Poetry at the Manse: Kathleen Latham, Steven Rapp, Sue Owen

The NEPC’s summer season continues at The Old Manse in Concord, Mass. This free reading will be held under a tent outdoors, at an accessible venue.

Make a day of it! Arrive early or linger after the reading to explore the orchard, stroll along the Concord River, or enjoy a picnic on the grounds. You can also deepen your visit by joining a guided tour of the historic house before or after the event.

Learn more and pre-register for a tour: https://thetrustees.org/place/the-old-manse/.

Kathleen Latham is a poet and short story writer from Westwood, MA whose work has appeared in multiple journals and anthologies such as The Comstock Review, The Masters Review, and Tipton Poetry Journal. A Highly Commended winner of the UK’s Bridport Prize, she’s also won the Web Microfiction Prize for Women Writers, the Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition, and a Bath Flash Fiction Award. Twice nominated for Best Small Fictions and a Best of the Net award, she’s been shortlisted for the Bevel Summers Prize, the Stockholm Writer’s Festival First Pages Prize, and for contests in such places as Fish Flash Fiction, Reflex Fiction, and Fractured Lit. Her debut poetry collection, The Ones (Kelsay Books), was recently nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. She holds an undergraduate degree in psychology from Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she grew up, and a master’s degree in human development from Harvard University.

Steven Rapp is a writer, environmental engineer, yoga teacher, and former Peace Corps volunteer (Benin 1986 – 1988). Steve’s poetry first appeared in his book, Aleph Bet Yoga, Embodying the Hebrew Letters For Physical and Spiritual Well-Being (Jewish Lights, 2002). His poetry has also appeared in The American Diversity Report, Silver Blade, and most recently in The Silver Note: Poets of Arlington, Massachusetts (Ibbetson Street, 2025). He is a member of the New England Poetry Club and one of the Beehive Poets in Arlington, Massachusetts. Since July 2023, Steve has coordinated and run Arlington’s Poetry New Book and Open Mic monthly series at the Robbins Library.

The dark humor poet Sue Owen, who has lived in Cambridge for twenty years, has published five books of poetry, including Nursery Rhymes for the Dead, The Book of Winter, My Doomsday Sampler, The Devil’s Cookbook, and most recently, Hurricane in a Bad Mood.  Her poems have appeared in Harvard Magazine, The Iowa Review, The Nation, The Massachusetts Review, and Ploughshares, as well as in numerous anthologies.  She also won the Gretchen Warren Award from the New England Poetry Club for the best poem published in the previous year.