On the 9/10/25 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Dr.Andy is joined by two Ph.Ds who are speaking at the upcoming 2025 Summer Institute on Teaching and Technology. SITT 2025 features UC Davis faculty during two-half days of online presentations on the mornings of September 11th and 12th. The first guest on the program, Tricia Bertram Gallant, will be giving the lead-off talk at SITT 2025 on The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI (2025), which is also the title of her recently released book. Gallant discusses the role of teachers to facilitate and certify learning, tasks that are growing in complexity within the new technology landscape. She states that offloading cognitive tasks to AI as a student is fundamentally different from non-student offloading, as to achieve successful learning outcomes students must often overcome friction and frustration within their processes that AI can jump over for them. Margeret Merrill is the next guest on the program. Dr. Merrill is one of the primary organizers of SITT, and reflects on how SITT started, shifted virtual in 2020, and has grown to an annual event with an attendance of over 100 faculty members. She states that the Institute offers rich Q&A sessions. Merrill feels that the collaboration of multiple academic disciplines fosters a great space for bridging silos between different departments at R1 universities.

Tricia Bertram Gallant, Ph.D. is the Director of Academic Integrity and Triton Testing at UC San Diego, President Emeritus of the International Center for Academic Integrity. Tricia has authored numerous pieces on academic integrity and artificial intelligence. Her latest book (co-authored with David Rettinger) is The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI (2025) and her next book on Generative Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity - co-authored with Mary Davis (UK) & Zeenath Khan (UAE) - will be published by Cambridge Elements in 2026.

Margaret Merrill, PhD, is a Senior Instructional Design Consultant at the University of California, Davis. She works with faculty as they consider how to use technology in strategic and pedagogically sound ways in their face-to-face, hybrid, or online teaching. She creates and teaches workshops on technology and pedagogy, and researches, pilots, and supports technologies for teaching. Dr. Merrill is interested in how active learning, mobile learning, instructional use of video, and Universal Design for Learning can improve teaching and learning experiences. She has presented on mobile learning, accessibility, communities of practice, the design of faculty development programs, and communities among language instructors. Previously, Dr. Merrill has developed and implemented faculty support programs, created technology-supported foreign language learning materials for higher education and government projects, taught junior high French, and held the boom mic for the filming of a movie in Romania.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. The 9/17/25 iteration of the Poetry Night reading series will feature poets Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas and John Bell.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

On the 9/3/2025 Edition of Dr Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Neil McRoberts joins the program to discuss being a plant epidemiologist, educator, poet, and lifelong learner. He shares a poem called “San Lucas,” which spawned from his long work-related drives across California. McRoberts recalls his move to the United States in 2010, and expresses excitement about his upcoming reading with Catriona McPherson at this week's Poetry Night in Davis reading night series. Dr. Andy finished the episode by reading an essay from his Substack titled, “Serendipity and Friendship."

Neil McRoberts has written poetry since a high school English teacher encouraged her class of 12 year olds to give it a go. In a notable early “triumph,” Neil won the high school annual speech contest four years later with a nihilistic tirade about the pointlessness of atomic bomb response drills, written in a mixture of prose and rhyming couplets. Since 2020, Neil has collaborated regularly with English ambient music composer and producer Harry Towell to write poetry for various releases on the WhitelabRecs label. His first professionally published poem will soon appear in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. The featured readers for the September 4th, 2025 iteration of poetry night will be mystery novelist Catriona McPherson and Poet Neil McRoberts

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

Kindra McDonald joins the program to discuss THE NATURE OF OUR TIMES: POEMS, an anthology at the intersection of poetry and climate change. McDonald states that the anthology serves as an outlet for poets to talk about their regions. She reads a poem “Lost and Found Fairtail,” before the next guest Luisa A, Igloria joins the program. Igloria outlines how central climate, and climate politics are to her poetics, and outlines the importance and inspirations behind theTHE NATURE OF OUR TIMES: POEMS anthology. The anthology has 210 contributors from researchers, poets, and conventional artists. She then reads two poems, one from Camille T. Dungy “Nematode”, and her own “Bats French Kiss With Mouthfuls of Blood.” The last guest of the hour is Mariam Ahmed, who speaks on the release of her first full-length collection, Hidden Parts. She discusses how University poetics and those communities are very special to her, and shares a poem titled “Laughter,” and an ode “Sleep/Keep.”

Kindra McDonald is the author of the books Teaching a Wild Thing, In the Meat years, and Fossils. She received her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. She is a teaching artist, educator, and conservationist, who leads a nonprofit organization in Norfolk, Virginia.

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Caulbearer (Immigrant Writing Series Prize, Black Lawrence Press; 2024), Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Co-Winner, 2019 Crab Orchard Open Poetry Prize, Southern Illinois University Press, 2020),The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2018), 12 other books, and 4 chapbooks. She was the inaugural recipient of the 2015 Resurgence Poetry Prize, UK—the world’s first major award for ecopoetry (now known as the Ginkgo Prize), selected by a panel headed by former UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. She is lead editor, along with co-editors Aileen Cassinetto and Jeremy S. Hoffman, of Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States (Paloma Press, September 2023). She is also co-editor, along with Aileen Cassinetto and David Hassler, of a new ecopoetry anthology to be released from Paloma Press on September 18, 2025 - THE NATURE OF OUR TIMES: POEMS

California poet Mariam Ahmed grew up in the Bay Area and Folsom. Ahmed has an MFA in Poetry from San Diego State University and a BA in English Literature with a minor in Sociology from the University of California, Davis, where she was a student of Dr. Andy. Her work has appeared in Poetry International, The Los Angeles Review, Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place & Nature, and many other literary journals. Her debut full-length collection, Hidden Parts, was published in January 2025. A certified Poet-Teacher with California Poets in the Schools, Ahmed spends her days guiding young writers in the classroom. She also mentors youth through local nonprofits and teaches English to newly arrived Afghan women and children. Ahmed lives in San Diego, where she enjoys teaching yoga and finding inspiration by the ocean.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

On the 8/20/25 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Dyson Kona Smith joins the program to talk about his post-graduate life, poetry, and his next steps. He outlines a desire to publish his manuscript, Tomboy Ballet, and reads an untitled poem and “Lai about Home Followed By Analysis.” Smith also shares that he is now a Data Analyst for Turning Point Community Programs, helping evaluate programs tailored to help Northern Californians on their recovery journeys. The next guest on the hour is Roman Spinale. Roman discusses leveraging social media as a tool to propel his comedy career, before sharing about an upcoming Fair Oaks event on Friday, August 22nd “Comedy Under the Stars,” which will start at 8:00 P.M. and feature great comedians far and wide.

Dyson Kona Smith is a recent Statistics, English, and Sociology Graduate from the University of California, Davis. He was awarded the Herbert A. Young Award as the College of Letters and Science’s Medalist, given to the graduating senior they determine the most outstanding. His honors thesis in Poetry, Tomboy Ballet recently won the Lois Ann Lattin prize for UC Davis’s Best Honors Creative Writing Project. Poems from the collection have been published in journals such as but not limited to Open Ceilings, Poet News, GTFO Poetry’s 2024 Anthology of Sacramento Poets, Euphemism and The Madison Review. Beyond poetry, Dyson is a social statistician who wrote his research thesis on the association between social proximity to gun violence and chronic health conditions in California. He has worked on other projects pertaining to housing insecurity in Davis and deaths of despair among formerly incarcerated persons. Dyson was previously a Community-Coordinator and DJ at the campus and community radio station KDVS, a Researcher at the UC Davis Innovations and Research Lab, and the producer of Dr. Andy’s poetry and technology hour.

For over a decade Roman has been entertaining audiences with his signature brand of clean and introspective comedy. Today Roman can be seen regularly opening for Jay Leno, as well as touring dates across comedy clubs, corporate events, and private gatherings.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

Atim Udoffia is the first guest on the program, detailing her storied career in theatre. She speaks on her upcoming event, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's As You Like it which will show the weekends of August 22nd and August 30th at the CLARA auditorium in Sacramento. Brad Buchanon is the second guest of the hour. Buchanon discusses chess, his medical memoir, and excitingly his upcoming novel Spy's Gate. He shares his writing process, some of the thematic inspirations for the novel, including The Queen's Gambit, and the self-titled poem for his next poetry collection.

Atim Udoffia is a theatre artist and a mother of two working in theatre and film/video in the Sacramento and Bay Area. While continuing to expand her body of work as an actor and director, Udoffia aims to build a creative pipeline enabling trained, experienced theatre artists to initiate projects and generate their own creative opportunities. Favorite stage roles include Emilie in EMILIE LA MARQUISE DU CHATELET DEFENDS HER LIFE TONIGHT (The Stage @ Burke Junction), Lady Macbeth (STC), and Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT, which she also adapted and produced. Udoffia’s film credits include the feature films No Address, Fairyland, and Where Sleeping Dogs Lie. As a director, her work includes the solo show MINE FOR THE TRIBE, DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, OTHELLO, and the one-act CHARLIE AND NELL, for which she received a Best Director Award. Udoffia earned a BA in Human Biology from Stanford University before pursuing acting training in London and Los Angeles.

Brad Buchanon’s poetry, short fiction, and scholarly articles have appeared in more than 200 literary journals. He has published four book-length collections of poetry, most recently Chimera (Finishing Line Press, 2022). Buchanan has also published three academic books, most recently ’Indict the Author of Affection’: Affectation and Catachresis in Hamlet (McGill-Queens University Press, 2023). His medical memoir, Living with Graft-Versus-Host-Disease, was published by Armin Lear Press in 2021. Spy's Mate, his historical chess-espionage thriller set in the late Cold War Soviet Union, will be published this fall.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

On the 8/6/25 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Partners Robin Ekiss and Keith Ekiss are the first guests on the program. A former colleague of Dr.Andy’s, Robin reflects on her time at UC Davis, mentored by poets such as Sandra McPherson and Sandra Gilbert. Keith discusses his recent book, Burial Fragments, which co-won the Barry Sparks Poetry Prize for 2024 from Gunpowder Press. He describes the collection as his “San Francisco book report,” documenting change in the city since the dot-com bubble. They then both share poems, with Robin reading “The bird of God.” and Keith reading a piece titled “Explaining Shockley.” The next guest on the show is Santi Elijah Holley, who describes his recent publication in the New York Times column Letters of Recommendations, “I don’t believe in God I believe in Gospel music.” He describes his journey with gospel music, and how he came upon the genre later in life. Holley credits listening to music from a critical lens as a reason why he was able to become a successful writer, writing an award winning book about the Shakur family. He recommends the gospel songs “Previous Lord Take my Hand,” “How I Got Over” and “Sit down Servant."

Robin Ekiss earned her MA in creative writing from UC Davis so many years ago that Dr. Andy was actually one of her graduate student colleagues. A former Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford, she’s the author of The Mansion of Happiness, winner of the Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize and a finalist for the Northern California Book Awards. Her poems and prose have appeared inThe Atlantic, POETRY, APR, and elsewhere. She’s a recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award for emerging women writers, and residencies from the MacDowell Colony, Millay Colony for the Arts, and Headlands Center for the Arts.

Keith Ekiss is the author of two collections of poetry — Burial Fragments, co-winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize for 2024 from Gunpowder Press — and Pima Road Notebook (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2010), a book about growing up on the edge of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona. As a translator, his works include The Fire’s Journey (Tavern Books, 2019), an epic poem by the Costa Rican writer Eunice Odio in four volumes and Territory of Dawn: The Selected Poems of Eunice Odio, published in 2016 by The Bitter Oleander Press. He has been a lecturer in the Creative Writing program at Stanford since 2007.

Santi Elijah Holley is an award-winning journalist and a recipient of the 2019 Robert B. Silvers grant for Work in Progress, and a 2017 Oregon Literary Fellowship for nonfiction. His 2023 nonfiction book, An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created, was selected as a New York Times Editors' Choice, an NPR selection for “Books We Love,” "Best Book of the Year" by Kirkus Reviews, and longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. His book on Black American independent cinema is forthcoming by Mariner Books. He lives in Los Angeles.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. Robin and Keith Ekiss will read at the 8/7/25 iteration of Poetry in Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

On the 7/30/25 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Allison Proffitt joins the show to discuss her upbringing in music and upcoming performances in Sacramento. Proffit outlines how her upbringing in Illinois, and transition to California helped develop her artistic sensibilities and practices. She details the Light Opera Theatre of Sacramento’s iteration of Dracula; or the town of Sibiu, which will show at the 24th Street Theater in Sacramento on August 8, 9, 10, 15, 16 & 17, 2025. Proffit then sings a song, “Corpus Christi Carol,” specifically the Benjamin Britten setting. The next guest of the hour is Joseph Finkelman, who describes his forthcoming solo show at Viewpoint Photographic Art Center which is located at 2015 J St Sacramento, held between 1-4 P.M. on August 10th. He then reads a poem which was published in the Marin Poetry Center’s 2024 Anthology, “The Sacred Plans of Small Spaces.” Finkelman finishes his segment by speaking on his poetic practices, which include writing thirty different poems in thirty different forms this past January.

Allison Proffitt is a classical soprano who performs with the women's vocal ensemble Vox Musica and the Light Opera Theatre of Sacramento. Allison holds a B.S. in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior from UC Davis, where she sang in the Early Music Ensemble. Allison works at UC Davis Health conducting clinical research studies. She also enjoys performing at Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis.

Joseph Finkleman was born in Hollywood California. He was educated as a Photo-Journalist. He was a Literature major both in German and English. In 1973 he changed majors and went to and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with a BFA in 1974 and an MFA in 1976. He was a commercial photographer for over twenty years. Finkleman was a credentialed teacher in both photography and animation, and had taught off and on for the last 47 years. He has written numerous feature articles on photography besides having had a regular column for Close-Up Magazine, now defunct. Finkleman has been in 131 exhibitions over the last 57 years of his career. He has been a Spoken Word Poet for the last 30+ years with numerous featured readings. Finkleman and his wife Susan Finkleman developed a Two Voice poetry series, which resulted in a Chapbook by Rattlesnake Press and two CDs. He finished his first Graphic Novel in 2023 titled Happy Tooth and is currently working on his second novel titled Trouble in the Troupe.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

On the 7/23/25 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Danielle Collins joins the program to discuss her journey as a burnout survivor. Because of her lived experience with burnout, Collins returned back to school to learn more about coaching others through the ongoing crisis. From their research, coaching experience, and their own journey, Collins wrote the book Work Comes Third:Eradicating Burnout in Overwhelmed Leaders and Their Weary Employees, a rally cry for those faced with burnout. Collins shares the themes of her book, explaining how to manage workloads and set boundaries with demanding bosses. The next guest on the show is Dave Boles, who reflects on his time at Cold River Press. Boles started the VOICES anthology to capture the art of Sacramento Valley region poets, and just published its newest iteration in 2025. Boles also details a special event celebrating the release, which is a five hour reading and potluck in Sacramento on July 26th. He shares two poems, “Circumstances” and a political poem “Inconsequential.”

Danielle Collins is a previous fundraiser and burnout survivor. She returned to school to pursue a career more aligned with her values and then founded Primavera Strategies for Wellbeing. Today, she is a coach, author, and speaker, helping dedicated leaders who are burning out to renew their passions. Danielle believes that burnout affects the most committed employees, not the weakest. Collins recently published her first book titled, Work Comes Third: Eradicating Burnout in Overwhelmed Leaders and Their Weary Employees. You can connect with her at PrimaveraStrategies.com.

Dave Boles has worked as an Alternative Publisher, Writer and Designer since 1982. Founder of the magazine Primal Urge, he also created The Sacramento Free Press and Cruisin' Magazine. He has published, designed, edited and written numerous books, magazines and articles both nationally and internationally. His publishing company, Cold River Press, has helped many new writers, artists, poets, illustrators and photographers further their careers.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.