The Ivy Bookshop welcomes Washington Publishing for an event showcasing four local writers.

The D.C./Baltimore area's venerable nonprofit small press, the Washington Writers' Publishing House will celebrate their past poetry and fiction winners, Jona Colson (debut poetry collection: SAID THROUGH GLASS), Caroline Bock (debut short story collection: CARRY HER HOME), Nicole Tong (HOW TO PROVE A THEORY), and current WWPH president Kathleen Wheaton (ALIENS & OTHER STORIES). The writers will discuss and give insights on preparing manuscripts for submissions to the annual Washington Writers' Publishing House fiction and poetry awards. Hear poetry and short fiction from one of the finest small presses in the DC/Baltimore area! Learn how your fiction or poetry manuscript can be submitted to WWPH's annual awards.

Jona Colson is an educator and poet. He graduated from Goucher College with a double Bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish and earned his MFA from American University and a Master’s in Literature/Linguistics from George Mason University. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Ploughshares, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. In addition to writing his own poetry, he also translates the Spanish language poetry of Miguel Avero from Montevideo, Uruguay. His translations can be found in Prairie Schooner, Tupelo Quarterly, and Palabras Errantes. He has also published several interviews for The Writer’s Chronicle. He is currently Associate Professor at Montgomery College in Maryland where he teaches English as a second language. He lives in Dupont circle area of Washington, DC.

Caroline Bock pursued an MFA in Fiction from The City College of New York, and she was honored with the college’s prize for Children’s Literature upon graduation in 2011. Her short stories and poetry have been published or are forthcoming with Akashic Books, Delmarva Review, Little Patuxent Review, Fiction Southeast, Gargoyle, 100 Word Story, F(r)iction, Ploughshares, Vestal Review, and Zero Dark-Thirty. In 2016, her story won The Writer Magazine short story competition judged by Colum McCann. In 2018, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County awarded an Artists & Scholars grant to her for her novel-in progress.  Currently, she is a lecturer in the English Department at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. Born in the Bronx and raised in New Rochelle, New York, she now lives in Maryland with her husband and teenage son and daughter.

Nicole Tong is the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sundress Academy at Firefly Farms, and George Mason University where she received her MFA. In 2016, she served as an inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Pope-Leighey House, a Frank Lloyd Wright property in Alexandria, Virginia. Her writing has appeared in American Book Review, CALYX, Cortland Review, and So to Speak, among others.

Kathleen Wheaton was born in Germany and grew up in California, where she attended Stanford University.  She then received an MFA from Boston University.  Her fiction has appeared in many journals including Narrative, The Baltimore Review, Potomac Review, Bethesda Magazine and in the anthologies Flash Fiction Forward and Amazing Graces. She is a five-time recipient of Maryland State Arts Council grants for fiction, most recently in April 2019. She is currently serving as president of WWPH.

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