Care and Repair: A Reading
Saturday, Oct 3, 1- 2:30 p.m
Bewick Cafe | 1340 Thomas Ave W
As Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” Like it or not, pain, wounds, and breaking are a part of life. Wounds are also an unfortunate byproduct of our life on this planet, especially as the scars of human industry become visible everywhere. How do we care for ourselves, our communities, our loved ones, and our planet in the face of all that is broken? How can repair be an act of creation, building something new and more enduring? Authors Terri Matilla, Jennifer Hildebrandt, Suzanne Swanson, Cary Waterman, and Nicola Koh will explore care and repair across bodies, communities, families, and landscapes, asking what it means to not only survive damage, but to find new hope within all that is broken.
Learn more about Bewick Cafe at bewickcafe.com/
Suzanne Swanson
Suzanne Swanson is a retired perinatal psychologist and the author of House of Music and the chapbook What Other Worlds: Postpartum Poems. Suzanne is a winner of the Loft Mentor Series; she helped to found Laurel Poetry Collective. With Sara Dovre Wudali, she co-edited the hybrid chapbook, All You Need Is One Avocado. Recent poems have appeared in Concision Poetry Journal, Land Stewardship Letter, Water~Stone Review, The Iowa Review and NELLE. Her book, A Whole Life Left, will be published by One Subject Press in October. Suzanne’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is happiest near big water.
Terri Mattila
Terri Mattila is a lifelong Minnesotan who works as a biology lab manager at the University of Minnesota, where she blends her passion for science with a love of teaching. Outside of work, she sings and plays guitar in an acoustic duo. Her deep love for animals inspires her volunteer work at a wildlife center and running a neighborhood pet-sitting business. Terri’s poetry shares her journey of healing and hope.
Her newest poetry collection, Scattered Scenes: Poems and Reflections, follows the winding path from brokenness to new beginnings. Through honest (and sometimes painful) emotions, these poems ultimately offer comfort and hope to anyone who wonders if they can heal. They are a reminder that even the deepest wounds can become the foundation for hope. The book can be purchased on Amazon at amazon.com/Scattered-Scenes-Reflections-Terri-Mattila/dp/B0H84WPK9D/ or by contacting the author personally.
Her memoir, But Always, There Was Love: A memoir of trauma, transformation, and healing, is the powerful true story of one woman’s journey through trauma, transformation, and healing. Growing up on the rugged north shore of Lake Superior, her childhood was marked by natural beauty—and by the shadows of suicide, abandonment, and silence. After being victimized by a sexual predator, she later faced further struggles with poverty, depression, and an abusive marriage. Yet she refused to be defined by pain. With courage and determination, she emerged from the darkness to reclaim her life. More than a memoir of hardship, this is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the redemptive power of love. It offers hope and inspiration to anyone seeking their own path to healing. The book can be purchased at amazon.com/But-Always-There-Love-transformation-ebook/dp/B0FFNHGG22/
Cary Waterman is a poet and non-fiction writer. She is the author of four books of poems. Her most recent collection, Book of Fire, was a finalist for the Midwest Book Award. Her previous collection, When I Looked Back You Were Gone, was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies such as Poets Against the War, Minnesota Women Poets from Pre-territorial Days to the Present, and in journals such as Water~Stone Review, The New Guard, Cutthroat, and Blue Earth Review. She also co-edited with Jim Moore the anthology Minnesota Writes: Poetry. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, where she teaches in the undergraduate program and is Poetry/Memoir Mentor in the low-residency MFA Program. She has lived in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood for 20 years.
Cary Waterman
Nicola Koh
Nicola Koh is a Malaysian Eurasian 17 years in the American Midwest, an atheist who lost their faith completing their Masters of Theology, and a minor god of Tetris. They got their MFA from Hamline University and were a 2018 VONA/Voices and 2019/20 Loft Mentors Series fellow. Their fiction has appeared in places like the Margins, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, and the Account. Nicola enjoys taking too many pictures of their animal frenemies, crafting puns, and listening to public domain audiobooks after injuring their neck reading (which they console themselves by calling a literary wound of honour). See more at nicolakoh.com.
Jennifer Hildebrandt
Jennifer Hildebrandt is a writer, movement teacher and aerial artist who recently moved back to her beloved St. Paul after being away for far too long. A graduate of Hamline University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, a 2019-2020 fellow of the Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series program, and a grateful recipient of grants from both the Minnesota State Arts Board and Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, Jennifer’s main genre is nonfiction, with a special interest in the lyric essay. Her work can be found in the Bellevue Literary Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Masters Review, and others. See more at https://www.jenniferhildebrandt.com