Four events this week in the Buffalo area literary community, including an evening with Lyanda Lynn Haupt Wednesday night at Trinity Episcopal Church.

Tuesday, June 3, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.: Tuesday Night Open Mic Series at the Em Tea Coffeecup Café. All are welcome whether new to poetry or a long-time member of the community. 80 Oakgrove Ave., Buffalo, NY. Free and open to the public.

Wednesday, June 4, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.: The Western New York Land Conservancy and Talking Leaves Books host an evening with Lyanda Lynn Haupt. This event is free to attend but space is limited. For more info and to register for the in-person event, visit the event page on WNYLC’s website. The event will also be livestreamed. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Please purchase your book from Talking Leaves to best support this event.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt is an award-winning author, naturalist, ecophilosopher, and speaker whose work explores the beautiful, complicated connections between humans and the wild, natural world. Her writing is acclaimed for combining scientific knowledge with literary, poetic prose. Previous books include Mozart’s Starling, The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild, Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness, Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin’s Lost Notebooks, and Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. She is a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, the Nautilus Book Award, a finalist for the Orion Book Award, and a two-time winner of the Washington State Book Award.
Event location: Trinity Episcopal Church, 371 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14623.

Wednesday, June 4, 7:30 p.m.: CFI Literary Café Series reading hosted by poet Ryki Zuckerman and featuring poets Franklin Lavoie and Patricia Tansey at the Center for Inquiry, 1310 Sweet Home Rd. in Amherst. The event free and open to the public.

Franklin Lavoie is an author, artist, astrologer, storyteller, musician, and puppeteer who’s pioneered research into and done public presentations on the “Sacred Geography of Buffalo-Niagara.” With a Masters in Sci Edu from SUCB ‘86 and, recently, a Degree in Astrological Studies (2022) from the Kairos School of Astrology, he weaves logos and mythos into instructive stories. Franklin serves as president of the Jung Center of Buffalo, and hosts a bi-weekly Alchemy Study Group on-line. Franklin built and operated a Puppet Wagon at the Niagara Celtic Heritage Festival. He also performs as Treebard the Ent, a Celtic Storyteller. He has appeared as Treebard at past Elmwood Village Art Festivals. He plays the Celtic harp and will perform on it at CFI as well as read from his work. Franklin has articles, stories, poetry, and artwork published in a variety of anthologies. You can see some of his paintings at Buffaloartwall.com.

Patricia Tansey has been published in the anthologies, Beyond Bones 3 and The Still Empty Chair. She is the editor and publisher of the comprehensive anthology, A Celebration of Western New York Poets (2016) through Buffalo Legacy Publications, the press she founded. Patricia graduated with a degree in Biology from University of Buffalo. She was a board member of Niagara-Erie Writers, and, in 1990, she founded Buffalo Press, which produced a series of chapbooks and a small anthology. In 2023 she published Three Chapbooks by David Tirrell.

Sunday, June 8, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.: Pure Ink Poetry and Sneakvibing Media present a Poetry versus Hip-Hop fundraising event featuring members of Pure Ink’s 2025 Slam Poetry Team as they prepare to perform in the 33rd annual Southern Fried Poetry Slam Festival later this month in Knoxville, Tennessee. Brandon Williamson, J.B. Stone, Jheanelle Kerr, Dallas Taylor, Yamilla Tate and Joshua H. will compete for the Pure Ink Poetry Slam team. Location: Hot Mama’s Canteen, 12 Military Road Buffalo, NY 14207. Pre-sale tickets are $15 and available from Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com. They will be $10 at the door.