Words in the Garden with Melody Gee and Jordan McQueen

“Words in the Garden” is a weekly literary reading series from the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) and the Eureka Springs Carnegie Library.  Every Wednesday through the summer at 4:30 pm, a local and/or visiting WCDH writer-in-residence will present a reading and Q&A under the tent in the Eureka Springs Carnegie Library Garden at 188 Spring Street (south of the Carnegie Library Gardens Building). The readings are free and open to all. Wednesday, August 4, will feature writers-in-residence Melody Gee and Jordan McQueen.

Melody S. Geeis a poet and essayist based in St. Louis, Missouri. She is the author of two poetry collections, “The Dead in Daylight” (2016, Cooper Dillon Books) and “Each Crumbling House,” winner of the 2010 Perugia Poetry Prize. Her essays on faith, conversion, and immigration appear in "Commonweal Magazine,” “Blood Orange Review,” “Barnstorm Literary Review,” and other journals. A Kundiman poetry and fiction fellow, she taught college English and composition for 14 years and currently works as a freelance business and technical writer. She is in residence at WCDH working on a book-length memoir about Asian American immigrant culture and adult religious conversion. Find her at https://melodygee.com.

Jordan Sheryl McQueen was born and raised in rural Appalachia. She received her undergraduate degree from Eastern Kentucky University and is currently an MFA candidate at McNeese State University where she works on “The McNeese Review” literary journal. During her WCDH residency, she is working on her first novel, “King Maker.” Taking place in Appalachia in the near future, the story is about the main character’s connection to the natural world and the haunting grief that she was born too late to save it.

Since opening its doors to writers in 2000, the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow has made a lasting impact on the arts and literary communities providing uninterrupted residency time for writers of all genres, backgrounds, and levels of experience. The WCDH has hosted over 1,700 writers from 48 states and 13 countries. For more information, please visit www.writerscolony.org or call Michelle Hannon at (479)253-7444.