BookWoman 2nd Thursday Poetry presents Sandi Stromberg and Usha Akella

BookWoman 2nd Thursday Poetry Reading and Open Mic welcomes Houston poet Sandi Stromberg and Austin poet Usha Akella October 8, 2026 from 7:15 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. CDTas our features in-store at 5501 N. Lamar #A-105, and simultaneously on Zoom. The featured reading will be followed by a “round robin” open mic. Cindy Huyser and Julia Ross co-host.

If you're joining us in-store, be sure to bring a mask, as BookWoman continues to require them in the spirit of protecting the vulnerable among us. And if you're joining us via Zoom, be sure to register via Eventbrite and to log into your Zoom account with email and password before accessing the meeting.

Sandi Stromberg lives in Houston, Texas, after many years as a nomad in five countries across two continents, and is the author of two poetry collections, Moonlight, Shaken (2026) and Frogs Don’t Sing Red (2023) published by Kelsay Books. Her poems have been set to music in Singapore, translated into Dutch and Arabic, and received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations, as well as being published widely in small journals and anthologies.

Stromberg is an editor at The Ekphrastic Review and has also edited three anthologies of poetry: Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press, 2015), Echoes of the Cordillera (Museum of the Big Bend, 2018), and Ekphrastic Poetry and Prose, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Houston's Archway Gallery.

Usha Akella is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry, three chapbooks and two musical drama scripts, and holds an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her most recent book is Ants & Lotus (Kelsay Books, 2026), a translation of poetry by Ruxandra Cesereanu, published in a bilingual English-Romanian edition. Her own poetry has been translated into a number of languages, including Macedonian, Spanish, Turkish, French, Telugu, Hindi and Romanian. Akella’s most recent work as an editor is an updated English edition of the Shri Sai Satcharita which she co-edited, and which was also released in 2026.

Akella is the founder and co-director of Matwaala (https://www.matwalla.com), whose mission is to amplify the visibility of South Asian poets in the mainstream. Matwalla, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2025, has collaborated with the Academy of American Poets and been featured in Poets and Writers. She is also the founder of the Poetry Caravan in 2005 and later in Austin, and an interviewer and the host, along with David Kopacz, of the-pov (https://the-pov.com).

Contact BookWoman to order your copy of Moonlight, Shaken, Ants & Lotus, and other titles for in-store pickup, curbside delivery and direct-from-warehouse shipping: bookwomanaustin@gmail.com; (512)472-2785; https://ebookwoman.com .