by Maia Williams

Laura Juliet Wood is the author of two collections of poems, All Hands Lost and Dreaming During the Advent of Rain as well as being co-translator with Allen Josephs of Fernando Valverde's poetry collection The Insistence of Harm published by University Press of Florida.

Laura's poems and translations have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Los Angeles Review, The Atlanta Review, The West Marin Review and The Hollins Critic. She is currently exploring how we can shift generational trauma by actively rewriting our stories of loss and grief and doing just that as she begins a new memoir.

Laura teaches as well as writes and translates and divides her time between Pensacola, Florida and San Miguel de Allende with her three children Caroline, Lucy and Victor. They are expecting a new member of the family on August 11th—a 14 week old Yorkie named Mattie. 

Laura graduated from Columbia's MFA program at the School of the Arts in New York City and has lived, worked and traveled in 40 countries.

The poems in Dreaming During the Advent of Rain chronicle the author's journey through her husband's brain cancer diagnosis 6 months after they were married, the birth of their daughter several years later and eventually his death. They were written as events unfolded and served as the author's way of transcribing, articulating and transcending her grief.

During his career Rick Kammen was a criminal defense lawyer with his office in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1971, he graduated from New York University School of Law and was admitted to the Bar, he began his practice after service in the United States Army.

Rick has defended over two hundred homicide cases including approximately forty death penalty cases in both State and Federal courts. No client that he has represented at trial has been sentenced to death. He was lead counsel on the defense team that represented David Camm, who was exonerated and freed by acquittal after serving thirteen years in prison following two prior convictions of killing his wife and two children.

Rick served as "Learned Counsel" in United States v. Abdul Rahim Al-Nashiri who is charged before a Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Al-Nashiri is alleged to have been a central figure in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 in Aden, Yemen. This is likely to be the first capital military commission. Rick and other civilian counsel withdrew from the case in October, 2017 after the Commission refused to address intrusions into the attorney-client relationship.

Inspired by the author's experiences defending an accused at Guantanamo Bay, Tortured Justice takes the reader inside the controversial Military Commissions where a death penalty attorney defends a high-profile terror suspect while chasing fame. So far, Connor Mendelson's ambition has cost him his marriage. Now, in Guantanamo, Mendelson's pursuit of the truth threatens his family and his career.

Mendelson leads a legal team defending a terrorist accused of masterminding an infamous Al-Qaeda attack on a U.S. airbase in Kuwait that kills more than one hundred Americans and leaves a nation demanding blood.

The trial is set before a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, a place so lacking in law, justice and trust that even his own client, whom he is trying to save from execution, wants nothing to do with him or his team after being repeatedly tortured by the CIA.

Besides hostility from his client, Mendelson's case is sabotaged by a CIA interrogator, code-named Hermione, willing to break any law to keep her identity and illegal torture methods intact.

The courtroom offers no respite; Mendelson faces a military judge and prosecutor who both consider the case a no-fail mission where success can only be achieved by a death sentence.

Rick often says, quoting Jodi Picoult, "Just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's any less true."

Poetry and Prose Cafés teamed up last fall as we resumed hosting in-person events, and we're thrilled to offer our first Summer Pop-Up since 2019—featuring two of San Miguel's finest writers sharing recently published work. Please join us as we gather in the covered, open-air courtyard of Café Murmullo.

Admission is free and donations are gratefully accepted to support marketing, venue, and production costs. Our all-volunteer organization presents local and visiting writers, established and emerging. Books written by the presenters will be available for purchase at our no-commission Café Bookshop.

Please arrive a few minutes early, seating is limited.

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Maia Williams, Founder 2015, Wild Muse Show Up & Write!; Anthology Author & Editor 2023, Memory as Muse: Then and Now; Founder 2015, San Miguel Poetry & Prose Cafés; Co-Director 2014-2020, San Miguel Writers' Conference

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