Join Brown Bag Lit next month in welcoming Jehanne Dubrow! She's offering a poetry workshop on writing work that engages with trauma. Register to join us: www.brownbaglit.com/events (Free and online!)

Come and hear our co-founders in DC!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · 2d ago

Shasta Grant is coming to DC! Friday (8/14), catch her at @politicsprose.bsky.social (where I will be in conversation with her) and on Sat (8/15), we'll both be reading at The 804 Lit Salon! P&P: politics-prose.com/shasta-grant... 804 Lit Salon RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/804-lit-sa...

#RandomWritingPrompt from Brown Bag Lit: Is it hot where you are? Work to describe temperature through description (the effects of heat, the colors, the light, etc.)

#RandomWritingPrompt Choose a color & name the different shades. As we are deep into the summer, here's a photo of various shades of blue. You can choose the color you want to start with. After you have a list, work these names into a piece showing a progression from light to dark or dark to light.

#RandomWritingPrompt Brown Bag Lit co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social is in Italy and loves to marvel at the supermarket aisles dedicated to pasta. Today, write about food shopping. What do you always look for or enjoy exploring in the supermarket? What feels like home in these aisles?

If you are in Florence, Italy, stop by NYU in Florence tonight to hear our co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social read poetry!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · last mo.

Tonight at 18:00 in Florence, Italy! What Light Reveals: poetry reading and screening Monday, June 22, 2026 18:00 CEST NYU Florence - Villa Sassetti Vito Adriaensens & Chloe Yelena Miller Register here: events.nyu.edu/event/400023...

Happy pub day to Brown Bag Lit co-founder @shastagrant.bsky.social ! You will *LOVE* her debut novel When We Were Feral! www.shastagrant.com

Shasta Grant

shastagrant.com

#RandomWritingPrompt from Brown Bag Lit: Close your eyes and think of a color - or many colors! What color draws you in? What do you think of or feel while you immerse yourself in that color?

Congratulations to Brown Bag Lit Co-Founders @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social and @shastagrant.bsky.social for being on A Fresh Story Podcast about their books! Listen here: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Congratulations to our co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Thank you to @joeynicoletti.bsky.social for a most wonderful review of Perforated (Lily Poetry Review Books) in the latest issue of VIA (Vol 37.1) published by Bordighera Press! Grazie mille. bordigherapress.org/via/

Read co-founder Shasta Grant's piece in Literary Hub about her hometown and writing her debut novel, When We Were Feral (Regal House Publishing) lithub.com/a-love-lette...

A Love Letter to My Hometown: On Revisiting Rural New Hampshire in Fiction

As a teenager in my hometown of Newport, New Hampshire, with a population of around 6,000 people, weekend nights began by driving through town. My friends and I would pile into a car, roll the wind…

lithub.com

We sent out an email update! Let us know if you'd like to be added to our mailing list. While we're pausing our writing accountability group and events for the summer, you can read our Milk Journal pieces for recommendations, check out our recordings & register for a fall poetry workshop!

#RandomWritingPrompt from Brown Bag Lit: Start with an expression and see where it takes you. For example, "Bless your heart" or "Aren't you precious?" What are some of your favorites? Find more here englishlive.ef.com/en/blog/engl...

We'll miss our Lunch Break Writers over the summer! Thanks for a great open mike yesterday! See you in the fall! www.brownbaglit.com/lunch-break with @shastagrant.bsky.social and @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social

#RandomWritingPrompt: Write the most human thing you can write - use all of your senses - that is to say, don't use AI. Remember your body, our planet and all of our human sensations. Go outside and stand in the rain. Look up. Look at trees. Look at your hands. You are here. Write.

Congratulations to @shastagrant.bsky.social , my friend and @brownbaglit.bsky.social co-founder! HER DEBUT NOVEL IS HERE! It officially releases in June but my pre-order is HERE! www.shastagrant.com

Congratulations to our co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social! Read and listen below -

The Slowdown@slowdownshow.org · 3mo ago

"The way today’s poem talks about vision — and vision problems — is original, and vulnerable, and full of nuance," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1517. Read "Liquefying” by @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4ukhLMA

Thank you to Bernadine (Dine) Watson for discussing Dixon, Descending (Dutton) with Karen Outen for Brown Bag Lit's Milk Journal! www.brownbaglit.com/milkjournal

Congratulations to co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social! We're proud you wrote this during our Lunch Break Writers!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Thank you to @dctex.bsky.social for sharing the origin of his chapbook's title poem, "Smells like rain," for this week's installment of Poem's Origin Story! This poem was first published in Gargoyle and later in his chapbook (Sligo Creek, 2024): chloeyelenamiller.substack.com/p/poems-orig...

Come out and hear Brown Bag Lit's Lunch Break Writer Dine Watson! washingtonwriters.org/capital-love...

CAPITAL LOVE LITFEST - our WWPH SUMMER OF LOVE - Washington Writers' Publishing House

The WWPH Capital Love LitFest kicks off our Summer of Love series of literary salons around the DMV. Join us!

washingtonwriters.org

Washington Writers’ Publishing House@wwph.bsky.social · 3mo ago

So many good things going on at your Washington Writers' Publishing House!! Happy Mother's Day... happy Sunday to all!! #writingcommunity #books #DCwriters #MDwriters #VAwriters

Attention: Poets! Looking for a small-group, MFA style poetry workshop this fall? Check out co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social's workshop; ONE seat remains!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I'm looking forward to teaching another MFA-style poetry workshop this fall through @brownbaglit.bsky.social. ONE spot (out of four) remains. Let me know if you're interested in applying to join us! Details here: www.brownbaglit.com/classes

#RandomWritingPrompt from Brown Bag Lit: What's up the stairs? Can your character hear sounds that map the space that they can't see? (You can change this prompt to be "what's down the stairs," or "what's down the hallway?")

Come out and see co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social at The Gaithersburg Book Festival if you are in the DMV!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I'm looking forward to reading from Perforated (Lily Poetry Review Books) at The Gaithersburg Book Festival on Sat., May 16th! I'll be with poets Michele Evans and Megan Leonard, moderated by @wordperv.bsky.social! Hope to see you there! www.gaithersburgbookfestival.org/featured_aut...

Thank you to Eileen Minnefor for reviewing Daria Sommers’s SAWADIKA AMERICAN GIRL (Vine Leaves Press) for Milk Journal! www.brownbaglit.com/milkjournal

#RandomWritingPrompt from Brown Bag Lit: Choose a paint chip color and name (you might try the Sherwin Williams link below) and write from there. samples.sherwin-williams.com?gad_source=1...

#RandomWritingPrompt from Brown Bag Lit: Chloe here! Write about this fellow. (His brightness and cheerful wave cracked me up the first time I saw him. Here's to joy!)

Are you in the DMV? Come hear our co-founder @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social read on Thursday at the Georgetown @dcpubliclibrary.bsky.social!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · 3mo ago

DMV friends: Come hear Michele Evans and I read from our new books at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library on Thursday, April 30, from 6-7:30 pm EST. Thursday is, of course, the last day of Poetry Month! Let's celebrate poetry together! More details here: dclibrary.libnet.info/event/16333996

#RandomWritingPrompt (really an editing prompt) from @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social: Choose something you've written and work to tighten the frame. Where is the main energy of the piece? What can be cut out? (I think of this as looking through the window. What do you want to include in the frame?)

Congratulations to our co-founder, @chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social!

Chloe Yelena Miller@chloeyelenamiller.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Oh, wow! What a good morning - thank you to @tupelopress.bsky.social Quarterly for highlighting Perforated (Lily Poetry Review) today. Thank you to Editor-in-Chief Kristina Darling for a conversation and folio and @dorothybendel.bsky.social y for a review!

Tomorrow is the last day of my current Brown Bag Lit poetry workshop. It has been another great one! Check out the books we read (we also workshop student poems...) What joy to spend so much time reading and discussing poetry! I'm starting to plan for next semester. Click through for more-