Poet and prose writer Margot Fortunato Galt will read from her new chapbook, The Heart Beat of Wings (a 2017 Red Bird Chapbook winner), drenched in memories of summer, moments of winter awe, and childhood "spills of joy." As Minnesota poet Margaret Hasse writes, each poem grows larger, "like a small bird that opens its great wings in flight."

Margot is also the author of Turning the Feather Around: My Life in Art, her 1998 biography of George Morrison, Minnesota's premier Ojibwe artist. Margot spent years as a Minnesota writer-in-the-schools, traveling the state in all weather to inspire young people to write. She has also taught writing at the University of Minnesota, Hamline University, and Metro State. She lives in St. Paul with her librarian husband Fran Galt, and their cat Julia.