Square Theatre. With these two pieces he received an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship the same year. He created his third solo play Missing Mississippi Moons with additional support from The Minnesota State Arts Board’s Artist Initiative Grant. Missing Mississippi Moons was filmed and streamed by Combustible Theater Company, Los Vegas Theater Company, and The Guthrie Theater. He is a Wonderlust Ensemble Member. He is honored to be a 2024-2025 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting.
Willard Malebear Jr. (he/him) is an artist, community organizer, and creative wellness advocate based in Minneapolis. He is the founder and executive chairman of Art Shelf, a nonprofit that operates like a food shelf for art supplies, providing free creative materials, studio space, and programming to the community, and the owner of Iktomi Tattoo, an Indigenous-owned studio rooted in artistry, sustainability, and cultural connection.
With over eight years in recovery, Willard’s work centers on creativity as a tool for healing and transformation. He has taught art as wellness in correctional facilities, treatment settings, and community spaces, helping individuals navigate trauma, stress, and sobriety while building connection through creative practice.
Adrien Wright (they/them) is a poet, performer, and costume designer who lives and works in Minneapolis. Their poems have appeared in the Midway Journal and Selfish Magazine, as well as on stages at the Midwest Poetry Mash-Up, the NorthBEAST Regional Poetry Slam, and the BlackBerryPeach National Poetry Slam, where they represented the League of Minnesota Poets in 2025. They proudly co-produce the Twin Cities’ fiercest drag and poetry show, Debasement!
Eemanna (she/her) is a Minneapolis born and based multidisciplinary artist and community organizer. A singer song-writer and rapper spanning across genres of hip hop, alternative and soul, Eemanna is also a ceramicist and podcast producer. She creates and organizes to transform narratives, practice radical imagination and add beauty to the world.
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.