Upcoming
March 29, 2026 | 2:00-4:00 pm
Joint reading with Jameela Dallis and Al Maginnes followed by an open mic.
Sponsored by the NC Poetry Society
McIntyre’s Books, located in Fearrington Village, 220 Market St., Pittsboro, NC 27312
June 2026 | Healing Words: Mindful Writing for Self-Care
With Author Barbara Presnell
Well of Mercy Retreat Center
September 10-12, 2026 | Carolina Mountains Literary Festival
Reading and discussion Friday and Saturday.
CMLitFest website. Burnsville, NC
Past
VCFA Virtual Reading Series | February 19, 2026
January 21, 2026, 7:00-9:00 pm | Weave & Spin
Featured reader followed by an open mic.
Eno House, 903 Eno St., Hillsborough, NC
January 11, 2026, 2:30-4:00 pm | Flyleaf Books Reading Series
Joint reading with Carrboro poet Maura High followed by an open mic.
Flyleaf Books, 752 M.L.K. Jr Blvd, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
April 20, 2023, 6-8PM | Intro to Poetry
An intro poetry workshop where you get to play with language: evoke emotions, find connections, and create imagery. Intro to Poetry is a “no pressure” workshop open to ANYONE ages 18+ who wishes to become more engaged in writing. Participants are welcome to bring snacks and beverages (no red wine, please).
Free class! Registration required to attend. Register here.
Location
Alamance Arts
213 Main St. Graham, NC
February 24, 2023, 6-7:30 PM | Burlington Live Art Walk
Reading and Q & A alongside author Adrienne Barr. My 30-minute timeslot is 6:30 PM. For more information on the Live Art Walk, visit Burlington Downtown.
Location
Persnickety Books;
347 S. Main St., Burlington, NC
March 16, 2023, 8 PM | VCFA Reading Series (Virtual)
I’m reading in the VCFA Alumnx Reading Series alongside a few dear friends, one of which is featured reader Suzanne Farrell Smith. Suzanne will be reading from her forthcoming essay collection, Small Off Things: Meditations from an Anxious Mind, out from Littoral Books in the spring.
Registration required to attend. Register here (scroll down to the March 16 reading).
January 29, 2023, 2PM | McIntyre’s Books Sunday Poetry Series
Featured reading followed by an open mic. 220 Market St. Pittsboro, NC
Dec. 3 & 23, 6PM | Experience Christmas with Alamance Arts
Reading and Book Signing
If there is one thing I know, the Alamance Arts Council knows how to celebrate the holidays. Visit their website for a full schedule of events. Located in the Captain White House in Graham, NC.
Carolina Mountains Literary Festival
Spend a literary-filled weekend in the beautiful Black Mountains of North Carolina, the highest mountain range in the Blue Ridge Province of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
Reading and Discussion – Anything That Happens
What is it like to write about your most shameful experience? Cheryl Wilder will read from her debut collection, Anything That Happens, an examination of what it takes to reconcile a past grave mistake. She will discuss the role of trust in writing and how craft helped build the writer-reader relationship.
September 9, 11-11:45 AM
Plott Hound Books
Burnsville, NC
September 10, 10-10:45 AM
First Baptist Church
Burnsville, NC
For more information: Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, Burnsville, NC
April 1, 2022, 11:30 AM EST | Ocracoke Community Radio WOVV 90.1
Interview with Peter Vankevich
Ways to listen: 90.1fm on the island, online at wovv.rocks, by going to the TuneIn app, radio.garden, or ask any Alexa-type listening device to play Ocracoke Community Radio WOVV 90.1.
Architecture & Poetry Series
Getting Your House in Order: Crafting Poems for the New Year
$100
Three Workshops for One Price
. . .
Workshop Description
In this online, monthly workshop series, we’ll explore what I call the multifaceted house—home as shelter, sentiment, identity, self, and poem. Equipped with poetry and architecture tool belts, each month we’ll look at aspects of craft as we ask ourselves, what does it mean to have a house?
January 26, 7:00-8:30 PM EST
Making a Threshold: Beginnings and Suspended Moments
We’ll begin the year with Gregory Orr’s charge to look at “the poem’s suspended moment as a threshold between disorder and order.” How do poems help poets create order from disorder? What happens when we apply “order” to the topic of home? We’ll read a variety of examples and also discuss the effect of threshold as a poem’s beginning. Come ready to write a poem-house for the new year. Prompts will be provided.
February 23, 7:00-8:30 PM EST
Space in Poetry: Applying Boundaries and Movement
Architect Louis Hammer said, “Every building is a palimpsest on which are written countless poems of space.” In this workshop, we’ll look at how the space we occupy influences us and our poem-making, and vice versa. We’ll apply spatial terms like boundary, space, and static and dynamic to poems. Come ready to write, revise, or both depending on time. Bring the poem you started in the first class.
March 23, 7:00-8:30 PM EST
Line Breaks as Experience: Creating Prospect-Refuge in Poetry
In the third installment of “Getting Your House in Order,” we’ll explore the line break as a way to create prospect-refuge. Prospect-refuge theory, by geographer Jay Appleton, establishes that humans have an innate characteristic “to see without being seen.” In poetry, the line break taps into the instinct Appleton ascribes. We’ll look at poems to see how poets balance prospect-refuge to build trust and maintain reader engagement. Then we’ll apply prospect-refuge to our own poems. Please bring a poem to revise. Poems from previous workshops in the series are encouraged.
NEW SEMINAR!
Poetry and Space: Poems Crafted with an Architectural Perspective
“[Wilder will] explore poetry and space—the space we live in and the space we create on the page. What happens when we think of the beginning of a poem as a threshold? A line break as a boundary—both a beginning and an end? What is ‘prospect refuge theory’ and how does it apply to poetry? We will explore poems through an architectural lens with time for questions at the end.”
When: Thursday, October 7, 2021, 6-7:30PM EST
Host: Press 53
Attend: Online
Anthology Reading of Triad Contributors: Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath
When: Thursday, September 16, 2021, 7:00 PM
Where: Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC
Anthology Launch: Crossing the Rift: North Carolina Poets on 9/11 & Its Aftermath
When: Sunday, September 12, 2021, 3:00 PM
Where: Bookmarks, Winston-Salem, NC
Blog Book Tour
Serena Agusto-Cox of Poetic Book Tours curated a tour with passionate, dedicated readers and reviewers.
- April 1: Diary of an Eccentric (Review)
There is something real in these poems, in Wilder’s search for “home,” something that is both haunting and cathartic. - April 5: The Book Lover’s Boudoir (Review)
Anything That Happens left me breathless. - April 14: Review Tales by Jeyran Main (Interview)
What about writing do you enjoy the most? Writing helps me process my thoughts and emotions—the core of why I write. - April 21: Impressions in Ink (Review)
The poems are sometimes brutal and desperate to be heard—in my face with powerful feelings. - April 29: Jorie Loves A Story (Interview & Review)
A wonderful pattern of choice and purpose to the ways in which this collection was arranged. - May 3: Musings of a Bookish Kitty (Review)
Cheryl Wilder’s Anything That Happens is a book I will not soon forget. I imagine I will carry it with me for a long time to come. - May 4: Diary of an Eccentric (Guest Post)
So, what do we believe in? How do we spend our time? What will we leave behind? - May 5: Suko’s Notebook (Guest Post)
One piece of advice given to me over the years has been to read my work-in-progress out loud. - May 6: Anthony Avina’s Blog (Review)
The jumble of pain, memories, and yearning in the face of great loss is not only felt in the author’s powerful writing but resonates with so many, including this author, who watched his own mother have to say goodbye to his grandmother. - May 7: Anthony Avina’s Blog (Guest Post)
The thing about needs is they don’t disappear. Whether I wanted to believe it or not, I was a poet, and a poet needs to write poetry. There’s no escaping it. (Oh, thank goodness.)
4 on 4th Local Author Event
What: Reading and Q&A
When: Wednesday, April 28, 2021 | 7:00 PM
Host: Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, NC
Attend online: Watch the recorded event
Book launch!
What: Celebrate Anything That Happens with a reading and conversation
When: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 | 7:00 PM
Host: Press 53
Featured Reader
What: VCFA Virtual Alumnx Reading Series
When: Thursday, March 18, 2021 | 8:00 PM
Host: Vermont College of Fine Arts
West End Poetry Festival
October 17, 2020
Chatham County Council on Aging “Listen & Learn-a-thon” June 10, 2020
The Multifaceted House: A Writer’s Exploration of Home
February 8, 2020 | 10:00 – 11:00 a.m.
Burlington Writers Club
Cheryl’s event was fantastic! She coupled valuable information, real-life examples, and the opportunity for us to participate in her presentation. She left our group inspired with a unique and renewed sense of home and the hope to have her return for a future event!
– Jean Bailey Robor, Burlington Writers Club
October 5, 2019
Quiet City Books of Lewiston, ME
October 4, 2019
Triangle Book and Writer Conference
Poetry and Song Panel
February 16, 2019
McKimmon Center at NC State
SistaWRITE Women’s Retreat
Writer-in-Residence
November 16 – 20, 2018
Ocracoke, NC
Listen to an interview w/ NC Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green and me.
West End Poetry Festival
Reading Participant
October 18, 2018 @ 6:30 p.m.
The Station
201 E. Main St.
Carrboro, NC 27510
Guest Speaker
October 16, 2018
Raleigh, NC
This is an audio recording only
Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist
Preaching Practicum
“There are Still Places Google Can’t Take You”
It is a common expression to say, “Follow Your Dreams.” But what does that really mean? What does it look like? And, where’s the map to get there?
July 15, 2018
Chapel Hill, NC
