The Studio Series Poetry Reading & Open Mic

Featuring Shawn Aveningo Sanders and Cathy Cain

 Shawn Aveningo Sanders overcame a lifelong fear of birds when in 2013 she moved to Oregon and fell in love with the adorable Dark-Eyed Juncos in her backyard. Over 250 of Shawn’s poems have been published worldwide in Australia, Croatia, England, France, the Netherlands, South Africa and the United States. Her work has appeared in journals such as ONE ART, CALYX, Verseweavers, Quartet, Timberline Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Cloudbank, and recent best-selling anthology, Love Is for All of Us (edited by James Crews).

Shawn is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and has received awards from the Oregon Poetry Association, Benicia Literary Arts, Sacramento News & Review, as well as winning the El Dorado County Poetry Slam. She is the author of What She Was Wearing, and her newest collection Pockets (from MoonPath Press) was a finalist in the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest.

A proud mother of three and Nana to one adorable little girl, she shares the creative life with her husband Robert in Beaverton, Oregon, where together they run an independent press, The Poetry Box.

Cathy Cain is the author of four previous collections of poetry: Lamplight, The Weight of Clouds, A Shape of Sky, and Bee Dance (The Poetry Box). She has also published two chapbooks: Love’s Press (The Poetry Box) and Empty Space Places You (Finishing Line Press). Her next book, If the Water (The Poetry Box), is forthcoming in October of 2025.

Cain’s honors include the Edwin Markham Prize for Poetry, the Paulann Petersen Award for Poetry from Willamette Writers, a Pushcart Prize nomination, a PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection nomination, and a First Place and other citations from the Oregon Poetry Association.

Her poetry has appeared in Reed Magazine, The Poeming Pigeon, Verseweavers, VoiceCatcher, and in /pãn| dé | mïk/ 2020: An Anthology of Pandemic Poems.

A visual artist and the mother of two fine sons, Cathy Cain taught in the public schools for over thirty years. She lives with her husband near Portland, Oregon.

The Open Mic is open to all audience members. Participants can sign up before the start of the reading or during the break. In the interest of time, Open Mic readers are asked to limit their reading to three minutes.

View clips of featured poets reading at the Studio Series on Instagram @poet_landia and on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/1281329966139780/

The Ross Island Grocery and Café is a cozy space with capacity for 40 or so people. Tables are available, so people who arrive early can enjoy a light supper (i.e., a sandwich, salad or burger) while waiting for the reading to begin. If we run out of table space, folding chairs are available. A mic will enhance the readings. There is plenty of unrestricted parking on the streets around the Café.