HoCoPoLitSo - The Howard County Poetry & Literature Society

06/18/2026

“Reading is having a moment”

“Tinder claims that mentions of books in dating bios are up 29% overall, and up 41% for women.”

‘Reading is having a moment,’ according to Tinder. But do its users actually appreciate books, or just talk about them to get dates?

06/04/2026

Coming up later this month, the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland are hosting a Creative Cafe, featuring Howard County Youth Poet Laureate Penelope Tofigh. Not that this event is specifically for Girl Scouts.

To learn more, visit: gscm.info/creativecafe

06/03/2026

Starting NOW one week from yesterday.

Ok, that's confusing. How about: the final Wilde Readings of the season is next Tuesday, June 9th, starting a 7 p.m. at the wonderful Queen Takes Book bookstore in Columbia, Maryland.

The 'season finale' will feature the three hosts of the series (and an open mic session, so bring your stuff and if you don't have stuff, just bring your ears).

06/02/2026

"“Following a thought or an image through multiple subordinate clauses, through thickets of syntax that might involve conditionals and conjectures, and shifts in register that might take you from concrete to abstract and back again – that’s difficult.” Helen Hackett, from University College London."

How do we get back to reading... books. Answer is in the link if you are game for a longish read:

In less than a decade, surrounded by screens, I lost my ability to read some of the best books ever written. But, inspired by the Guardian’s 100 best novels list, I was determined to get it back

05/22/2026

Friday afternoon read: Roddy Doyle talks a bit.

What is his favorite swear word? Read on for that bit of trivia and so much more.

The Booker prize-winning novelist and screenwriter shares the tune he’d want played at his funeral and why he’d have a couple of pints with Charles Dickens but not three

05/06/2026

Downtown Columbia's annual Books In Bloom Festival is this Saturday, May 9, in Color Burst Park. 11 a.m. till 3 p.m. Check out the author line up in the images.

04/29/2026

Not good news: "Daily reading for pleasure among five to 17-year-olds fell from 39% in 2012 to 25% in 2025, data shows, while the proportion of children who rarely or never read for pleasure tripled from 5% to 15%." Better stats in the link.

New HarperCollins study finds that daily reading for pleasure among five- to 17-year-olds fell from 39% in 2012 to 25% in 2025

04/28/2026

Morning read:

Artists and writers argue scrappy nature of self-published booklets is incompatible with artificial intelligence

04/20/2026

While our HUGE event -- The Blackbird Poetry Festival with Sarah Kay -- happens this Thursday, our friends at Little Patuxent Review are holding another in their series of The Author Next Door presentations tomorrow evening at the Hawthorne Center in Columbia, Md's Hickory Ridge Village. Join them and join us and make it a fantastically LIT week.

More on Sarah Kay here: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/blackbird-poetry-festival--2026

04/19/2026

Let's interrupt this somewhat gray sky day with a blue sky thought from Sarah Kay.

See TED speaker and world-renowned poet Sarah Kay IN PERSON this week at the Blackbird Poetry Festival's Nightbird Reading.

Thursday, April 23, 7:00 p.m. in the Kittleman Room, Howard Community College Campus.

More info and tickets: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/blackbird-poetry-festival--2026