Tobey Hiller

Gail Entrekin and Tobey Hiller

4 OCTOBER 2026 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Gail Entrekin, The Mother/Daughter Papers, and Tobey Hiller, reading from her new hybrid book, DESCENT IN FIVE (motions), and new poems, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm (poetryflash.org).

The featured books will be available at the reading, and some are available at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash. This event will be posted on the Poetry Flash YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UClwdR-uPFNz7XxbBbLcnoEA. Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Gail Entrekin's sixth poetry book, Walking Each Other Home, was a finalist for the Blue Light and Richard Snyder Prizes. It is a moving and warm expression of love between a man and a woman during some of the harder times in their relationship. Ellen Bass says, "At times spare and lyrical, at times rich with sensory detail, Entrekin invites readers into the intimacy of 'walking each other home.'" Dorianne Laux calls it "Poignant, moving and true." Gail Entrekin's new chapbook, The Mother/Daughter Papers: Poems 1988-2026, was, in manuscript form, a finalist for the Comstock, Cutbank and Open Box Prizes. She is Editor of the online environmental literary magazine, Canary (canarylitmag.org) and Poetry Editor of Hip Pocket Press. Her poems were finalists for the Pablo Neruda Prize, won the Women's National Book Association Award, and were First Runner-up for the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and Catamaran Poetry Prize. Gail Entrekin lives in Berkeley. Her husband of forty years, noted poet and novelist Charles Entrekin, founder of the Berkeley Poets Coop, died in 2025.

Tobey Hiller's brand-new hybrid collection is DESCENT IN FIVE (motions). She will be reading from this book and new poems. Mary McLaughlin Slechta says, "Tobey Hiller's new stories are both timely and timeless in the tales they tell in soaring, lyrical language. Descent in Five (motions) leads us on a journey that encompasses dreams, myths, and meditative states, and which sometimes border on nightmare, but never leave us stranded.… Hiller is a fabulist whose creativity blooms wildly 'in the trembling gap between stories and lies.'" Her previous books include poetry, flash (very short fiction), and fiction, including Flight Advice: A Fabulary, surreal/fabulist stories, a finalist for Omnidawn's Fiction award, and Crow Mind, her most recent book of poetry. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies, including Askew, Ambush, Canary, Musepie Press's Shotglass Journal, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California and Stills: An Anthology of Poetry on Film. Both her poems and stories have won magazine and contest awards; her current poetry manuscript before anything is dust was one of three finalists for the Catamaran Literary Reader Poetry Book Prize. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and for a Pushcart Prize.