A Celebration of Books,
Writers & LIterary Excellence

Save the Date


Gaithersburg
Book Festival

May 17, 2025

10am – 6pm

Bohrer Park


Moderator

Courtney LeBlanc

Latest Title: Her Whole Bright Life
Her Whole Bright Life

Her Whole Bright Life is a collection of poems that weave together the trauma and exhaustion of a life lived with disordered eating and the loss and grief of the death of the poet’s father. Love and hunger intertwine and become inseparable as the poet grapples to find, and listen, to both. With a distinct and feminist voice, this collection delves into a life now lived without a beloved parent, while trying to survive a pandemic and battling demons that have lived inside her for most of her life. With both fierceness and tenderness, we see a woman trying to find her place within her own body and within an ever-changing world. This collection of poems is both an elegy and an anthem – praising both those who’ve been lost and those who remain.

About Courtney LeBlanc

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full-length collections, “Her Whole Bright Life” (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize, Write Bloody, 2023), “Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart” (Riot in Your Throat, 2021) and “Beautiful & Full of Monsters” (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020). She is a Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellow (2022) and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos and a soy latte each morning. 

Facebook

Instagram: @wordperv79

Twitter: @wordperv 

Moderator Schedule:

Venue(s):

Edgar Allan Poe Pavilion

Presentation Start Time:

10:15 am

Presentation End Time:

11:05 am

Signing Time:

11:15 am