Little Apartment

Little Apartment

Launch Party, May 1st, 2024, Caffe Aroma, Buffalo, NY

On May 1st, 2024, a lively crowd packed Caffe Aroma in Buffalo NY for the official launch of “Little Apartment” by Heather Rae Ackerman. The café is a hotspot in the Elmwood Village, featuring regular open-mic nights where a dynamic poetry scene is emerging. The author read several poems from her debut collection, sprinkling in vibrant anecdotes and origin stories from the history of her apartment life.

Patrons enjoyed themed drinks (including the “Landlord Special” and “The Linwood Avenue”), got their book copies autographed, and reveled in the literary atmosphere. The evening was hosted by Ben Brindise and Justin Karcher, both authors and teaching artists from the Queen City. Also in attendance was Amanda Falker, co-founder (with Ackerman) of The Lowell Collective, an artists’s association.

In the acknowledgements for her collection, Ackerman thanks “the poets that gather on alternate Wednesdays at Caffe Aroma – you heard these words first.” It was only fitting that the launch party happened in the same place she work-shopped the poems, shared with a standing-room-only audience of friends and poets.