Get Back in Full Swing: Gemini Ink’s Literary Open House  

Please join us on Thursday, February 23rd at 6:30pm CST, for our open house at Gemini Ink and get your writing back in full swing!

We are excited to introduce the dynamic roster of teaching artists working with us this year. Connect with some of San Antonio’s most talented writers as they share new work and discuss the classes they’ll be teaching. Featured writers include poet and award-winning memoirist Kendra Allen; award-winning poet and Sun Poets Society founder Rod Carlos Rodriguez; haiku champion, storyteller, and Taco-Poet of Texas, Eddie Vega; and 2020-2023 San Antonio Poet Laureate and Hip-Hop artist Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson. We can’t wait for our creative community to inspire you!

The night kicks off with our teaching artists reading their work and offering insights into their 2023 workshops, followed by a bit of mix-and-mingling. Our evening then culminates in a community open mic. 

We want to hear your latest work! The list is capped at six readers. Arrive early to grab a spot. It all happens at Gemini Ink’s downtown writing arts center–1111 Navarro Street. Don’t leave without our spring calendar of classes and events, chock full of events and offerings!

We bet after this, you’ll be inspired to run home and write that new piece! 

Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, Tx. She loves laughing, leaving, and writing Make Love in My Car, a music column for Southwest Review. Some of her other work can be found in, or on, The Paris Review, High Times, The Rumpus, and more. She’s the author of the poetry collection The Collection Plate, and the essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Fruit Punch, her memoir, is out now. 

Rod Carlos Rodriguez has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and has trained as a guest lecturer at the University of Texas at San Antonio Writing Program. He is also an award-winning poet who has been writing for over 40 years. He has three books of poetry published and is founder/chair of the Sun Poet’s Society, South Texas’s longest-running weekly open-mic poetry reading (1995-2022). He was nominated for the San Antonio Poet Laureate in April 2012, April 2014, April 2016, and April 2018. He was the poetry editor for Ocotillo Review (Kallisto Gaia Press), a literary journal/periodical and he was the editor of Texas Poetry Calendar 2023 (Kallisto Gaia Press).

Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson is a San Antonio native that has been performing for over twenty years. She’s the co-host of the consecutive award-winning 2nd Verse Open Mic. She has served as a Writer in Community for Gemini Ink since 2009. She’s the winner of the 2019 People’s Choice Award, awarded by Luminaria Artist Foundation (formerly known as: Artist Foundation of San Antonio). Her debut book entitled: She Lives In Music, published on Flower Song Press, was released on Valentine’s Day 2020. Her album She Tastes Like Music is available on all music streaming platforms. On April 1st 2020, Andrea became the first African American Poet Laureate of San Antonio 2020-2023. In May of 2020, she was awarded Best Live Entertainment/Band Musician of the Year by the SEA Awards.

Eddie Vega is a poet, spoken word artist, storyteller, and educator. His poetry has been displayed on VIA Buses and downtown San Antonio buildings. His first full-length poetry collection, Chicharra Chorus (FlowerSong Press) was published in 2019, and he is the 2021 recipient of the Literary Arts Grant from the Luminaria Artist Foundation. In 2022, Vega won the Haiku Death Match at both the Southern Fried Poetry Slam and the NSFPS BlackBerry Peach Slam. His latest project is a collection of poems written by South Texas poets entitled Asina is How We Talk. Vega writes about food, Tejano culture, social justice, and the intersections thereof. Known as the Taco-Poet of Texas, he can be found nightly at an open mic, slam, or taqueria anywhere throughout South Texas.