Name: PoeFest Student Writing Competition
Start: 2021-4-1T00-00-01-00
End: 2021-9-13T00-00-00-00
Location: Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Mesa

01apr(apr 1)12:01 am13sep(sep 13)12:00 amPoeFest Student Writing Competition12:01 am (1) - (september 13) 12:00 am Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Mesa, 1056 S. Country Club Dr

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PoeFest is celebrating its 13th year commemorating the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and you can be a part of it all at multiple locations throughout Phoenix, Arizona this October. PoeFest has been a labor of love for a decade. When PoeFest first opened, it did so to just six audience members. With a packed audience on the third night, they knew they had something special. The fest includes mainstage productions of Poe’s short stories every weekend during the month of October with Poe’s stories rotate nightly. PoeFest usually culminates on Halloween night with ‘The Raven’ at Rosson House Museum. But there’s something extra special about PoeFest that makes Bookmans honored to be a sponsor!

Here are the updated rules for 2021:

Short Story Contest
1. All Arizona students in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades for the 2021-2022 school year are eligible.
2. Home-schooled students are eligible.
3. Student authors must be residents of the State of Arizona.
4. Submission deadline is September 13, 2021.
5. All short story submissions must be between 1,000 and 7,500 words.
6. Themes for short stories must stick to the genres of horror and/or mystery.
7. Stories must be original.
8. Authors retain all copyrights.
9. Revised previous submissions accepted.
10. Submissions can be made in electronic form (contest@poefest.org.) Word document or PDF formats only, please.
11. All submissions must include the email and phone number of a parent or guardian. All
authors must have the permission of a parent or guardian to participate.
12. All submissions must include the author’s name, birthdate, school, and grade for the 2021-
2022 school year. (Homeschooled students are welcome.)
13. One winner will be declared and notified via email and/or phone on October 1st, 2021.
Public Notification on social media pages will be posted after contact with winners.
14. All submissions will be adjudicated by a panel of judges.
15. Prize packages will be provided by Bookman’s Entertainment Exchange.
16. Winners are invited, with their parent’s permission, to record a video of them reading their
winning submission to be shared on the social media pages of Bookman’s Entertainment
Exchange, Arizona Curriculum Theater and PoeFest – A month of madness and terror.

Poetry Contest
1. All Arizona students in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades for the 2021-2022 school year are eligible.
2. Student authors must be residents of the State of Arizona.
3. Home-schooled students are eligible.
4. Submission deadline is September 13th, 2021.
5. All poetry submissions must be no more than 422 lines.
6. Themes for poems must stick to the genres of love, horror, and/or death.
5. Poems must be original.
8. Poets retain all copyrights.
9. Revised previous submissions accepted.
10. Submissions can be made in electronic form (contest@poefest.org.) Word document or PDF
file formats only, please.
11. All submissions must include the email and phone number of a parent or guardian. All
authors must have the permission of a parent or guardian to participate.
12. All submissions must include the poet’s name, birthdate, school, and grade for the 2021-
2022 school year.
13. All submissions will be adjudicated by a panel of judges.
14. One winner will be declared and notified via email on October 1st, 2021.
Public Notification on social media pages will be posted after contact with winners.
15. Prize packages will be provided by Bookman’s Entertainment Exchange.
16. Winners are invited, with their parent’s permission, to record a video of them reading their
winning submission to be shared on the social media pages of Bookman’s Entertainment
Exchange, Arizona Curriculum Theater and PoeFest – A month of madness and terror.

We can’t wait to see all of the submissions! If you have any questions, please contact MesaEvents@Bookmans.com. Happy writing everyone!

Time

April 1 (Thursday) 12:01 am - September 13 (Monday) 12:00 am

Location

Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Mesa

1056 S. Country Club Dr

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01apr(apr 1)8:00 am30(apr 30)12:00 pmIndependent Bookstore Day BookShelfie Contest8:00 am (1) - 12:00 pm (30) Bookmans East Instagram

apr(apr 1)9:00 amapr(apr 30)8:00 pmFeatured Artist: QMULATIVE!Month Long Event (april) Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Midtown, 3330 E. Speedway Blvd.

01apr(apr 1)9:00 am30(apr 30)9:00 pmCelebrating Local Poets and Virtual Open Mic Night9:00 am (1) - 9:00 pm (30) Bookmans East Facebook or Instagram

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Bookmans has always been supportive of local creators and this month we are celebrating Tucson’s passionate poets. April is National Poetry Month and we are featuring a handful of Tucson poets across our social media throughout the month. Get to know these local creatives by following @BookmansEast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

To end National Poetry Month with a bang, on April 30th from 6:00 pm-8:00 pm, we are inviting local poets to join us for a Virtual Open Mic Night on Zoom with Tucson’s one and only Julia Kinu as our lovely host.

If you would like to reserve a seat at this free virtual event, send an e-mail to eastevents@bookmans.com

Julia Kinu

Julia Kinu is a queer, nonbinary, Japanese/Jewish American, cancer sun, fruit hating, starburst addicted, vintage matchbook collecting, dry skin having poet, based in Tucson, AZ. Their chapbook, OJIICHAN OMIYAGE, debuted in December 2020 with Sprawl Press. The collection navigates the complexities of two generations of Japanese heritage – the millennial diaspora and the elderly native. Their work has been featured in Forklift Ohio, Leopardskins & Limes, VIDA, and others. They earned their BA in creative writing at the University of Arizona and were the founder and host of the Owls Club POC Poetry Series, dedicated to lifting the voices of those in the local community and the education that those voices offer. They are a poet of many backgrounds, but that shouldn’t matter if you like the work.

Time

1 (Thursday) 9:00 am - 30 (Friday) 9:00 pm

Location

Bookmans East Facebook or Instagram

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11apr9:00 am8:00 pmNational Pet Day!9:00 am - 8:00 pm Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Stores - AZ

11apr10:00 am9:00 pm36th Annual Tucson Folk Festival10:00 am - 9:00 pm MST

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The 36th Annual festival takes place on April 10-11, 2021 in an exciting new way! Saturday and Sunday, the festival features three new stages and venues with a range of ways to enjoy and watch the festival, including three free livestream broadcasts! Our National Headliner is Grammy-winning folk singer and bluegrass legend Laurie Lewis & Nina Gerber with a Saturday night 8 PM performance live streaming to our jumbotrons and live broadcasts straight from California! Our Sunday night local headliners are Western Swing favorites, The Tucsonsonics, performing live on the Drive-In Stage Sunday at 7 PM and broadcasting online and to the MSA Annex. The Ron Pandy Family Show broadcasts live from Centennial Hall Sunday morning at 12:15 PM. All three stages will feature over 75 live performances throughout the weekend! Over 250 volunteers support the success of this free, family-friendly festival. Find out everything you need to know about this year’s hybrid festival at https://www.tucsonfolkfest.org/.

Purchase tickets for the MSA Annex here.

This year Bookmans is proud to be the presenting sponsor for the Stefan George Memorial Songwriting Competition! Bookmans has supported creativity, community, and culture in the Tucson community for over 40 years. The promise to always be unique is made to ourselves and our customers, driving our decisions and actions every day. Whether you call it creativity, innovation, good business, or basic wackiness, making Bookmans unique every time you’re in our stores or engaging with us out in the community is one of the important things that sets us apart.

Time

(Sunday) 10:00 am - 9:00 pm

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11apr1:00 pm1:30 pmVirtual Storytime1:00 pm - 1:30 pm Bookmans Phoenix Facebook Page

11apr1:00 pm2:00 pm*POSTPONED* Drag Queen Storytime1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Flagstaff, 1520 S Riordan Ranch St.

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Drag Queen Storytime is getting a new queen, Albert The Squirrel! Join Revelucien, Jewel, and Albert for a special butterfly storytime celebrating the new butterfly garden at Bushmaster Park. Learn all about what makes monarch butterflies so special and why we are so excited for the new Monarch Designation.

Drag Queen Storytime at Bookmans Flag is hosted by Revelucein and Jewel The Drag Queen. Join us every second Sunday as we welcome two amazing drag performers for an interactive storytime featuring books, songs, and crafts celebrating our LGBTQ+ community and literacy.

About Revelucien

Revelucien is a creative spirit who started performing in musicals in elementary school and has loved entertaining ever since. Putting on a costume and a character is a great way to express one’s self and impart a message of positivity to others. Finding inspiration in nature and art, Revel believes that a kind queen is the best kind of royalty. Revel wants to help give everyone the confidence to express themselves and love who they are!

About Jewel

Mark has been doing drag for almost 6 years now. It started with just playing with makeup in high school and grew from there. Mark loves getting to perform in front of people as the high energy high glamour drag persona Jewel. Jewel is a gem who loves to sparkle who loves getting to share the sparkle with Flagstaff every time she performs.

Time

(Sunday) 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Location

Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Flagstaff

1520 S Riordan Ranch St.

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16apr12:00 pm1:00 pmVirtual Cookbook Club with Hannah Dela Cruz12:00 pm - 1:00 pm Bookmans East Facebook or Instagram

17apr1:00 pm2:00 pmLive from Bookmans: Virtual Ukulele Party!1:00 pm - 2:00 pm Bookmans Mesa Facebook Page

17apr4:00 pm4:00 pmWhat Even is Poetry? On the Page, Open Mics, Slam Poetry and More4:00 pm - 4:00 pm Bookmans Mesa Facebook Page

17apr6:00 pm7:00 pmA Conversation with Debut Authors featuring Laekan Zea Kemp, Crystal Maldonado, and Monica Gomez-Hira6:00 pm - 7:00 pm MST Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Facebook Page

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Bookmans, Las Musas, and Barrio Books presents a conversation with debut authors Laekan Zea Kemp, Crystal Maldonado, and Monica Gomez-Hira. Join us streaming live on the Bookmans and Las Musas Facebook and YouTube pages Saturday, April 17th at 6PM. Syrena Arevalo of Barrio Books will lead a discussion with three debut authors about their individual books, how culture and language informed their writing process, Latinx representation in kidlit and Young Adult books, and the debut experience. Come for the conversation and stay for the audience Q&A. Be sure to pick up all three titles available at Bookmans Tucson stores!

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN BITTER AND SWEET by Laekan Zea Kemp

I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter meets Emergency Contact in this stunning story of first love, familial expectations, the power of food, and finding where you belong.

Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pastelería next to her father’s restaurant, Nacho’s Tacos. But her mom and dad have different plans—leaving Pen to choose between disappointing her traditional Mexican American parents or following her own path. When she confesses a secret she’s been keeping, her world is sent into a tailspin. But then she meets a cute new hire at Nacho’s who sees through her hard exterior and asks the questions she’s been too afraid to ask herself.

Xander Amaro has been searching for home since he was a little boy. For him, a job at Nacho’s is an opportunity for just that—a chance at a normal life, to settle in at his abuelo’s, and to find the father who left him behind. But when both the restaurant and Xander’s immigrant status are threatened, he will do whatever it takes to protect his newfound family and himself.

Together, Pen and Xander must navigate first love and discovering where they belong in order to save the place they all call home.

This stunning and poignant novel from debut author Laekan Zea Kemp explores identity, found families and the power of food, all nestled within a courageous and intensely loyal Chicanx community.

ABOUT LAEKAN…

Laekan Zea Kemp is a Mexican American author, living in Austin, Texas. She received her B.A. in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University and her M.F.A. in Teaching from the University of North Texas. When she’s not writing she’s religiously re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, reading anything by Melina Marchetta, and teaching English as a Second Language to the most amazing teenagers from all over the world. Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet is her first traditionally published novel, expected spring 2021 from Little Brown Young Readers.

ONCE UPON A QUINCEAÑERA.. byMonica Gomez-Hira

Eighteen-year-old Carmen Aguilar missed graduating from her Miami high school by that much—one credit short after she overreacted to a teacher destroying her dream of becoming a video editor. She’s relieved when a summer internship gives her another chance at her diploma. But instead of pushing papers, Carmen, the queen of screw-ups, finds herself dressing up as a Disney princess for children’s parties.
When her company is hired to perform at her spoiled cousin’s extravagant quinceañera, everyone fears Carmen will sabotage it. Her cousin Ariana was the reason Carmen’s own coming-of-age celebration was canceled three years earlier, and the families haven’t spoken since. This quince is an olive branch, an attempt to bring the families back together. Making matters worse is Carmen’s new dance partner: Mauro Reyes, her most regrettable ex. Absence may have made him hotter, but it didn’t make her fonder.
Still, Carmen is determined to leave the past in the past, even if late-night chats with Mauro stir up old feelings. She’s even getting along with Ariana. As the quinceañera approaches, along with the end of the summer, Carmen must break the spell of past resentments if she wants her own happily ever after.

ABOUT MONICA…

Monica Gomez-Hira is the daughter of Colombian immigrant parents, the wife of an Indian immigrant, the mother of a half Latina/half Indian daughter, and the quintessential Jersey girl who loves her salsa as much as her Springsteen. After getting her BA in English at Wellesley College, Monica spent most of her professional life surrounded by books, and the people who love them. She began her career working for literary agencies, moved to publicity and editorial at Simon & Schuster and Random House, and most recently was a Children’s Lead at Barnes & Noble. She lives with her family in Minneapolis, MN. Once Upon a Quinceañera is her first novel.

FAT CHANCE CHARLIE VEGA by Crystal Maladno

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.

But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing—he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

ABOUT CRYSTAL…

Crystal Maldonado is a young adult author with a lot of feelings. Her debut novel, FAT CHANCE, CHARLIE VEGA (Holiday House), will be released on Feb. 2, 2021. By day, she is a social media manager working in higher ed, and by night, a writer who loves Beyoncé, shopping, the internet, and being extra. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, daughter, and dog. Follow her everywhere @crystalwrote or visit her website at crystalwrote.com.

ABOUT Las Musas…

Mission: To spotlight the contribution of Las Musas in the evolving canon of children’s literature and celebrate the diversity of voice, experience, and power in our communities.

Las Musas is the first collective of women and non-binary (identifying on the female spectrum) Latinx middle-grade (MG), picture book (PB), and young adult (YA) authors to come together in an effort to support and amplify each other’s debut or sophomore novels in US children’s literature. Titles by Las Musas are published by major houses including Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), Charlesbridge, Disney-Hyperion, Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), Knopf, Lee & Low, Page Street, Scholastic, Tor Teen and Walden Pond Press (Harper Collins), and Simon & Schuster.

The Latinx community is an incredibly vast and diverse group of people that includes Afro-Latinx, Indigenous Latinx, Asian Latinx, white Latinx, and any and all combinations of race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. Latinx is not tied to any specific race, but is rather a classification term referring to people with cultural ties to Latin America. Las Musas represent Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay, just to name a few.

ABOUT Barrio Books…

We promote cultural representation for all ages
and carry a great selection of hidden
gems as well as well known
authors and titles in both English and Spanish.

We promote the sacred
knowledge of our
cultura and of our beautiful community.

On January 2nd, 2021 we opened our Brick and Mortar location in a partnership with Hotel McCoy. Today, we stay true to our vision as well as expand our inventory to other POC authors, Best Sellers and Local Authors.

Time

(Saturday) 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm MST

Location

Bookmans Entertainment Exchange Facebook Page

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