The Open Door: Kathleen Rooney and John Wilkinson

The Open Door series presents work from Chicago’s new and emerging poets and highlights the area’s outstanding writing programs. Each hour-long reading features two Chicagoland college and graduate writing program instructors and two of their current or recent students.

Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press. She is the author of the essay collection For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs (Counterpoint, 2010) and the poetry collection Robinson Alone (Gold Wake Press, 2012).

John Wilkinson is a British poet who chairs the Committee on Creative Writing at the University of Chicago and also teaches in the department of English. He entered academic life in 2005 after a career in mental health services in the UK, recently in the East End of London. The most recent of his many books is Reckitt's Blue (Seagull Books) and in 2014 Salt will publish his selected poems, Schedule of Unrest.

Mark Magoon writes poetry and short fiction. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two dogs, and tutors and teaches writing at the City Colleges.

Gwen Muren is a fourth-year English Language and Literature major at the University of Chicago. Her first chapbook of poetry, Glitch, is forthcoming from Crater Press in January 2014.