Gemini Ink Veteran’s Writing Collective Community Reading & Open Mic
2025-08-06 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us as we celebrate our military writers with an evening of readings, refreshments, and conversation.
Whether you’re a writer, a supporter, or simply curious, this event welcomes all!
Date: Wednesday, August 6
Time: 6:30–8:30 PM
Location: Gemini Ink, San Antonio
Enjoy readings and presentations by Amanda Cerreto, Scott McClean, Herb Nordmeyer, Miranda Serra, Rhett Smith, Philip Verges, and other talented members of the Veterans’ Writing Collective. There’s still room for more—if you’d like to share your work, please contact Sarah Colby. Participation is optional and open to anyone interested!
Who can attend?
Everyone is welcome—bring friends, family, and fellow community members.
Interested in sharing your writing?
Slots are still available for readers and presenters. Simply reach out to reserve your spot: veteranscollective@geminiink.org
We look forward to an evening of storytelling, creativity, and connection. See you there!
— Hosted by Sarah Colby, Veterans’ Writing Collective

Live Storytelling: Voices of San Anto Showcase
2025-08-16 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Mission Branch Library, 3134 Roosevelt Ave, San Antonio, Texas, 78214
You’re invited to a live storytelling show featuring students from our Voices of San Anto Bilingual Storytelling workshop!
Students from our workshop, led by local writer, performer, and San Antonio Poet Laureate Eddie Vega, will share deeply personal stories. Each participant will read a 5-7 minute piece about a significant moment in their life.
Come experience the power of live storytelling and hear these moving narratives firsthand.
We hope you can join us!

Veterans Writing Collective with Sarah Colby
2025-08-20 18:30 - 20:30, 2025-09-17 18:30 - 20:30, 2025-10-15 18:30 - 20:30, 2025-11-19 18:30 - 20:30, 2025-12-17 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-01-21 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-02-18 18:30 - 20:30, 2026-03-18 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) and 1 more date | Online via Zoom
The Veteran’s Writing Collective (VWC) encourages the art of writing in a workshop environment where participants are offered honest, positive, and constructive peer-to-peer and mentor feedback. The workshop is open to all active-duty military, veterans, retirees, and their immediate family members. Writers of all levels working in all genres are welcome.
The VWC meets monthly online via Zoom.
If you would like an invitation to this class, send an email to veteranscollective@geminiink.org

Sarah Colby was born in northern New Mexico and raised in the Rocky Mountains. She is married to a retired Army Chaplain and is mother to a son in the Navy. Sarah has an MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada College and an exuberant interest in making the ordinary luminous. Her war-time experiences have motivated her to be a voice for the mostly untold stories of families and loved ones during these years of protracted conflict. She is currently working on a manuscript of poems about her experiences as a military family member.

Luminescence and Grit: An Evening with Gemini Ink Teaching Artists & a Community Open Mic
2025-08-21 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Artisan Distillery & Craft Bar, 402 Austin St, San Antonio, TX, United States
Join Gemini Ink for a night of poetry, prose, and performance as we celebrate the personal artistry of our Gemini Ink teaching artists and staff. Every day, these professionals bring their passion for the writing arts to community spaces, inspiring students of all ages. Tonight we hear their stories!
Our featured writers will include Teaching Artists Daniel Ramirez, Ana Ortiz Varela, Joyous Windrider, and Gemini Ink staff Florinda Flores-Brown, Catherine Burianek, Mandy Lynn, and Cloud Cardona.
Following the featured reading, we will host a community open mic. Bring your poems, stories, and thoughts to share (there will be a 3-minute limit for each reader). Open mic sign-up in person, starting at 6pm.

The Big Give Drop-In at Gemini Ink
2025-09-06 10:00 - 14:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
We’re kicking off Big Give 2025—and we need your voice to help us reach our Goal of: $20,000 for Public Class Scholarships!
Your donation helps open the door for more writers everywhere to take our creative writing classes—regardless of their financial situation.
Come by for good company and conversation. Las Palapas is generously donating cheese enchiladas, so you can enjoy a meal while connecting with friends.
We’ll also have a filming station where you can record a short video message of support—your voice makes our story stronger.

“Gemini Ink helped me find my path to becoming a poet.” –Gerald S.
How You Can Support
JOIN – Stop by our Drop-In event on Sat, Sep 6, from 10am-2pm.
Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro, San Antonio, TX 78205
Free & Open to the Community
SHARE – Spread the word. Every post, every text, every email helps.
SEND – Share your story. Write it down or record it (60 seconds or less) and let the world know why Gemini Ink matters.
Every gift, large or small, counts. Together, we’ll make sure more stories are written, more voices are heard, and more writers thrive.
Questions? Reach out to Mandy Lynn Lara, Public Class Coordinator at Gemini Ink.

LitMinds Book Club
2025-09-10 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us for the LitMinds Book Club at Gemini Ink. We’re reading H.G. Wells’s novellas The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man.
Register
The Invisible Man is the startling tale of a man who uncovers the ultimate secret of invisibility and with it — instead of power and wealth — his own destruction.
The War of the Worlds has stirred the imaginations of countless readers — and writers. The first novel to describe the Menace from Space — in the form of a calamitous invasion from Mars– it also gave the first detailed description of mechanized warfare and introduced the world to the terrifying weapon known as the Heat-Ray.

by Elliott & Fry, sepia half-tone reproduction of a photograph, 1901
The son of a professional cricketer and a lady’s maid, H. G. Wells (1866-1946) served apprenticeships as a draper and a chemist’s assistant before winning a scholarship to the prestigious Normal School of Science in London. While he is best remembered for his groundbreaking science fiction novels, including The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau, Wells also wrote extensively on politics and social matters and was one of the foremost public intellectuals of his day.

Krier Book Launch
2025-09-11 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Poetic Republic Coffee Co., 2330 S. Presa St, San Antonio, Texas, United States
(Private Book Launch for one of our Partner Classes)
Each year, Gemini Ink collaborates with the Krier Juvenile Correctional Treatment Center to offer creative writing workshops for teens and publish a collection of their work. This year’s launch will debut the newest anthology—a powerful testament to the creativity, resilience, and truth-telling of its young authors. Though this event is closed to the public, we celebrate and honor these emerging voices and the transformative power of writing.

Metro Health Storytelling Final Celebration
2025-09-12 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Landa Branch Library, 233 Bushnell Ave, San Antonio, Texas, 78212, United States
Photo from Metro Health 2024.
Private Reading for one of our Partner Classes.

The Big Give SA 2025
2025-09-17 18:00 - 23:59 (America/Mexico_City) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us Sep 17–18 in raising $20,000 to support writers.
Help Us Reach Our Big Give Goal!

Learn about the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund in the video above!
Double Your Impact for Emerging Writers!
Every gift to the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund during The Big Give helps bring writing to life—for 160 San Antonians.
All donations from The Big Give are in support of the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund. Gemini Ink established this fund for emerging writers in honor of esteemed journalist Cary Clack, a beloved member of the Gemini Ink board. Born and raised in San Antonio, Cary Clack became the first Black journalist on the metro desk at the San Antonio Express-News, where he has covered local and national news and social issues for three decades. He is the author of Clowns and Rats Scare Me and More Finish Lines to Cross and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2017.
This year, all donations support the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund—honoring San Antonio journalist Cary Clack by granting free writing classes to new storytellers. Your gift is matched dollar-for-dollar by generous donors, doubling its power.
“A lot of people don’t see themselves as writers and just need the encouragement to do it.” –Cary Clack

Your gift is matched dollar-for-dollar by our generous donors Dr. Karen A. Waldron and Patricia Pratchett, doubling its power.
Help us honor San Antonio journalist Cary Clack by granting free writing classes to new storytellers through our popular Cary Clack Scholarship Fund.”

Gemini Ink’s mission is to teach the craft of writing to people of all skill levels. We believe everyone has a story, and writing that story is powerful. By 2026, our strategic vision is to teach 15,000 people how to bring their stories to life.
Anyone can apply to the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund. Learn more about our scholarships.

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Joaquín Zihuatanejo
2025-09-17 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Join us on Wednesday, September 17th, 2025, via Zoom for a conversation with Joaquín Zihuatanejo, to discuss his new book, OccupyWhiteness (Deep Vellum). Moderated by Natasha Carrizosa.

(Virtual Readings Quarterly @ 7pm CST)

RSVP

Starting from long-form works of literature by straight, white men, Joaquín Zihuatanejo occupies their pages, erasing words and sections, leaving only his poetry behind — the white space that remains becoming colonized Brown verse.
Occupy Whiteness is an act of rebellion that reclaims spaces and highlights a history of erasure of Brown life. An unflinching look at the present day, the collection is haunted and blessed by the image of ancestors who braved the river and desert to travel into border states for the opportunity of freedom. These are poems meant to agitate and create unease, to make the reader realize that neither their author nor the immigrant children he describes are Other. Through poems and interspersed photography from the border, Zihuatanejo poignantly depicts this equally beautiful and brutal place we call home.

About the Author
Joaquin Zihuatanejo is a poet, spoken word artist, and award-winning teacher. Born and raised in the barrio of East Dallas, in his work Joaquín strives to capture the duality of the Chicano culture. He’s been called, “one of the most dynamic and passionate performance poets in the country, melding equal parts comedy, poetry, and dramatic monologue into a crowd-pleasing display of verbal fireworks… always thrilling, Joaquín’s hilariously manic presentation is full of compassion and nuance, never sacrificing substance for style.” Joaquin was a National Poetry Slam Finalist, a Grand Slam Spoken Word Champion, and HBO Def Poet, performing at universities, conferences and poetry slams all over the North America and Europe.

About the Moderator
Natasha Carrizosa is a vessel of the word – poet, writer, speaker, and teaching artist. Her grounding work is deeply rooted in her BIPOC living experiences, mindfulness, and truths. Author of mexiafricana, heavy light, and crown. Her work has been published in Manteca! – an anthology of Afro-Latino poets, CONTRA: Texas Poets Speak Out, The Ascentos Review, Learn Then Burn 2, defunkt & cutthroat magazines, R2: The Rice Review, huizache #9, and AfroLatinas and LatiNegras (Critical Africana Studies.)

The Big Give SA 2025
2025-09-18 00:00 - 18:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us Sep 17–18 in raising $20,000 to support writers.
Help Us Reach Our Big Give Goal!

Learn about the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund in the video above!
Double Your Impact for Emerging Writers!
Every gift to the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund during The Big Give helps bring writing to life—for 160 San Antonians.
This year, all donations from The Big Give are in support of the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund. Gemini Ink established this fund for emerging writers in honor of esteemed journalist Cary Clack, a beloved member of the Gemini Ink board. Born and raised in San Antonio, Cary Clack became the first Black journalist on the metro desk at the San Antonio Express-News, where he has covered local and national news and social issues for three decades. He is the author of Clowns and Rats Scare Me and More Finish Lines to Cross and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2017.
All donations support the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund—honoring San Antonio journalist Cary Clack by granting free writing classes to new storytellers. Your gift is matched dollar-for-dollar by generous donors, doubling its power.
“A lot of people don’t see themselves as writers and just need the encouragement to do it.” –Cary Clack

Your gift is matched dollar-for-dollar by our generous donors Dr. Karen A. Waldron and Patricia Pratchett, doubling its power.
Help us honor San Antonio journalist Cary Clack by granting free writing classes to new storytellers through our popular Cary Clack Scholarship Fund.”

Gemini Ink’s mission is to teach the craft of writing to people of all skill levels. We believe everyone has a story, and writing that story is powerful. By 2026, our strategic vision is to teach 15,000 people how to bring their stories to life.
Anyone can apply to the Cary Clack Scholarship Fund. Learn more about our scholarships.

Art Above Everything: An Evening with Stephanie Elizondo Griest
2025-09-18 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Northwest Vista College, 3535 N Ellison Dr, San Antonio, Texas, 78251
Northwest Vista College
Innovation Center at Manzanillo Hall
3535 N. Ellison, San Antonio, TX
Free and open to the public
Celebrate Latinx Heritage Month 2025 with award-winning author Stephanie Elizondo Griest! Moderated by Cecilia Ballí.
Join Gemini Ink on Thursday, September 18th, as we partner with Northwest Vista College to showcase Stephanie Griest and her new book, Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life, which features interviews with women artists from around the world.
Stephanie will highlight the profiles of several Latina artists featured in Art of Above Everything. She will then sit down for an intimate conversation with journalist Cecilia Ballí about her book, the joys and heartache of women living a creative life, and the reality of being a Latina artist. A live performance and audience Q&A will follow.
Light refreshments will be served.

See what readers are saying about Stephanie’s book:
“Art Above Everything is a quest, a cascade of questions, and especially a celebration: of art, of lives dedicated to art, and of the difficult choices such dedication requires. This is required reading for anyone who is compelled to create.”— Kirsten Valdez Quade
“In this brilliant exploration of women’s creativity, Stephanie Elizondo Griest asks over 100 artists, ‘Is art enough?’ Is the visual art, dance, music or writing really worth the sacrifices, misogyny, violence and hardships? From Iceland and India to Cuba and Rwanda, these artists will tell you their answers.”— Ms Magazine

Stephanie Elizondo Griest is a globetrotting writer from the Texas-Mexico borderlands. Her six books include: Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana; Mexican Enough; and All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands. She has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, The Believer, BBC, VQR, and Oxford American. Her work has won a Margolis Award for Social Justice Reporting, an International Latino Book Award, a PEN Southwest Book Award, and two Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism prizes. Professor of Creative Nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, she has performed as both a Moth storyteller and as a literary ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Visit her website at: www.StephanieElizondoGriest.com
Cecilia Ballí is a writer and journalist who has been writing for magazines for more than twenty years. In 2000, she became the first Latina or Latino writer at Texas Monthly, where she published longform stories and essays as a writer-at-large. She has written extensively about Tejano history and culture, immigration, the sexual killing of young women in Ciudad Juárez, U.S.-Mexican border drug violence, and Mexican military disappearances and torture, among other subjects. She has also published stories in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, and Columbia Journalism Review. She began her journalism career as a high school senior writing for her hometown newspaper, The Brownsville Herald, and later worked as an education reporter for the San Antonio Express-News.

LitMinds Book Club
2025-11-12 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Note: This title replaces Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne, which appeared in our previous class schedule.
Register

“A riveting tale of perseverance and the lengths humans will go to help each other in times of struggle.”—Dave Eggers
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Vulture, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews
Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago—“one day, you’ll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.”
Javier Zamora’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents’ arms, snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.

About the author

Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador in 1990. His father fled the country when he was one, and his mother when he was about to turn five. Both parents’ migrations were caused by the U.S.-funded Salvadoran Civil War. When he was nine Javier migrated through Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert. His debut poetry collection, Unaccompanied, explores the impact of the war and immigration on his family. Zamora has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard and holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

Writing in the Land with Emmy Pérez
2025-11-13 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Online via Zoom
Literary Masters Lecture Series
Thursday(s), November 13 & 20, 6:30–8pm CT, online via Zoom
Nonmember $90; Member $75; Student?Educ/Mil $63
*EARN CPEs
TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE

Have you been seeking a more intentional connection to nature? Writing about the land is an intimate way to slow down and reconnect to earth with purpose. Join us for the last Literary Masters Lecture of the year! Each session features an engaging craft talk, actionable writing strategies, and a live Q&A with the author.
In this two-part lecture, led by 2020 Texas Poet Laureate Emmy Pérez, we will discuss poems, songs, and prose that center the land and our connections to places and the environment. We will use these discussions and short writing activities to examine nature through a creative lens, explore attention to detail, integrate historical and cultural contexts, and encourage an eco-justice approach to the writing. We will leave the lecture with our own research plans to explore a place of personal interest.
This lecture is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
In this lecture students will:

Discuss poems and short prose pieces
Start drafting a poem or short prose piece
Develop a research plan to include online and in-person exploration of a land or a waterway of interest

Emmy Pérez, Texas Poet Laureate 2020, is the author of Solstice, With the River on Our Face, and the forthcoming Boxes with Zero Tolerance, and Paper america: New and Selected Poems. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, United States Artists, the National Endowment for the Arts, and CantoMundo. A member of the Macondo Writers Workshop since 2008, she is a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she also serves as chair of the Department of Creative Writing.

Celebrating Our Stories: A Night with Gemini Ink
2025-11-14 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Chicago) | Texas
Friday, November 14, 2025 | 6:30–9:30pmRoosevelt Library, San Antonio
View sponsorship opportunitiesRegister now / Buy tickets
The Roosevelt Library
The Gemini Ink Board and team invite you to our autumn fundraiser, Celebrating Our Stories: A Night with Gemini Ink—an unforgettable evening that uplifts San Antonio storytellers and honors those who keep our literary community thriving.
This year, we’re moving the celebration to the Roosevelt Library, a stunning venue that reflects the beauty and history of San Antonio’s artistic spirit.
An Evening of Stories, Flavor, and Connection
Enjoy a culinary journey of small plates—from gumbo to Cacio e Pepe—paired with select wines and beverages. Hear from our Honorary Chair and Gemini Ink founder, Nan Cuba link, and mingle with fellow literary enthusiasts, including our recent Inkstravaganza honorees Cary Clack, Dr. Norma Elia Cantú, Jenny Browne, and Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson.
Featuring Live Performances
Experience riveting performances from some of San Antonio’s most dynamic voices, including Poet Laureate Eddie Vega, and Gemini Ink’s Voices of San Anto alums Dragonfly and Enedina Irene, sharing their powerful personal stories.
A Special Reveal
Be among the first to learn who will be honored at Inkstravaganza 2026—the announcement will be made exclusively during the event!
Support the Literary Arts
When you purchase a ticket link or become a sponsor, you directly support Gemini Ink’s year-round programs—helping us nurture the creative voices of tomorrow through initiatives like Partner Classes for under-resourced youth and our Writing for Resiliency workshops for frontline professionals.
Join us for this very special celebration of the writing arts. None of this would be possible without you!
View sponsorship opportunitiesRegister now / Buy tickets

Live Storytelling: Voices of San Anto Showcase
2025-11-15 14:00 - 16:00 (America/Chicago) | Pan American Branch Library, 1122 W Pyron Ave, San Antonio, 78221

Gemini Ink Holiday Open House
2025-12-11 18:30 - 20:30 (America/Mexico_City) | UTSA Southwest Campus – Coates Chapel, 300 Augusta, San Antonio, Texas, 78205
Save the date for Dec 11!

Join our community of writers, readers, and friends to share your work, make connections, and close the year on a high note.
We’ll also be celebrating our Partner Classes Teaching Artist of the Year for 2025 is Daniel Ramirez! Daniel is our TA of the Year for the amazing work he has been doing, especially with youth, for his wonderful creativity, and his ability to be a great co-teacher and to take the lead when the situation calls for it. He has an excellent way of building rapport quickly with students, whether they are reluctant 5th graders or busy public health workers. Through this rapport, he helps participants feel safe enough to take risks in their writing and play creatively with ideas and words. We are so excited to honor Daniel this year!
Open mic sign-up starts at 6:30pm.Hosted by Mandy Lynn, Public Classes Coordinator.
Wine, non-alcoholic drinks, coffee, and snacks will be served.
Thank you to our sponsors!

The Big Texas Author Talk featuring Cyra Sweet Dimitru
2025-12-17 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Texas
Join us on Wednesday, December 17th, 2025, via Zoom for a conversation with Cyra Sweet Dimitru, to discuss her new book, Words Make a Way Through Fire: Healing After My Brother’s Suicide (Simon & Schuster).

(Virtual Readings Quarterly @ 7pm CST)

RSVP
Words Make a Way through Fire is an intimate, courageous memoir of a woman shattered by witnessing her eldest brother’s horrific suicide when she was a teenager. The book traces her creative journey of recovery and healing with poetry as a constant companion.
The primary means of Cyra Dumitru’s healing process, from age sixteen through adulthood, is writing poetry and journaling. During this decades-long journey, Cyra experiences a transcendent, loving presence called Voice who guides her and helps her imagine wholeness. She finds community with others through the sharing of poems. She studies poetry as craft and as medicine—becoming a published poet with multiple books, an award-winning college instructor of poetry writing, and a certified practitioner of poetic medicine who creates spaces where others can heal through poetry.
In Words Make a Way through Fire, Cyra explores the specific medicinal properties of poetry—giving order to interior anxiety, trusting the wisdom within—and invites her brother David to speak through her as he reflects upon his final hours. In doing so, poem by poem, she shifts gradually from being traumatized and feeling haunted to feeling empowered and spiritually expansive.

About the Author
Cyra Sweet Dumitru is a published poet and instructor of poetry, and one of four certified practitioners of poetic medicine in Texas. Her poems have appeared on the walls of City Hall, been spoken on national public radio and in museums, and appeared in city newspapers and national literary journals. Her collections of poems include What the Body Knows, Listening to Light, Remains, and Elder Moon. She offers therapeutic writing circles for adults learning to live with trauma, bereavement, depression, anxiety, and religious trauma. Cyra lives in San Antonio, Texas with her family.

About the Moderator
Natalia Treviño‘s fiction appears in Mirrors Beneath the Earth (Curbstone Press), The Platte Valley Review, and her non-fiction appears in Wising Up Anthologies, Complex Allegiances and Shifting Balance Sheets: Women’s Stories of Naturalized Citizens. Her first book of poetry, Lavando La Dirty Laundry, is available from Mongrel Empire Press and most online bookstores. A member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop, Natalia has been working to increase young adult literacy since 1992 in her teaching career and through programs sponsored by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, Gemini Ink, and the Bexar County Juvenile Detention Center.

MOSAIC Poetry Reading & Print Sale
2025-12-18 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Mexico_City) | Contemporary at Blue Star, 116 Blue Star, San Antonio, Texas
We’re celebrating the work of high school students who created original visual art and poetry in this special series of workshops, in partnership with MOSAIC Studio, Contemporary at Blue Star. The celebration will be held at MOSAIC Studio at Contemporary at Blue Star.
Learn more about our Partner Classes Program!

LitMinds Book Club
2026-01-14 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us for the LitMinds Book Club at Gemini Ink. We’re reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
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The #1 New York Times bestselling novel beloved by millions of readers the world over.
New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
“A vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people [of Afghanistan] have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence—forces that continue to threaten them even today.”—The New York Times Book Review
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship, it is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.
Since its publication in 2003, Kite Runner has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic of contemporary literature, touching millions of readers and launching the career of one of America’s most treasured writers.

About the Author

Khaled Hosseini is one of the most widely read and beloved novelists in the world, with over thirty-eight million copies of his books sold in more than seventy countries. The Kite Runner was a major film and was a Book of the Decade, chosen by The Times, Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. A Thousand Splendid Suns was the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year in 2008. Hosseini is also a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee Agency, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. He was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and lives in northern California.
Visit our LitMinds page to see what we’re reading next!

Poets & Coffee
2026-02-21 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
A morning of poems and conversation
Saturday, February 21 · 10am–12pm · FREE * OPEN TO EVERYONE!
We’ll have the coffee ready—just bring a friend and settle in among fellow poetry lovers.
Explore what’s happening now in the world of contemporary verse. We’ll share a few favorite poems and spotlight contemporary poets who are making waves both on the page and on the stage. This is your chance to join the conversation! Share the poems that have moved you and tell us why poetry matters in your life.
What to Expect
• Fresh coffee and a relaxed, come-as-you-are atmosphere• A guided, informal conversation led by Gemini Ink Executive Director Alexandra van de Kamp• Readings of contemporary poems• Space to listen, reflect, and share (only if you want to)• New poems to take home and simple prompts to spark your own writing• A room full of people who love poetry—or are just getting curious
• No lectures. No pressure. Just good poems, good conversation, and good company.
You’ll leave with a sense of community. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or simply curious, everyone is welcome at our poetic gathering.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
​​Alexandra van de Kamp is the Executive Director for Gemini Ink, San Antonio’s Writing Arts Center. Her third book of poems, Ricochet Script, was published by Next Page Press in 2022. Her previous full-length collections include: Kiss/Hierarchy (Rain Mountain Press 2016) and The Park of Upside-Down Chairs (CW Books 2010). She has also published several chapbooks, including A Liquid Bird Inside the Night (Red Glass Books 2015) and Dear Jean Seberg (2011), which won the 2010 Burnside Review Chapbook Contest. Her poems have been published in journals nationwide, such as The Cincinnati Review, Connecticut Review, The Texas Observer, and Denver Quarterly.

LitMinds Book Club
2026-03-11 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Chicago) | Gemini Ink, 1111 Navarro St, San Antonio, TX, 78205, United States
Join us for the LitMinds Book Club at Gemini Ink. We’re reading Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel by Zora Neale Hurston.
Register
“A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don’t know how to live properly.”—Zadie Smith
One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has, since its 1978 reissue, become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person—no mean feat for a black woman in the ’30s. Janie’s quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

About the Author

Zora Neale Hurston was a celebrated author, anthropologist, and central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, known for novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God that focused on Black American life and folklore. Educated at Howard University and Barnard College, she was a groundbreaking ethnographer who studied Black culture in the rural South and Caribbean, incorporating her research into her fiction. Despite achieving literary fame, she died in poverty, and her work was largely forgotten until its revival in the 1970s, led by authors like Alice Walker.

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