Over the Prairie//Under the Prairie: The Paved Prairie

An in-person workshop series with 2026 Milwaukee Emerging Poet Practice Fellow Lily Lalios Free and open to the public, but registration is required (please see below). Lily Lalios is a writer based in Milwaukee who has been published by #EnbyLife journal, Pitymilk Press, and VA Press. They also produced Apagimeni Literary Magazine, a compilation of poetry, essays, and visual art by and about the queer Greek American experience. Lily’s work made the long list for the 2024 SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction, and they were a finalist for the 2025 Genrepunk Haunting Award. Currently, Lily is also a member of the writing team for Cabaret Milwaukee, a theatre troupe that performs radio dramas about Wisconsin history. Lily’s project Over the Prairie//Under the Prairie is a yearlong series of free community poetry workshops, culminating in a print anthology. These generative workshops, designed for Milwaukee residents and writers of all experience levels, will explore one or more of the project’s four major themes; Grief and Death practices, Local Eco-Writing, Interfaith/Intercultural Memory-Keeping, and Ekphrastic Poetry. Workshops will be held at various locations around the city in order to offer site-specific inspiration related to the theme, as well as to allow participants to explore their city and meet neighbors they might not otherwise encounter. Workshops are free and open to the public, and participants are welcome to come to as many or as few as they like. Please register for each session in which you plan to attend. While these themes are sure to inspire highly personal and vulnerable work, participants are welcome to submit their generated works to the community anthology, which will commemorate the project and serve as a testament to the importance of collective grieving and the cathartic power of poetry. Lily will receive administrative support from our staff, along with a $1,500 project budget to carry out their vision.