Better Things 5x5 Reading & Open Mic

Flyer with text reading: “Better Things - a 5x5 reading for social change - the reading everybody will be talking about the next day. Moon Palace Books, 3032 Minnehaha Avenue, October 6th, 2026, 7 pm.” Small photos of each of five readers, labeled by name: Bridget Gordon, Wordsworth Musinguzi, Marquise Bowie, KJ Kieras, and Najeeba Syeed.

5 x 5 Reading + Open Mic

Please join us on Tuesday, October 6th, at 7:00pm, at Moon Palace Books, for our next 5×5 Reading, featuring five fantastic artists: Bridget Gordon, Wordsworth Musinguzi, Marquise Bowie, KJ Kieras, and Najeeba Syeed.

Each featured artist will take five minutes to share work. After the main reading, there will be a short break for refreshments, followed by an open mic period. All are welcome to show up and participate in the open mic! (List is first come, first serve.) This reading, and the open mic afterward, will be hosted by Davi Gray and Cecily McMillan; both reading and open mic will feature ASL interpretation.

Light refreshments will be served; masks are encouraged at Moon Palace Books and are available on-site. This is a free event.

Better Things is a series of events sponsored by ReEntry Lab, in partnership with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop (MPWW) and Moon Palace Books. 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 a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

There is a Facebook event, or you can add it to your Google Calendar or download an ICS file to add it to other calendars, but you can also just show up! We’d love to have you there — all are welcome at this free event.

Bridget Gordon (she/her, fae/faer) is a queer trans woman and emerging poet living in Chicago. A former MFA student and sports journalist, her current work with poetry and short-form writing is enraptured with queer longing, identity, and liminality. She has past or forthcoming publications in Moist Poetry Journal, TRANS MAG, Pink Poetry Club, Coin-Operated Press, and Red Rock Review. Fae is the author of the self-published chapbook, the rest is up to you, love, released in Summer 2026. Her debut full-length poetry collection, if you know the color of their eyes it’s already too late, will be published by Raging Opossum Press in Fall 2026. Fae lives with her husband, metamour, cats, a blue electric guitar named Evie, and an ominously large TBR pile.

Photograph of Bridget Gordon, a young white trans woman. In this photo, she's performing at a mic, eyes closed; she's wearing a wide-collared ripped black T-shirt with words beneath a black leather jacket, some metallic jewelry, and bright blue-and-purple bob-length hair.

Photograph of Wordsworth Musinguzi, a Black man with medium-dark skin. In this photo, he has very close-cropped hair, a light mustache, some metal jewelry, and a serious expression.

Wordsworth Prescott Musinguzi (b. 1991, he/him) is a Trans first-generation Ugandan-Liberian American documentary photographer and multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis, MN. A former music photojournalist and lifestyle blogger, his practice documents and archives intergenerational social movements and subcultures through portraits, books, zines, and exhibitions. Combining traditional and experimental approaches to image-making and publishing, his practice is rooted in redefining what is legible, can be seen and understood by everyday people that feel distant or obscure in proximity. His work is held by Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, UNC Chapel Hill, Cooper Hewitt, and Ohio University. He is a recipient of grants and fellowships from Forecast Public Art, ICP, MRAC, Yale University, and the Emerging Curators Institute.

Marquise Bowie (he/him). Born and raised on the South Side of MPLS, MN. Son of the Most High. Father of two daughters Marquissa (26) Marquia (18). Grandfather of Makayla (2). Husband of Treva Bowie. Bonus kids Treionne, Isaiah, Mimi, Jeremiah, Xion and dog Angel. Deacon, Author, Ambassador, Mentor, Cofounder of the MN Agape movement. “Transforming street energy into community energy and putting the neighbor back into the hood”. South Side we outside!

Photograph of Marquise Bowie, a Black man. In this photo, he's wearing a long black-and-white beard, glasses, tan pants, black gloves, and a red fur-trimmed coat he's holding open to reveal a maroon sweatshirt with the words "Minnesota Strong." He's standing on a snowy street corner at George Floyd Square in South Minneapolis.

Photograph of KJ Kieras, a white nonbinary person performing at a mic with their arms stretched wide. In this photo, they're wearing black pants and a black leather jacket over a dark brown top; metallic jewelry; and short brown hair.

KJ Kieras (they/them) is a writer and performer currently based in Minneapolis. They have performed slam poetry across the nation and are a three-time Midwest Poetry Mashup winner. Their work can be found in BeaverMag, Button Poetry, 45th Parallel, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. They have been a Sundress Academy for the Arts resident and are a Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize Finalist. When not writing, they perform drag across the twin cities as the only lesbian in Minneapolis, Lucy Goosey. They proudly co-produce Minneapolis’ fiercest drag and poetry show, Debasement.

Najeeba Syeed (she/her) – Najeeba’s first book of poetry, Dreaming Lost Bodies Back, was released a few months ago. She writes about lineages of loss and resilience. She is a professor of religion here in Minneapolis.

Photograph of Najeeba Syeed, an Asian American woman with light brown skin and dark eyes. In this photos, she's wearing a pink covering draped over her head and shoulders, a fuchsia top, large flat round yellow earrings, and lipstick. She looks at the camera with a serious expression.

Photograph of Davi Gray, a white trans nonbinary woman with gray eyes. In this picture she is wearing pink hair, a jeweled stud in her right nostril, and a black shirt. She's standing in front of a blurred wood background and staring off to camera right.

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, on unceded Dakota lands. 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 (available for pre-order). 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.

Photograph of Cecily McMillan, a Latine person with light skin and dark brown hair. In this picture she's wearing a sweater vest, earrings and red lipstick, and shows her teeth in not quite a smile.

Cecily McMillan (all pronouns) is a social justice organizer, political consultant, and published author. After enduring a Kafkaesque trial following her arrest at Occupy Wall Street in 2012, she served 58 days at Rikers Island. Since their release, McMillan has become an ardent prisoner rights advocate, highlighting the connections between poverty and incarceration. McMillan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Al Jazeera America, and The Huffington Post. Their memoir The Emancipation of Cecily McMillan was published in 2016 by Nation Books.

For more than two decades, McMillan has been organizing actions and building organizations to promote racial and gender justice; to protect workers’, immigrants’, and students’ rights; and to fight for queer liberation and against nuclear proliferation. She has also worked in electoral politics in roles from canvasser to campaign director, most recently serving as Communications & Outreach Coordinator for Rep. Leigh Finke’s successful campaign to become the first openly trans person elected to the MN State Capitol.

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.

Louise Waakaa'igan is an Ojibwe woman; in this photo, she has mid-length brown hair, a dark blue hoodie, and is touching a tree.

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.

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