Wednesday, February 19th at 7 pm the winter installment of the Voices Seasonal Reading Series will feature a special evening of literary readings by poets Clare L. Martin and Diane Moore at Carpe Diem! Gelato – Espresso Bar located at 812 Jefferson Street in downtown Lafayette. The public is invited to enjoy gelato, espresso, tea, and pastries while experiencing a unique and enlightening literary event. The event also celebrates the two-year anniversary of this highly successful reading series in Lafayette.

Clare L. Martin’s debut collection of poetry, Eating the Heart First, was published fall 2012 by Press 53 as a Tom Lombardo Selection. Martin’s poetry has appeared in Avatar Review,Blue Fifth Review, Melusine, Poets and Artists and Louisiana Literature, among others. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web, for Best New Poets and Sundress Publication’s Best of the Net. Her poems have been included in the anthologies The Red Room: Writings from Press 1, Best of Farmhouse Magazine Vol. 1,Beyond Katrina, and the 2011 Press 53 Spotlight. She is a lifelong resident of Louisiana, a graduate of University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a member of the Festival of Words Cultural Arts Collective and a Teaching Artist through the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Martin founded and directs the Voices Seasonal Reading Series in Lafayette, LA, which features new and established Louisiana and regional writers and co-coordinates Acadiana Wordlab, a weekly literary drafting workshop. She serves as Poetry Editor of MadHat Annual and Editor of MadHat Lit, publishing ventures of MadHat, Inc.

Diane Moore is a writer of books, short stories, articles, and poetry. Her latest published book is a book of poetry,  In A Convent Garden. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in the Southwestern Review, Interdisciplinary Humanities, American Weave, Xavier Review, Trace, The Pinyon Review, and other literary journals. Her young adult book, Martin’s Quest, was awarded a grant that placed it on the supplementary reading list for Social Studies in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes and was listed on the Louisiana Library Association’s reading list for accelerated students. Martin’s Quest was also a finalist in the Heekins Foundation Award Contest for an outstanding young adult book. Diane has been involved in poetry readings with both former Poet Laureate of Louisiana Darrell Bourque and Poet Laureate of Louisiana, Julie Kane; with New Orleans poet Brad Richard in the Festival of Words program in Grand Coteau, and with the present Louisiana Poet Laureate, Ava Haymon. This year, she published another young adult novel set in south Louisiana entitled Martin and the Last Tribe, the third in a series about the young traiteur hero of Martin’s Quest.

This event is free and open to the public.