Take a break from the rush of everyday life and join the River Parkway Trust for a Respite by the River. Bring your picnic dinner, blanket, and lawn chair, and relax at the River Center while you enjoy music provided by talented local musicians. Then you'll enjoy a reading by a Central Valley author.
The evening schedule is as follows: 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. - Live dinner music, bring your dinner, lawn chair, or blanket 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. - Reading by acclaimed author
Anthony Cody
Anthony Cody is the author of two collections of poetry. His most recent collection is The Rendering (Omnidawn, 2023), which was awarded the inaugural CantoMundo Guzmán Mendoza / Paredez fellowship. His debut collection, Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, 2020), was winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Prize, selected by the poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge.
For Borderland Apocrypha, Anthony has been honored as a 2022 Whiting Award winner, a 2021 American Book Award winner, a 2020 National Book Award finalist in Poetry, a 2020 Poets & Writers debut poet, a 2021 PEN America / Jean Stein Award finalist, a 2021 L.A. Times Book Award finalist, a 2021 California Book Award finalist, a 2020 Believer Magazine Editor’s longlist in Poetry, as well as a winner of a 2020 Southwest Book Award.
He is a CantoMundo fellow from Fresno, California with lineage in both the Bracero Program and the Dust Bowl. His poetry has appeared in The Academy of American Poets: Poem-A-Day Series, The Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, The Boiler, ctrl+v journal, Elderly, among others. Anthony co-edited How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology (Heyday, 2011), as well as co-edited and co-translated Juan Felipe Herrera’s Akrílica (Noemi Press, 2022).
He is a graduate of the MFA-Creative Writing Program at Fresno State and has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, and Desert Nights, Rising Stars. He is co-publisher of Noemi Press, a poetry editor for Omnidawn, collaborates with Juan Felipe Herrera and the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio, and is faculty in poetry at Randolph College's Low Residency MFA Program. For more information, visit www.anthonycody.com.
Mike Reilly and Friends
Mike Reilly is a local musician and luthier. He’s an active member of the Fresno Folklore Society and plays with the house band (Stolen Thunder) at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno. He taps on a variety of musical styles ranging from old timey standards to both popular and obscure singer-songwriters, country, and blues.
Linda Guerrero is the fiddler in the Wawona Philharmonic, for the Saturday Wawona barn dances during the summer in Yosemite. She teaches piano and violin part-time at the Fresno Music Academy & Arts. She’s also a fiddler in the Fresno Great Danes, which accompanies the Fresno Danish Folk Dancers to performances in Kingsburg Swedish Festival and Solvang Danish Days.
Chris Eacock is a multi-instrumentalist who plays bass with Glen Delpit and the Subterranians. He owns & runs the Tower Velo bicycle repair shop and an ongoing free bike clinic for those in need. He also plays with the house band at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno.
Chris Eacock is a multi-instrumentalist who plays bass with Glen Delpit and the Subterranians. He owns & runs the Tower Velo bicycle repair shop and an ongoing free bike clinic for those in need. He also plays with the house band at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno.