Brain Candy is a monthly, live program of prose, music, poetry, and visual art curated by the Emerging Writers Network.
This month's featured artists:
Music - Michelle Held
Michelle Held is a singer-songwriter whose music is heart-centered and deeply resonant. With a voice reminiscent of folk legends, she weaves poetic lyrics with soulful, genuine storytelling that captures the human experience. Her songs invite listeners into a space of warmth and authenticity, creating a timeless connection. A three-time Honorable Mention recipient in the prestigious Telluride Troubadour Contest, Held continues to garner recognition for her artistry.
Poetry - Jeff Kass
Jeff Kass teaches Tenth Grade English and Creative Writing at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor MI. He’s the award-winning author of Knuckleheads, Independent Publishers Best Short Fiction Collection of 2011, as well as two previous full-length poetry collections, My Beautiful Hook-nosed Beauty Queen Strut Wave and Teacher/Pizza Guy, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book. He is currently a featured poetry instructor with the Michigan Learning Channel, has taught poetry classes and workshops to thousands of students, and is a recipient of a prestigious 2023 Jack Hazard Fellowship for writers who teach in public schools. His newest poetry collection, True Believer, consists of poems that spin around and through Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Visual - Alice V. Schneider
Alice Victoria Schneider is a Detroit-based visual artist whose work is a combination of sculpture, painting, printmaking and filmmaking. She focuses on movement as a theme, highlighting motion, form, and speed with effects of still-life painting in mind. Schneider is intrigued by the concept of "film as painting". When making her filmed paintings, she set the stage with artworks that she has created, allowing the more traditional art seeker to have something tangible.
Prose - Aubri Adkins
Aubri K. Adkins walks her dog daily, no matter the weather, in Detroit, MI. Her creative nonfiction is published in the Bear River Review; Gravel Magazine; Lammergeier; Memoir Mixtapes; and Stirring: A Literary Collection; and her fiction is published in Tusculum Review.
