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Mayor’s Book Club event: “You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World”

When:
Wednesday,
May
14,
2025 |
7 p.m.
Where:
Austin Central Library

Joins us for a reading and conversation with Carrie Fountain and Cecily Parks, Austin poets featured in “You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World,” a selection for this year’s Mayor’s Book Club.

A book signing will follow the event with books available for purchase on site.

“You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World,” edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, features 50 new poems by some of the country’s most accomplished poets that reflect upon our essential connection with the natural world. “features 50 previously unpublished poems from some of the nation’s most accomplished poets. Each poem engages with its author’s local landscape offering an intimate model of how we relate to the world around us and a beautifully diverse range of voices from across the United States. The anthology includes Austin poets Carrie Fountain, Cecily Parks and Roger Reeves.

Carrie Fountain’s poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, and The New Yorker, among many others. Her first collection, Burn Lake, was a National Poetry Series winner. Her second collection, Instant Winner, was published by Penguin Random House in 2014. Fountain’s debut novel for young adults,I’m Not Missing, was published in 2018 by Flatiron Books (Macmillan), and her first children’s book, The Poem Forest, about the life and legacy of poet and ecologist W.S. Merwin, was published in 2023 by Candlewick Press. Her newest poetry collection, The Life,was published in May 2021 by Penguin. In 2019, she was named Poet Laureate of the state of Texas.

Cecily Parks is the editor of the anthology The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses, and the author of three poetry collections, including O’Nights, Field Folly Snow, and The Seeds, which is forthcoming from Alice James Books. Her poems appear in the New Yorker, A Public Space, the New Republic, The Best American Poetry 2022, and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA Program at Texas State University.

Jena Stude

Interim Treasurer

Jena Stude is Vice President of Development at Good + West Residential. Prior to joining Good + West in 2021, Jena was an Investment Manager at Blueprint Local, a real estate private equity firm, overseeing direct real estate investments in Texas. Before Blueprint Local, Jena was an Associate Director at the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) from 2013-2019. Jena previously held similar positions at Ascension Health, a large non-profit hospital system based in St. Louis, Missouri and the University of Arizona Investment Office. Jena holds a B.S. in Business Administration and an M.S. in Finance from the University of Arizona.

Frank Livaudais

Board Vice President

Frank Livaudais is also Vice President of Enterprise Engineering for Cloudflare, an internet security company in downtown Austin. An avid runner and reader, he has run more than 250 marathons (including races in all 50 U.S. states, six countries, and four continents). Frank tries to read 100+ books a year. He lives in Austin with his wife Shelley, son Christopher and one fairly naughty vizsla.

Tom Oney

Board President

Tom Oney is Chief People Officer and Executive Vice President of External Affairs for the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA). He oversees LCRA’s Human Resources team and all of LCRA’s public-facing and advocacy functions, including Communications, Community Resources, Environmental Affairs, Public Affairs, and Regulatory Affairs. Tom also advocates before the Texas Legislature on behalf of LCRA and led LCRA’s public policy team during the 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021 Texas legislative sessions.

Tom was born and raised in Waco, Texas, and received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Baylor University in 1996. He received his Juris Doctor cum laude from Tulane University School of Law in 1999. Tom currently represents LCRA on the board of directors of the Association of Electric Companies of Texas and serves as president of the board of directors of both the Austin Library Foundation and Green Doors, an award-winning non-profit benefiting homeless people in Central Texas.