The North Carolina Writers Network West & The Brandy Bar + Cocktails present MILDRED KICONCO BARYA AND MACKENZIE NOZAKM as next in their series “In the Company of Writers.” This program offers a series of personal and conversational dialogues featuring guest writers/poets followed by an open mic forum. These inspirational gatherings will elucidate and entertain those attending. The guest author speaks from 7-8 PM with an open mic from 8 -9 PM. The Chicago blues music of Bob Sherrill welcomes you, continues during intermission, and closes the evening. Sign-ups for the open mic are available at the entrance to the reading room.

Mildred Kiconco Barya is a North Carolina-based writer and poet of East African descent. Winner of the 2025 Jacobs/Jones African American Literary Prize, and the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award, she teaches and lectures globally and is the author of five full-length poetry collections, including The Animals of My Earth School (Terrapin Books), a 2024 Eric Hoffer Award Honorable Mention, and Brittle Paper Notable African Book of 2023. Her most recent collection is Hands in Clay (Serving House Books, 2025). Her prose, hybrids, and poems appear in the New England Review, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, and elsewhere. Barya serves as a Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the North Carolina Poetry Society and coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café. She blogs here: www.mildredbarya.com
Mackenzie Kozakm is the author of no swaddle (University of Iowa Press, 2025), which was selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the Iowa Poetry Prize. She holds a BA from Wake Forest University and an MFA from UNC-Greensboro, where she served as poetry editor of The Greensboro Review. Her poetry appears in Boston Review, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Missouri Review, Sixth Finch, and other journals. Mackenzie is an associate editor for Orison Books and works as a grief therapist in Asheville, North Carolina.
For more info visit: https://www.facebook.com/TheBrandyBar/events