Readings
2025 “What the Universe Is: A Reading Series,” November 18, featured reader with Vivek Narayanan, online
“Book Talk,” November 6, Center on Disability and Inclusion, Huntington Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, with Jessica Cuello
“Jackson Lunch Hour Series,” November 5, School of Arts and Sciences, Utica University, Utica, NY
“Book Launch Event,” August 27, The Bookshop, Nashville, TN
2024 “Poems and Papers,” December 5, Cultural Autism Studies at Yale, Child Studies Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT
“Wordsmiths Reading Series,” September 12, Hicks Art Center Gallery, Bucks County Community College, Newton, PA
“Summer Reading Series,” July 16, Bluegrass Writers Studio, Eastern Kentucky University, Carnegie Center, Lexington, KY
“Singing Our Joy: A Reading by Neurodivergent Poets,” February 7-10, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, Kansas City, MO, with Ina Cariño, Leslie McIntosh, Angela Peñaredondo, and Addie Tsai
2023 “Sawmill Poetry Series,” December 4, Plenty Bookshop, Cookeville, TN, featured reader with Marianne Worthington
2022 “SEAM: a poetry reading series,” April 10, virtual, with Patricia Smith and Bianca Stone
“Happy Neuroqueering: A Reading by Neuroqueer Poets,” March 23-26, Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, Philadelphia, PA, virtual, with Jai Hamid Bashir, Hilary Brown, and K. Iver
2021 “Neuroqueer Poetry Reading,” Lacuna Collective, November 13, virtual, with Jai Hamid Bashir, Cali Linfor, and Christopher Phelps
Mercy Street Readings, November 7, virtual, with Nishat Ahmed, Cynthia Atkins, Chelsea B. DesAutels, Amorak Huey, James Knippen, and Ananda Lima
2020 “Neurodiverse Verse: Poems by and about People on the Autism Spectrum,” March 4-7, Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference, San Antonio, TX, with Daniel Bowman Jr., Sonia Greenfield, Julie Hensley, and Tom Hunley
2019 “Poetry Reading,” April 7, The Bookshop, 1043 West Eastland Avenvue, Nashville, TN, with Patrick DeGuira and Jana Harper, details here
“Poet’s Corner: Featured Reader,” February 28, Scarritt Bennett Center, 1027 18th Avenue South, Fondren Building, Nashville, TN, details here
“Rae (Armantrout) Day,” January 13, The Packing Plant, 507 Hagan Street, Nashville, TN, details here
2018 “Voices Inside Doomsday Bunker,” broadside debut and poetry reading, October 25, Virginia Center for the Book, Charlottesville, VA, details here
“Goldenrod Poetry Festival: Guest Poet,” April 18, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY, details here
“Concert & Book Launch Party: Destruction of Man,” April 6, Third Man Books at Soft Junk, with Abraham Smith, Adia Victoria, and Little Bandit, Nashville, TN, details here
2017 “X-Peri and the Dada Effect: Readings of Contemporary Experimental Writing,” May 18, Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, with Sammantha J. Prychodko, Jamie Thurman, and Alex Lundy, details here
Papers
2025 “Noticing Neurodivergence in Lowell’s “Notice,”” March 26-29, Association of Writers & Writing Programs, Los Angeles, CA, with Nazifa Islam, Abriana Jetté, Robyn Leigh Lear, and Leslie McIntosh
2024 “Les Murray: Autistic Poet,” May 7-10, 55th Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Convention, panel co-chair with Abriana Jetté, Tufts University
2023 “The Music of ‘Bric-a-Brac’ in Harmonium, October 12-15, Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers Conference, Echoes of Harmonium: 1923-2023 Seminar, University of Houston
“Emily Dickinson: Queering the Home of the Poem at Home,” July 21-23, Emily Dickinson International Society Annual Meeting, Amherst College
“Reading and Writing Queer Fabulist Poems and Finding Joy in the South,” February 23, OUT in Front Conference: Roots of Resilience: Community Care in the Queer South, Vanderbilt University
2022 “Crippled Poets Writing Crippled Sonnets,” October 20-23, Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers Conference, Resurrected Genres Seminar, Yale University
2020 “The Sonnet As: Neuroqueerness in the American Sonnet,” October, 1-3, Sonnets from the American Symposium, Johns Hopkins University
2018 “The Undoing of Self in Robert Duncan’s Passages,” February 22-24, The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900, New Groundwork: Form, Self, and Tradition in the Poetry of Robert Duncan Seminar, University of Louisville
2017 “Slow Reading by Default: How Slow Processing Speed Benefits Literary Comprehension,” October 26-29, Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers Conference, Slow Reading Seminar, University of Dallas
“A Sweet Disorder: ADHD, Dyslexia, Modernist Indeterminacy and the Poetics of Neurodiversity,” May 2, The Unbinding Prometheus Project, The Modernist Social Network Seminar Series, University of Pennsylvania
Teaching
2025 “Sparking Creativity for Neurodivergent Writers,” November 1, The Porch, Nashville, TN
“Poetry for Rest and Joy,” Virtual Summer Camp, Cultural Autism Studies at Yale, Child Studies Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT
“Sparking Creativity for Neurodivergent Writers,” July 12, The Porch, Nashville, TN
2018 “An Easy Way to Write like Emily Dickinson,” September 15, workshop leader, MTSU Write, Fall Creative Writing Conference, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN
“Poem Fail: A Poetry Workshop,” April 18, workshop leader, the Robert Penn Warren Room, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY
2017 “Writing Badly: A Poetry Workshop,” March 11, workshop co-leader with Win Bassett, The Porch Writers’ Collective, Refinery Nashville, Nashville, TN
2016 “Writing Badly: A Poetry Workshop,” June 18, workshop co-leader with Win Bassett, The Porch Writers’ Collective, The Skillery, Nashville, TN
Nathan Spoon 