Dose of Poetry: Growing Your Poetry Garden with Golden Shovels
2025-04-02 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | SMJC Library – Georgian Court University, 900 Lakewood Ave, Lakewood, NJ, 08701, United States
Bring your pens and get ready to dig in as we use lines that shimmer — the gold of fellow poets — as seeds for new poems. Feel the lineage and the alive as you plod, plot, and bloom with the best of them! Presented by writer and librarian Cristina Ergunay at 2:00 PM in the SMJC Library.

Visiting Poet: Alicia Cook
2025-04-10 16:00 - 17:00 | Little Theater – Jeffries Hall
Join the Department of English & IDS as we welcome our GCU alum and 2025 Visiting Poet Alicia Cook. This poetry reading will tug at your heartstrings as Cook leads us through the shared witness of loving people with addictions, encountering our own grief on and off the page, and embodying the “it’s ok to not be ok” mantra of a more receptive and open approach to mental wellbeing.
Please, join us on Thursday, April 10th from 4:00 – 5:00 in the Little Theater. Bring your copies of Alicia’s books to get signed!
Bio from Alicia’s Author Page:

About Alicia Cook

Alicia Cook is a multi-award-winning writer and mental health and addiction awareness advocate based in Newark, New Jersey. Her writing often focuses on addiction, mental health, and grief – sometimes all at once. She is the poet behind Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately (2016, Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist), I Hope My Voice Doesn’t Skip (2018), Sorry I Haven’t Texted You Back (2020, Goodreads Choice Awards Semi-Finalist), and The Music Was Just Getting Good (2024). Her work has also been published in numerous anthologies and outlets including The New York Times.
Cook’s advocacy began years ago following the fatal heroin overdose of her 19-year-old cousin. Through her writing, she started shedding light on how drug addiction impacts the mental health of families. An essayist and speaker, her activism to fight the opioid epidemic is far-reaching and has garnered a worldwide readership. She has her own episode on the Emmy-nominated American PBS series Here’s the Story. She has since broadened the scope of her work to include other sensitive topics impacting our lives today.
She received an MBA from Saint Peter’s University and a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Georgian Court University, where she currently serves on the Board of Trustees. She loves sleeping, her family, and iced coffee.
Additional Awards and Recognition: She was the recipient of 2017’s Everyday Hero award from NJTV and 2018’s Women with Voices award from the Women with Voices Foundation. She was named a 2019 Healthcare Hero finalist by NJBiz. Her songwriting has been recognized by American Songwriter Magazine (4x honorable mention). Her alma mater, Georgian Court University, named her its 2020 Distinguished Alumni of the Year, and she was a Commencement Speaker at Georgian Court’s 2021 commencement. She was awarded a “40 Under 40” award from the Irish Echo in 2023. That same year, she spoke on Mental Health at Oxford University, and two poems were shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry Prize. In 2024, another two poems were shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry Prize, and she received the Becker Award from the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English. In 2025, her debut poetry book, Stuff I’ve Been Feeling Lately, was adapted into a Song Cycle and premiered in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Dose of Poetry: Poetry in Motion
2025-04-24 12:30 - 13:30 | SMJC Library – Georgian Court University, 900 Lakewood Ave, Lakewood, NJ, 08701, United States
Join Dr. Pamela Rader and Dr. Paul Cappucci in their annual Dose of Poetry walkabout. Take in the beautiful gardens and landscape of Georgian Court University with this poet’s eye tour of our gilded campus. We will start in the library on the main floor.

Summer Writing Retreat
2025-06-24 09:00 - 13:00 | Mansion – Georgian Court University, 900 Lakewood Avenue, Lakewood, NJ, 08701, United States
Register Now: http://bit.ly/GCUWritingRetreat25

Visiting Poet Libby Mislan Reading and Embodied Writing Workshop
2026-04-23 15:30 - 17:00 | Little Theater – Jeffries Hall
Dear GCU Creative Community,

It’s National Poetry Month and the sun is shining and crocuses are blooming — let’s celebrate with our 2026 Visiting Poet Libby Mislan. Please, join the Department of English, Communication, and IDS and the Richey Center for Humanities and Creative Arts for a poetry reading and writing workshop on Thursday, April 23rd at 3:30 PM in the Jeffries Hall Little Theater.

Libby Mislan (she/her) is a poet and community based artist living in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in poetry in 2018 from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she has received grants from New York State Council on the Arts and Queens Arts Fund to develop works of poetry, and multi-disciplinary performance-based work. Libby is currently working on a series of essays about millennial aging, the erotic, friendship, and fertility.

In addition to her own creative process, Libby designs and facilitates arts projects and workshops to engage communities in creative expression. She works as a teaching artist in New York City public schools with non-profit organizations Community-Word Project, City Lore, and Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Libby is also a certified leader in InterPlay, an active, creative approach to unlock the wisdom of the body that uses improvisational storytelling, movement and song.

Embodied Writing with Libby Mislan

Where does your writing come from– your head, or your body? Visiting poet Libby Mislan advocates for an approach to writing that engages the whole body, and all its sensory and emotional capabilities. Utilizing improv warm-ups from Interplay, an active, creative approach to unlock the wisdom of the body, we will explore what it means to write from an embodied place.
