MidnightRose: A Reading Series of Poetry & Prose

MidnightRose is a showcase of the multigenerational, multicultural writers in the Washington Metropolitan Region and beyond presented by Esther Productions Inc., The Institute for African American Writing & The Black Student Fund. Experience the richness of the community through the presentations of award-winning poets and authors. Come allow the words to inspire and empower you.

E. ETHELBERT MILLER is a literary activist and author of two memoirs and several poetry collections including his baseball trilogy: If God Invented Baseball, When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask published by City Point Press. He hosts the WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV which received a 2020 Telly Award. He is Associate Editor and a columnist for The American Book Review. He was given a 2020 congressional award from Congressman Jamie Raskin in recognition of his literary activism, awarded the 2022 Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award by the Peace and Justice Studies Association, and named a 2023 Grammy Nominee Finalist for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album.  On March 2, 2024, Miller received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to African American Literature and DC’s literary community from Esther Productions Inc. On September 18, 2024, he will receive the Furious Flower Lifetime Achievement Award.

NAOMI AYALA is a Puerto Rican poet, educator, and translator who’s published three poetry collections—Wild Animals on the Moon (Curbstone Press, 1997); This Side of Early (Curbstone Imprint, Northwestern University Press, 2008); and Calling Home: Praise Songs & Incantations (Bilingual Press, 2013). She’s the translator of La sombra de la Muerte/Death’s Shadow, a novel by His Excellency José Tomás Pérez, the Dominican Republic’s Ambassador to the U.S., and of Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poetry collection La arqueología del viento/The Wind’s Archeology. She’s the proud recipient of artist fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as well as Special Recognition for Community Service from the U.S. Congress.

BRIAN GILMORE is a native of Washington DC. Bard and Barrister, he is the author of four collections of poetry, including come see about me marvin (Wayne State University Press), a 2020 Michigan Notable Book Award recipient.  Gilmore is also the author of the forthcoming cultural history, No More Worlds To Conquer: The Black Poet in Washington DC Since Dunbar, to be published in 2025 by Georgetown University Press. He practiced public interest law for 28 years in Washington DC and Michigan and served as a Clinical Law Professor at Howard University School of Law and Michigan State University College of Law. Presently, he is Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland - College Park in the Law and Society Program (MLAW).

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Esther Productions Inc. is supported by generous contributions—past and present--from Kerry S. Pearson LLC, Emmanuel Bailey, Veterans Services Corp, Pepco, an Exelon Company, A.Scott Bolden, David Jannarone, HumanitiesDC, Lesa Warrick, Rosalind Blunt, Betty Nyangoni and Esther’s Friends.