Poets present work at Boxcar Books

Members of the Bloomington community gathered Thursday evening at Boxcar Books for an outdoor reading by zine writers and friends Katie Haegele and Joseph Carlough.
 
The event was organized by Richard Wehrenberg, Jr., a volunteer at Boxcar and a poet who also read some of his work.

This was just one stop on Haegele and Carlough’s zine tour, which has seen them travel to Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Champaign, Ill. They said they initially planned their weeklong excursion for pleasure, but changed their minds and decided to also turn it into a zine tour.

“It was initially just a vacation we had planned,” Carlough said. “We drove out here to see a musician play and we figured maybe we should set something up.”

“It just sounded like a lot of fun,” Haegele added.

Haegele, who works professionally as an arts journalist in Philadelphia, read an excerpt from her memoir, “White Elephants: Yard Sales, Relationships, and Finding What Was Missing.” She is currently working on her next book and said she hopes to publish it soon.

Carlough, who read some of his original poems and an excerpt from a book he is currently writing, works as an independent publisher in N.J. and also writes SAT material part-time. He has published multiple zines, a card game, and even a record.
 
He said he was enjoying traveling to new places on the zine tour.

Haegele and Carlough said they will travel to Louisville and Maryland before finishing up their tour in New Jersey. As for the future, they said they both have one simple wish.

“I would love to one day not work for anyone else,” Carlough said. “That’s the dream, I think.”

Haegle laughed.

“That’s mine, too,” she said.

Follow Jacobs School of Music reporter Rachel Osman on Twitter @rachosman.