Just Buffalo Literary Center announces 2024 season of Silo City Reading Series

The 12th season of the Silo City Reading Series kicks off June 15 with an event headlined by National Book Award Finalist poet and cultural theorist Fred Moten, author of “Perennial Fashion Presence Falling” (Wave Books) and poet, translator and aerialist Christina Vega-Westhoff. Tickets will be available starting May 10 at justbuffalo.org. The multigenre celebration of poetry, music and art is held in Marine A, a 120-foot-high grain silo at the edge of the Buffalo River.

The three-event season begins with Moten and Vega-Westhoff, New York-based improvisation musician Brandon Lopez, and Buffalo painter Bree Gilliam. On July 27, poet Michael McGriff, author of “Eternal Sentences” (University of Arkansas Press) winner of the Miller Williams Poetry Prize, will be joined by 2023 Yale Younger Poets Prize Winner Cindy Juyoung Ok, Austin-based regret pop band Sun June, and award-winning visual storyteller Ariel Aberg-Riger.

On Aug. 31, award-winning poet Megan Fernandes will perform with Diana Cao, winner of the 2024 Just Buffalo Poetry Fellowship, a musical performance by DJ B-Cutz and flutist Dayatra Amber, and a choreographed rolling skating and visual installation curated by Barrett Gordon (The WASH Project), in collaboration with DJ Carr, Mandela Huff, Drew Huff (unrelated) and Aye Thant.

Support for the Silo City Reading Series is provided by the Cullen Foundation, the Stenclik Family Charitable Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Rich Products Corp., the New York State Council for the Arts, and Erie County Cultural Funding. 

Silo City Reading Series events take place in Marine A grain elevator, behind Duende at Silo City, 85 Silo City Row. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the events begin at 7:30 p.m. Capacity is limited, so advance tickets are required. Books by featured poets in the series will be available for purchase by Buffalo bookseller Fitz Books. 

For more information, visit justbuffalo.org.