5×5 Reading + Open Mic
This reading was held on Tuesday, August 5th, at 7:00pm, at Moon Palace Books with five fantastic readers: Ollie Schminkey, Lamar Renville, Eli Simmons, Douglas Kearney, and Nell Ubbelohde.
This reading, and the open mic afterward, was hosted by Davi Gray, Erin Sharkey, and Louise Waakaa’igan. ASL interpretation was provided for both the main reading and the open mic.
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.
Ollie Schminkey (they/them) has spent the past decade coaching, mentoring, teaching classes, and running workshops for poets. They facilitate, direct, coach, and host many organizations, including a decade-long weekly writing workshop called Well-Placed Commas, which serves primarily queer and trans writers. Their work has been featured everywhere from Poets.org to Upworthy, and they’ve performed poems in 21 states, with their work garnering over 3 million views on YouTube. They are the author of four chapbooks and two full-length collections: Where I Dry the Flowers (Button Poetry, 2024) and Dead Dad Jokes (Button Poetry, 2021), which was shortlisted for both the Midwest Independent Publishers Association and the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize. They are the founder and director of Midwest Poetry Mash-Up, a national slam poetry tournament entering its third year. They are also the recipient of a 2025 Arts Impact for Individuals grant through the Minnesota Regional Arts Council. You can also find them making pottery, dancing alone in their kitchen, or playing with their cat Pete, who is always trying to eat things he shouldn’t.
To take a class or to see more of their work, check out http://ollieschminkey.com .
Lamar Renville (they/them) is a two-spirit author, musician, Dakota language teacher and poet descended from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate.
Eli Simmons (he/him) is a community organizer, gospel singer, and preacher. He works with the Power of People Institute’s Re-Planting Program to help men leaving incarceration develop and hone tools and strategies to reimagine their lives, explore and achieve new dreams, and successfully reintegrate with their communities. For more on the Re-Planting Program, visit https://www.popinstitute.org/re-plantingprogram.
Douglas Kearney (he/him) has published eight books ranging from poetry to essays. In 2023, Optic Subwoof, a collection of his Bagley Wright lectures, won the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Prize for Poetry Criticism and the CLMP Firecracker Award for Creative Nonfiction. His seventh, Sho (Wave Books), is a Griffin Poetry Prize and Minnesota Book Award winner. Kearney’s most recent collection, I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always, was published with Wave Books in April 2025. Kearney is a Whiting Writers and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly awardee with residencies/fellowships including Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and The McKnight Foundation. He is a Samuel Russell Chair in the Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Professor of English at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.
Nell Morningstar Ubbelohde (she/her) writes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenplays. Her work has been published in journals and anthologies, including Saint Paul Almanac, Powderhorn 365, rock, scissors, paper, Sleet Magazine, Sing Heavenly Muse, and Cleveland Anthology.
She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University, and has taught through The Loft, Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Minnesota Department of Corrections, Institute of Production & Recording, and University of Wisconsin-Stout. She is currently finishing a novel.
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 teaches 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. Gray’s poetry collection This Body, This Fruit was a finalist for the 2025 Louise Bogan Award (Trio House Press), and her work has been published in Poetry, Water~Stone Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Rogue Agent, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of a 2025 Arts Experiences grant through 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 was 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 was 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.