Bemidji Public Library Presents New Belongings Poetry Reading and Workshop

The Bemidji Public Library is pleased to present New Belongings, a poetry reading that blends writers of Adoption/Fostered/Kinship care experiences. Writers LM Brimmer, Halee Kirkwood and Sherrie Fernandez-Williams will come together on Saturday March 7, 2025 at 2pm in Bemidji Public Library to share space, knowledge and stories around the theme of belonging. LM Brimmer is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Contact Kate Egelhof at the library with any questions at egelhofk@krls.org or 218-751-3963. The Bemidji Public Library is committed to providing the community with valuable resources and services, including WIFI, fax, printing, copying, and a legal kiosk. The library is open from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. All Bemidji Public Library programs and events are free and open to the public.

LM Brimmer is an artist & educator living on Dakota land. Co-editor of the anthology Queer Voices: Poetry, Prose and Pride (2019), their essays and poetry have recently appeared in The Colorado Review, Heavy Feather Review, Tiny Spoon Lit Mag, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. Their interdisciplinary work has been supported by the Jerome Foundation, The Playwrights’ Center, Pillsbury House Theater, The Givens Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Randolph College and the University of St. Thomas. LM’s debut collection Imagined Child is forthcoming from Kelsey Street Press.

Halee Kirkwood is a genre-fluid writer living in Minneapolis. They were an inaugural and returning Indigenous Nations Poets (IN-NA-PO) fellow, a Tin House Summer Workshop alum, a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, and a 2022 Minnesota State Arts Board grant recipient. Kirkwood is the winner of the 2022 James Welch Poetry Prize, published with Poetry Northwest. Their poetry and prose can be found in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Magazine, Poem-A-Day, Ecotone, and others. They are a first generation direct descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.

Sherrie Fernandez-Williams is a Black, Queer writer who earned her MFA in Writing from Hamline University. She was a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and received a Black Voices in Children’s Literature award. She received additional grants and awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, The Loft Literary Center, The Givens Foundation for African American Literature, Intermedia Arts,  SASE: The Write Place, and The Playwrights’ Center. The author of the book of poems,  Goddess of the Wholself,  and the memoir Soft, Fernandez-Williams, has published poems in journals including New Limestone Review, Aquifer: The Florida Review, and Duke University Press, among others. Her essays can be found in anthologies including We are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World, How Dare We Write: A Multicultural Creative Writing Discourse, and The Poverty and Education Reader.  Sherrie co-directs Queer Voices Minnesota with LM Brimmer.