Poetry Special: Maya C. Popa & Michael Pedersen

A one-off reading featuring prize-winning poets and authors, Maya C. Popa & Michael Pedersen.

Maya C. Popa is the author of two collections, Wound is the Origin of Wonder named one of the Guardian’s best recent books of poetry, and American Faith, runner-up in the Kathryn A. Morton Prize judged by Ocean Vuong and winner of the North American Book Prize. Her poems and essays appear in The Atlantic, the Nation, Poetry, the Paris Review, the Times Literary Supplement and elsewhere. She holds a PhD on the role of wonder in poetry from Goldsmiths, University of London and was previously a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford University, where she received her MA. She serves as Poetry Editor of Publishers Weekly and teaches Advanced Poetry at NYU. She also runs Conscious Writers Collective, an online writing community for rigorous and supportive writing instruction and mentorship for those seeking guidance outside of traditional degrees.

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet and author, and the Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University. His prose debut Boy Friends was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 to rave reviews — it was a Sunday Times Critics Choice 2023 and shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction Book at Scotland's Saltire National Book Awards. The Cat Prince is his third collection, it won the Book Are My Bag Readers Awards for Best Poetry Book 2023. Pedersen has been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes for Poetry and won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. His work has been praised by the likes of Stephen Fry, Sara Pascoe, Nicola Sturgeon, Jackie Kay, Alan Cumming, Kae Tempest & many other fine minds.

This special event is on occasion of Maya visiting Scotland from the US, and the paperback publication of Pedersen’s book The Cat Prince! It is a collaboration with the Edinburgh Writer in Residence Event program which has featured the likes of Alan Cumming, Jackie Kay and Sara Pascoe - *thrilled* to be hosting this one!