Day One Schedule:

Book Launch Party and Poetry Readings by Allison Wilkins and Christopher Bakken

Allison Wilkins is  the author of House of Broken Tables (2026) , which won the 2025 Donna Wolf Palace Poetry Prize, and Girl Who (2014).  Other poems and essays have appeared in Sierra Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Superstition Review, and The Lyric. She is the assistant director for Writing Workshops in Greece and a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT 500), who teaches weekly classes at Yoga Spot. When not in the Novice Room at The Learning Center, she can be found hiking or playing outdoors with her family.

Christopher Bakken is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Driving the Beast (a 2025 Sewanee Poetry selection from LSU Press), as well as the culinary memoir, Honey, Olives, Octopus: Adventures at the Greek Table. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in places including POETRY, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, and Best American Poetry. Twice a Fulbright Scholar, Bakken is Director of Writing Workshops in Greece and he teaches at Allegheny College.