Registration now closed

Bexley Centennial Author Series

Maggie Smith & Saeed Jones In Conversation

Join us as we wrap up the Bexley Centennial Author Series with Bexley's hometown poet Maggie Smith and Ohio transplant Saeed Jones, as they discuss their lives, poetry, and love of libraries.

We are wrapping up our Bexley Centennial Author Series with Bexley's beloved hometown poet, writer, editor, and teacher, Maggie Smith, in conversation with the Kirkus Prize-winning author, poet, and podcast host, Saeed Jones. Maggie and Saeed will discuss their lives, poetry, and love of libraries with the witty, humorous, and open-hearted introspection for which they are both known.

Maggie Smith's memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful (One Signal Publishers, 2023), is a NYT Bestseller, was named to NPR's and Time's "Best Books of 2023" lists, and has been called, "Rich in nuance and unrelenting in its honesty...a bittersweet study in both grief and joy" -- Time, and, "a sparklingly brilliant memoir-in-vignettes that only Maggie Smith could write" -- Isaac Fitzgerald, NYT bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts. 

Saeed Jones's latest collection of poetry, Alive at the End of the World (Coffee House Press, 2022), won the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, was named to The New Yorker's, NPR's, and Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 2022" lists, and has been called, "Personal and universal, full of grief and sadness but also packed with hope and humor, stylish and entertaining but also profound and touching" -- Gabino Iglesias, NPR, and, "A serious argument for community and the rebellion of joy" -- United States Poet Laureate, Ada Limón.

Maggie and Saeed will be signing books following their conversation. Thank you to Gramercy Books for partnering with us and making onsite books available for purchase. Purchase your books ahead of the program, 10% of online book sales through Gramercy's Centennial Author Series page will be donated to the Bexley Community Author Series Fund at the Bexley Community Foundation. 

About the Authors:

Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful; the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change; as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, winner of the 2012 Dorset Prize and the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; and Lamp of the Body, winner of the 2003 Benjamin Saltman Award. Maggie Smith’s latest book, My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book illustrated by SCBWI Portfolio grand prize winner Leanne Hatch, is now available from Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.

Saeed Jones is the author of the memoir HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES, winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and the poetry collection PRELUDE TO BRUISE, winner of the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry. His poetry and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, Oxford American and GQ, among other publications. His latest poetry collection, ALIVE AT THE END OF THE WORLD, was released in 2022 to wide acclaim and won the 2023 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Registration required. Join us in person, or live stream this program on BPL's YouTube channel.

Upcoming events