Join us at independent bookseller Magers & Quinn from 7:00-8:00 PM to hear readings, featuring FY25 MSAB Creative Individuals grant recipient Marianne Manzler, Dralandra Larkins, and local artists as they read from current and works in progress.
About the readers:
Marianne is a writer, educator, and editor. Raised in Cincinnati, she is the graduate of The Ohio State University and University of Washington, where she received her MFA in Creative Writing–Prose. There, she taught writing to youth and undergraduate students. She has also worked in the magazine and book publishing industry in both editorial and marketing departments. She manages the education program at The Loft Literary Center and teaches creative nonfiction at Carleton College.
Her work has been recognized by Best American Essays 2022 and published in Fourth Genre, The Seventh Wave, 5280, and elsewhere. She has received support from Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Sundress Publications, Anderson Center at Tower View, and Vermont Studio Center. She is a 2025 recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board grant and a 2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship Finalist in Literature-Prose. Within the past decade, she has served as a Fulbright scholar, AmeriCorps member, and Urban Leaders Policy Fellow. She is an Essays Editor at The Rumpus, prose reader at Quarterly West, and poetry reader at The Offing. She hosts the podcast series Mumu Stories. Her memoir-in-essays is about illness, identity, and the persistent ties of home.
Dralandra is an award-winning spoken word poet, teaching artist, storyteller, and co-editor of Cracked Walnut’s anthology “Rewilding Hope, 2023” and Hansel-Cabello's "The Nations Underground: Writing with Our Ancestors 2024" based in Minneapolis. Her work has been recognized in the Minnesota Women’s Press, The Edge Magazine, Insight News, Witness Writers, The Agates and other anthologies.
Her spoken word performances weave together words, rhythm, and intimacy to create a haven for healing, advocacy, and self-discovery for those seeking solace, empowerment, and connection. She has graced numerous stages with her captivating storytelling and performances, leaving audiences spellbound and inspired. She's collaborated and competed on platforms including Button Poetry, NAACP, Mill City Museum, MN State Capitol, Minnesota Black Authors Expo, the MN Black Business Ball Enterprise, TruArtSpeaks, Artstart, KFAI Radio, MN Public Radio, Modist Brewing, Poets & Pints, and others. She invites her audience to confront their own traumas and find strength in vulnerability. Her work is rooted in the art of healing, spirituality, community, self-love and liberation. Poetry serves as a form of therapeutic release for herself but also for those who listen to her words.
Her impact goes beyond the stage.
She has taught youth and adult poetry classes with The Loft, Hennepin County, The Big Brothers Big Sisters Program, Semilla Center for Healing, and the University of MN Outreach Center (UROC). She is also a teaching artist at Now Make Art where she encourages youth to use art as playtime. Click Workshop tab to learn more.
Dralandra also serves as a judge for the Minnesota Book Awards, and she is the Program Coordinator with The Friends of St. Paul Library where she organizes author reading series including Club Book, Moving Words, and Fireside Reading Series.
She is a 2023 MN State Arts Board grant recipient and the innovator of the Pocket Poetry Dispenser at Next Chapter Booksellers.