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Get Sharp! 2025 Ohio Poetry Publishing Conference

Sponsored by the Ohio Poetry Association

Free and open to all poets

Improve your prowess in poetry publishing and promotion at this FREE conference hosted by the Ohio Poetry Association. Join us for a day packed with insights, inspiration, and networking with publishers and other experts.

CONFERENCE SPONSORS

The Ohio Poetry Association (OPA) was first organized in Columbus, Ohio, in 1929 as the Verse Writers' Guild of Ohio. We incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1978 and are affiliated with the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. The OPA seeks to promote and support poets of all levels of expertise, as well as elevate the art of poetry and the people it touches. We conduct annual contests, publish poetry books, and organize quarterly workshops and readings, as well as our biennial Sun & Moon Festival and the James Wright Festival. We publish a quarterly newsletter, Workshopping Our Words, and an annual members-only poetry journal, Common Threads. For more information on membership and our upcoming events, please visit our website: ohiopoetryassn.org

CONFERENCE AGENDA

All Day / Writers' Center Meeting Room
Book and Resource Fair with Ohio-Based Publishers

Including:
betweenthehighway press (alex benedict)
Blood Pudding Press (Juliet Cook)
Bottom Dog Press (Larry Smith)
diVERSES (Geoff Anderson)
Ethel Zine & Micro Press (Sara Lefsyk)
Green Panda Press / Least Bittern Books (Bree)
NightBallet Press (Dianne Borsenik)
Outlandish Press (Kyle Osborne)

10:00-10:15 / Meeting Room ABC
Welcome and Conference Overview

10:15-11:15 / Meeting Room ABC
Naming, Aiming, and Gaming: NAG the Competition, A Guide to Titles and Marketing
A presentation by Dianne Borsenik

Naming a poem is integral to the writing process. A good title has the ability to enhance, expand, imply, observe, represent, stimulate recall, or pay tribute to. It can set the stage, add an insight, and engage the reader’s attention before the reader ever gets to the first line. This presentation is designed to assist you in mining the titular gems hiding within the stanzas and lines of your own poems, and to suggest ways to become the one to remember at readings and signings. Empower yourself with the words you already use in your craft!

11:15-11:30
Break / Networking / Browse the publishers

11:30-12:30 / Meeting Room ABC
Don’t Grow Readership. Serve It.
A workshop with Geoff Anderson

This workshop with diVERSES founder Geoff Anderson discusses strategies for promoting your writing. However, before scrambling to start a newsletter or creating another social media page or author website, it is important to consider what exactly you are giving to the people who turn to you. In this session, we’ll discuss tactics to reach readers, as well as the reasoning behind each of them, in order to create a plan that gets our work out there.

12:30-12:45
Break / Networking / Browse the publishers

12:45-1:15 / Meeting Room ABC
Meet the Presses — hear from select Ohio publishers

Including: betweenthehighway press (alex benedict), Blood Pudding Press (Juliet Cook), Bottom Dog Press (Larry Smith), diVERSES (Geoff Anderson), Ethel Zine & Micro Press (Sara Lefsyk), Green Panda Press / Least Bittern Books (Bree), NightBallet Press (Dianne Borsenik), and Outlandish Press (Kyle Osborne)

1:15-2:15
Lunch Break / Networking / Browse the publishers

Bring your lunch and eat it in the Writers Center. Additional light snacks provided by OPA and the Friends of the South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch.

2:15-3:15 / Meeting Room ABC
Use Your Pipes
A workshop with Michael Salinger

Take the mic—or at least the room—with poet and performer Michael Salinger, whose decades of spoken word savvy and global teaching gigs make him uniquely equipped to help you bring your words to life. This isn’t about reciting like a robot. It’s about owning the stage, connecting with an audience, and having a damn good time doing it. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or terrified of the spotlight, you’ll leave with sharper delivery skills, real-world performance tools, and maybe even a poem that talks back. Equal parts practical and playful. Come ready to speak up—and out.

3:15-3:30
Break / Networking / Browse the publishers

3:30-4:30 / Meeting Room ABC
A Clutch of Poems 
A workshop with Susan Grimm

What holds the poems together when the poet lets go? This is the question we’re confronted with when we have the happy task of putting together a chapbook or book. I like calling our work “a clutch of poems” because it suggests an abundance, poems that the author feels some intensity for, maybe even some anxiety. The pages might be a little wrinkled by a tight grip. This should be a happy task but it doesn’t always feel that way. What’s in, what’s out, what’s merely supportive? How important are titles or sections? Is there a piece missing? A prelude poem? Should there be an arc, a dance, a floodgate? Order is important. Let’s talk about that.

PRESENTERS

Geoff Anderson created diVERSES to help poets achieve creative and financial independence. He runs Columbus's only space dedicated entirely to poetry, The Stanza. His poems can be found in journals like Cimarron, Tar River, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, and Hobart. He's a Callaloo fellow, Cave Canem fellow, poetry retreat organizer, event curator, and dad.

Dianne Borsenik is a poet, publisher, and promoter, and is currently active as an independent editor. She participates in the northern and mid-Ohio poetry communities. In 2023, her collection Raga for What Comes Next was taught as part of the Contemporary and Modern American Poetry course at Muskingum University. In 2024 she organized the poetry show In the Company of Angels at Speak of the Devil, a lauded cocktail bar in Lorain, Ohio. At that time, Speak of the Devil’s co-owner Kurt Hernon proclaimed her to be the bar’s Poet Laureate.

Susan Grimm has been published in a number of different journals including Sugar House Review, The Cincinnati Review, Phoebe, and Field. She has had two chapbooks published and one full-length collection, Lake Erie Blue. When she served as editor of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center, she edited Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems. In 1999, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year. She has also won the Copper Nickel Poetry Prize and the Hayden Carruth Poetry Prize. In 2022, she received her third Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant.

Michael Salinger is a poet, performer, and educator who has spent nearly 40 years bringing spoken word to stages, classrooms, and conference halls around the globe. A founding force in Cleveland’s performance poetry scene, he has shared his work and led workshops in over 65 countries, helping writers of all ages find their voice. Michael is the author of numerous books for educators and young writers, and he remains a passionate advocate for the power of poetry read aloud. Whether behind a mic or in front of a classroom, he believes words are meant to move—literally and emotionally.