Raised in Oklahoma, Anna Weaver lives in North Carolina with her two daughters. Since 2011 she’s been a regular at Triangle-area open mics, readings, and arts festivals, as well as a running gig reading poetry written on demand at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

Every second Sunday she hosts an open mic for poets, musicians, and storytellers—called Tongue & Groove—in downtown Raleigh (or online, per CDC advice).

Her poems have appeared in print journals and anthologies, online zines, civic art installations, and coffee bags (no, really).

She writes as a former soldier in the US Army Reserve, a mind solidly imprinted by 20 years under the big skies of Oklahoma, and a woman “with loyalties scattered over the landscape” (to steal from Marge Piercy). Not necessarily in that order.

So far as Google is concerned, Anna is America’s only open mic tourist. She aims to read—and listen—in all 50 states.

So far she’s up to 38—including events in Raleigh, Durham, Chicago, Savannah, Atlanta, Nashville, Las Vegas, New York City, Charleston, Oakland, Norfolk, Kansas City, Texas, Oklahoma, Maryland, Los Angeles, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maine (which totally counts even though no one else showed up), Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, Hawaii (times 2), Seattle, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Arizona, Alabama, Colorado (times 2), Wyoming, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Michigan.

Plus the District of Columbia, just for good measure.