Pegasus Reading Series: Brazeal, Downs, Marie

Join us for this month’s edition of Pegasus Reading Series. This month we feature Lauren Brazeal, Maggie Downs, and Courtney Marie

We also welcome a new co-conspirator, Ashley Mag Gabbert!!

About us: Pegasus Reading Series was founded and curated by the poets Robert Torres and Sebastian Paramo in 2014. When Torres left in 2015, Courtney Maries joined Sebastian to host & curate the series. In 2016, both poets joined forces to organize and curate Deep Ellum Lit Hop.

The mission of Pegasus Reading Series is to bridge together literary communities and writers in Dallas and across the nation.

Lauren Brazeal is the author of two chapbooks, Zoo for Well-Groomed Eaters (Dancing Girl Press, 2016), and exuviae (Horse Less Press, 2016). Her first full-length collection, Gutter, is out now rom Yes Yes Books. In her past, Brazeal has been a homeless gutter-punk, a resident of Ecuador’s Amazon jungle, a maid, a surfer chick, and a custom aquarium designer. A graduate of Bennington’s MFA program in writing and literature, her work has appeared in journals such as DIAGRAM, Smartish Pace, Barrelhouse, Forklift, Ohio, and Verse Daily.

Maggie Downs is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Today Show, BBC.com, and Smithsonian, among other places. Her essay “I Went into Labor…and Tested Positive for Meth,” which was published by Narratively, became the most popular piece in the publication’s history. Downs holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from The University of California at Riverside, and her first memoir, Roam, will be published by Counterpoint Press in 2020. Excerpts from Roam can be found in the Lonely Planet anthology, True Stories From the World’s Best Writers, and Best Women’s Travel Writing.

courtney marie is a writer and artist based in Denton, Texas. she enjoys working with text as an art medium and performance object. her work has appeared in Nat. Brut, Spooky Girlfriend Press, Black Sun Lit, Souvenir Lit, The Thing Itself, etc. but also in basements and museums, street corners, bars, and art galleries; in cities all over the country. she is the co-founder and primary organizer of the art collective Spiderweb Salon (Best Literary Arts Group 2016, Dallas Observer), co-host of Pegasus Reading Series in Dallas, and the host of Spiderweb Salon’s literary podcast, produced by Pariah. she lives with two cats and writes a lot of letters.