Join us for a delicious and inspiring evening with some of the writers featured in the anthology A Feast for Santa Barbara: Poets Celebrating Food & Drink, recently published by Gunpowder Press. Edited by Santa Barbara Poet Laureate George Yatchisin, who is also a longtime food and drink writer in the region, the collection features 117 poets from 6th graders to 90 year olds. The writers explore themes including local farms, agriculture, wineries, restaurants, labor in food industries, and home cooking. The aim of the anthology is to capture the essence of Santa Barbara’s connection to what it grows, prepares, and shares.
Conceived as a literary celebration of the region’s rich gastronomic traditions, the project highlights the intersection of culinary experience and community identity. The poets will read their work and discuss the connections between the written and culinary arts.
George Yatchisin is the Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, 2025-2027. His poetry has appeared widely in journals and anthologies and is collected in his books Feast Days and The First Night We Thought the World Would End. National Poetry Series winner Alexandra Lytton Regalado writes of his work, “His poems move like essays; they gather the ribbons, work out the knots.” It’s not surprising, then, that he also writes journalism, having covered topics as diverse as dart leagues, reined cow horse cowboys, military museums, mime troupes, movies, rock and roll, and lots of food, wine, and cocktails.
A three-decade resident of Santa Barbara, CA, he retired from his position as the Director of Communications for UCSB’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education in 2023.
