Writers Series: Kevin Carey and January Gill O'Neil

Salem State’s own writing stars, Kevin Carey and January Gill O’Neil, take the stage to celebrate their new books. Join us for a reception of students and alumni from Salem State's creative writing program before the reading. The reception begins at 6 pm and an RSVP is required. 

Kevin Carey’s books include: three books of poetry: The One Fifteen to Penn Station (2012), Jesus Was a Homeboy (2016) which was an Honor book for the Paterson Literary Prize and Set in Stone (2020) all from CavanKerry Press, as well as three books of fiction: The Beach People (2014) Red Bird Chapbooks, Murder in the Marsh (2020) Darkstroke Books, and a new novel Junior Miles and the Junkman – September (2023) from Regal House Publishing / Fitzroy books.

His poems have appeared three times on The Writers Almanac on National Public Radio and once on The Academy of American Poets Poem a Day. Kevin is also a playwright and a filmmaker. His stage play The Stand or Sal is Dead (a murder mystery comedy) premiered at the Actor’s Studio in Newburyport, MA in 2018. He has co-directed & co-produced two documentaries about poets, All That Lies Between Us and Unburying Malcolm Miller, which premiered at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in 2017. A new poetry collection Olympus Heights (co-written with poet Colleen Michaels) dropped in October (2023) from the Lily Poetry Review. Kevin is also the co-founder of Molecule: a tiny lit mag. In May of 2024. More info at Kevincareywriter.com

January Gill O'Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of Glitter Road (2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. From 2012-2018, she served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Her poems and articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Sierra magazine, among others. Her poem, “At the Rededication of the Emmett Till Memorial,” was a co-winner of the 2022 Allen Ginsberg Poetry award from the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cave Canem, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O'Neil was the 2019-2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She currently serves as the 2022-2024 board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).

O'Neil earned her BA from Old Dominion University and her MFA from New York University. She lives in Beverly, MA.