Reading Series: October 11: Jordan Stempleman, Robin Becker, & Kevin Prufer

Register for this reading here.

You can order books from Becker and Prufer here, with a percentage of every purchase going to support Yetzirah.

You can order Stempleman’s latest book here.

Jordan Stempleman is the author of ten collections of poetry, including Spilt, which was awarded the 2025 Wishing Jewel Prize for Poetic Innovation from Green Linden Press. Stempleman is the editor of Windfall Room and the faculty advisor for the Kansas City Art Institute’s literary arts journal, Sprung Formal. From 2011 to 2025, he curated A Common Sense Reading Series in Kansas City, Missouri, and from 2007 to 2025, he served as co-editor of The Continental Review. He is an associate professor in the Kansas City Art Institute’s Liberal Arts Department and Creative Writing Program.

Robin Becker is the author of Midsummer Count: New and Selected Poems, along with eight previous books of poetry, including The Black Bear Inside Me and the Lambda Award winner All-American Girl, both published in the Pitt Poetry Series. A liberal arts research professor emerita in English and women’s studies at the Pennsylvania State University, she lives in central Pennsylvania and southwestern New Hampshire.

Kevin’s Prufer’s newest books are The Fears (Copper Canyon Press, 2023), winner of the 2024 Rilke Prize, and Sleepaway: A Novel (Acre Books, 2024). Others of his books have been listed as among the year’s best by The New York Times, Booklist, and Publishers Weekly and his poetry collection How He Loved Them (Four Way Books) was long-listed for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the Julie Suk Award. He is the 2026 Poet Laureate of Texas and directs The Unsung Masters Series. His next books are Good People: Poems (Copper Canyon, 2027) and the novel Summer of Shooting Stars (Slant Books, 2028).

As we want our events to be accessible to all, our tickets are offered free of charge. Yet if you’re able to donate—perhaps $18, or some multiple of 18, which in Jewish tradition signifies wishing long life and good luck to the recipient of the gift—all proceeds will go directly to supporting Yetzirah, making more events like this possible. Yetzirah is a nonprofit organization, and any gift you make is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law.