We started in 2017, running workshops — and we still believe the best poetry is local.
We began by teaching — gathering poets in rooms, running workshops, and learning what it actually takes to get a poet in front of an audience. Along the way we watched the poets we loved do the work of a writer, an event producer, a tour manager, a publicist, and a contracts attorney all at once. None of that pays. The writing, somehow, paid least of all.
The Speakeasy Project exists to collapse that into one job: poet. We do everything else. And we believe local is best — the strongest events grow out of real community, so we root our poets in the places they live and read, then bring them everywhere from there. Based in Los Angeles; our poets read everywhere.
HOW WE THINK ABOUT THIS
01
Poetry changes rooms
A poem can turn a conference into something people remember. We put poets in the rooms where their words do the most.
02
Poets' time is worth it
Years of craft go into a single reading. We price that honestly and negotiate equitable rates, so poets are paid what the work is worth.
03
We carry the rest
Contracts, fees, travel, follow-through — we handle the logistics so poets can focus on the page and the stage.
04
We work with mission orgs
Nonprofits, poetry organizations, and community groups: we help you bring poets in at rates that work for your budget — and stay fair to the poet.
MASTHEAD · LOS ANGELES
Tyler Tsay
Founder
Tyler Tsay is the former co-founder of The Blueshift Journal. His work, both past and upcoming, has been or will be published in The Offing, The Margins: Asian American Writers Workshop, DIAGRAM, Vinyl Poetry and others. He is the recipient of the Bullock Poetry Prize, awarded by the Academy of American Poets and judged by Camille Rankine, and has formerly worked at BEOTIS Creative and BOAAT Press.
[email protected]Jennifer Luo
Managing Director · Agent
Jen Luo is a Michener Fellow in poetry at the University of Texas, Austin. She has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University.
[email protected]