October
23
Poetry Reading with Scott LaMascus, Sunshine Lately and Leah Raidt
Friday October 23rd, 6:30pm
MaybeItsFate - Main Gallery
1425 Story AveLouisville, KY 40206
Please join Byway Books on October 23rd at 6:30pm for an evening of poetry featuring Scott LaMascus reading from his debut collection, Let Other Hounds: Poems Breaking Silence Fifty Years After Sexual Abuse At Church (Fernwood Press 2026) with additional readings by wonderful friends and poets Sunshine Lately and Leah Raidt.
This event is free and open to the public!
More about the book:
Betrayed by a trusted adult, an isolated boy holds his Argos close and whispers the truth into that floppy hound’s ear. Let Other Hounds is a debut collection mapping the journey of that shamed boy of ten as he moves courageously through a decade of terror toward freedom. Scott LaMascus breaks silence as an accomplished husband and father who has learned much about the aftermath of boyhood sexual abuse. After fifty years, it is a courageous and stunning gathering of words held close and distilled into poems which speak difficult truths still feared, denied, and often faced with ambivalence or even recriminations. The poems are driven by force of shattered boyhood-profound sadness, burning anger, isolation and much darkness.
Yet the poet fearlessly dives down to that wreck, seeking language and metaphor to brave the perilous ascent back to the sparkling surface of life-toward healing, joy, love and boldness. The poems surprise again and again, but remain grounded in specific place, time, family, and canine companionship. The poems move readers through an experience like that of as many as one in six men in the U.S. Along this arduous path lie toxic masculinity, challenges of agency, the heroism of individual and collective action, the imposters of regret and anger, and the search for solidarity and respect for others who delay telling their stories not just to survive, but to thrive.
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Scott LaMascus is an Oklahoma City writer whose 2025 chapbook, The Edited Tongue is the story of his family's year with ALS. His debut collection was released in June 2026. Let Other Hounds traces the arc of betrayal, anger, confusion, and resilience after childhood sexual abuse at church. His 2027 collection will be Oklahoma poems from Lily Poetry Review Books. His MFA in poetry is from Antioch University, Los Angeles.
Sunshine “Sunny” Lately (she/they) is a queer Kentuckiana poet, artist, and workshop leader. Her work focuses on transmutation of personal, ancestral, and communal traumas—often through an esoteric lens. Her first collection, Lye, was published by Fernwood press in 2026. Her writing has also appeared in Rogue Agent, Fatal Flaw, Sarabande’s "Once A City Said", Beyond Queer Words, Asterales Journal, Major 7th Magazine, and more.
Leah Raidt (they/she) is a writer/performer/director/producer and meditation teacher proudly based in Kentucky. Leah’s work has been published by Queer Kentucky, Kudzu Jelly, new words {press}, and Game Over Books. They are a 2027 KY Arts Council Emerging “Literary Arts” Artist and recipient of the Nikky Finney Fellowship at University of Kentucky, where they are currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing. Leah holds a faculty position at Louisville’s Earth & Spirit Center, where they facilitate retreats and workshops such as Writing as Spiritual Practice. Leah has presented creative-spiritual programming in partnership with Nazareth Retreat Center, KyCAD, KY Governor’s School for the Arts, Woodbine Chamber, Loretto Link, Ziva Meditation, DePaul University, and more. Their award-winning short-films, Lee Baby and Rough River Lake are streaming on OTV. In all its forms, Leah's work aims to uplift and advance LGBTQ+ artists and narratives toward our collective liberation.