5×5 Reading + Open Mic
This event was held on Tuesday, December 2nd, at 7:00pm, at Moon Palace Books, and featured five fantastic readers: Tyra Payer, Jen Bowen, Fong Lee, Sun Yung Shin, and Bao Phi.
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 C. Fausto Cabrera. 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.
This activity was 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.
Tyra Payer (they/them) is a member of the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe tribe, from Belcourt North Dakota. Tyra is a writer and entrepreneur who has a background of storytelling and Indigenous food systems. Outside, you can find Tyra vending at the farmers market or in the garden.
Jen Bowen (she/her) is a writer, arts instructor, and editor. Her essay collection, THE BOOK OF KIN: On Absence, Love, and Being There, took nearly twenty-years to finish, but it’s out now. Her work has received a Pushcart Prize, The Arts and Letters Prize, the Tim McGinnis Award, among others. Individual prose can be found in The Sun, Orion, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review and elsewhere. Jen teaches brilliant writers through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, an organization she co-directs and founded.
Fong Lee (he/him) is a Saint-Paul-based artist. He is a celebrated poet, with publications through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop and Asian American Writers Workshop, a beloved painter, and a published photographer.
신선영 Sun Yung Shin (she/they) is an award-winning poet, cultural worker, educator, and multi-genre author of thirteen books for adults and children. She is a 2025 McKnight Fellow in prose. Her newest book for children is Revolutions Are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs, co-authored with Mélina Mangal and illustrated by Leslie Barlow (Lerner Publishing). Her newest book of prose is Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language, forthcoming in May 2026 from Black Lawrence Press. With Su Hwang she is a co-director of Poetry Asylum. Sun Yung is a frequent speaker who presents her work nationally and internationally; she lives in South Minneapolis with her family—more at sunyungshin.com.
Bao Phi (he/him) is a spoken word artist, poet, writer, and children’s book author. His work can be found in two books of poetry both published by Coffee House Press, four children’s books, all published by Capstone, and in anthologies such as Octavia’s Brood, A Good Time for the Truth, and most recently, in McSweeney’s Volume 78. He was on the editorial team of We the Gathered Heat: Asian American and Pacific Islander Poetry, Performance, and Spoken Word, published by Haymarket Books. He is a Vietnamese American, a Minnesotan, and a father.
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 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.