5:15-6:15pm Docents available at the Marion Davies Guest House to discuss the site
6:30-8:00pm Reading

Join Red Hen Press in celebrating poetry at the Beach! In this first of four readings this summer, three poets will read from their acclaimed works: Steve Kistulentz, recipient of Red Hen’s Benjamin Saltman Award, Rita Mae Reese, Artkoi Books’ 2011 selection, and Roger Mitchell, recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Steve Kistulentz’s poetry has appeared in such literary magazines as The Antioch, Black Warrior, Crab Orchard, New England Reviews, New Letters, and Quarterly West. His work was selected for inclusion in the Best New Poets anthology by former Poet Laureate of the United States Mark Strand, and he is a two-time winner of the Academy of American Poets John Mackay Shaw Prize. He was born and raised in the Washington, DC, area, and now teaches creative writing and literature at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. The Luckless Age is his first book.

Rita Mae Reese has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Stegner fellowship, and a “Discovery”/The Nation award. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in journals and anthologies including The Normal School, Imaginative Writing, From Where You Dream, Blackbird, New England Review, The Southern Review, and The Nation. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her family.

Roger Mitchell is the author of ten books of poetry, a work of nonfiction, and numerous reviews and essays. Awards for this work include the Midland Poetry Award for Letters From Siberia and the John Ben Snow Award for his nonfiction work, Clear Pond: The Reconstruction of a Life, for which he was also made an honorary citizen of the Town of North Hudson in Essex County, New York. He has received fellowships in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Indiana Arts Commission, and from the New York Foundation for The Arts. He lives in the Adirondack Mountains with his wife, the fiction writer Dorian Gossy.

About Red Hen Press
Now a national presence in independent publishing, Red Hen Press was founded in 1994 by Mark E. Cull and Kate Gale. As a nonprofit literary press that publishes twenty works of poetry, literary fiction, and autobiography each year, they are dedicated to supporting quality writing that is being ignored or overlooked by large or commercial publishers. The Press also donates books to schools, libraries and other institutions, and presents seven reading series in New York and Los Angeles showcasing current and backlist authors. The Red Hen Press is a place for writers’ work to be published and celebrated; a literary family for a diversity of voices that articulate the variety of human experience.

Stop by early for information on the Beach House and Guest House tours by docents from the Santa Monica Conservancy before every Beach=Culture evening, from 11am-2pm and 5:15-6:15pm.

Tickets are free but seating is limited and reservations are required. If you would like to attend, please reserve online. Please plan to arrive by 6:15pm to retain your reservation. Late seating, even for reservation-holders, is not guaranteed. To adjust or cancel your reservation for this event, email beachhouse@smgov.net. We appreciate your keeping in touch!

Directions: The Beach House is located at 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 on the west side of Pacific Coast Highway, a half mile north of the California Incline and a half mile south of Chautauqua Blvd. Plenty of public parking is available - enter off PCH at the Beach House Way traffic light. The facility is easily accessible by foot or bike from the beach bike path, although the Beach closes at sunset. There is ample bike parking at racks throughout the site - remember to bring your own lock.

Parking: There is a daily parking charge at the park and pay machines available in three areas of the ACBH parking lot. Fees change from the shoulder season through summer; please check the website for details.

Other events: To view & make reservations for future free Beach=Culture events, check http://annenbergbeachhouse.com/beachculture.

General Info: For hours, events and more, visit http://www.annenbergbeachhouse.com, or call 310-458-4904. Back on the Beach Café is open weekdays 8am - 3pm (8am - 5pm weekends).