Abby Bland

You can expect a professional, prepared performer who knows how to connect with a room—and who believes your event should be memorable for the right reasons. Abby Bland offers a range of performance and creative services that can be tailored to your event.

🎤 Live Performance
Bring an award-winning poet and comedian to your stage. Abby’s performances blend spoken word, stand-up comedy, storytelling, and cultural commentary into funny, heartfelt, genre-smashing shows. Performances can range from a short featured set to a full-length solo show, depending on your event and audience.

⌨️ Typewriter Poetry
Give your guests a poem written just for them—on the spot, on an actual typewriter. Abby creates personalized poems based on a word, idea, story, or prompt from each guest. Typewriter poetry is a unique interactive experience for weddings, festivals, corporate events, fundraisers, parties, and other gatherings. Guests leave with a one-of-a-kind poem and the increasingly rare experience of watching someone make art in real time.

📝 Writing & Creativity Workshops
Get people making things instead of just sitting through another presentation. Abby offers engaging, accessible workshops in poetry, creative writing, storytelling, revision, performance, comedy, creativity, and more. Workshops can be adapted for students, professionals, educators, community groups, and people who haven't considered themselves “creative” since approximately middle school.

🎙️ Keynotes & Featured Speaking
For events that call for a little more than a traditional keynote, Abby combines humor, storytelling, poetry, and practical ideas to create presentations that are entertaining without sacrificing substance. Topics can include creativity, identity, resilience, self-expression, queer joy, storytelling, and the power of art to help us see ourselves and each other differently.

🎤 Emceeing & Hosting
Need someone to keep your event moving without sounding like they swallowed a corporate training manual? Abby can host, emcee, introduce performers and speakers, engage the audience, and keep the energy up throughout your event.

🎉 Custom Experiences
Have an event that doesn't fit neatly into a category? Great. Abby loves a weird assignment. Performances, workshops, and interactive experiences can be customized around your event theme, audience, organization, or goals.

Abby Bland is an award-winning writer and performer based in Kansas City. She is a 3 time winner of Best Poet in The Pitch and a 2 time winner of Best of Venue at KC Fringe for self-produced solo comedy shows. Abby's work blends stand-up comedy, poetry, and storytelling into sharp, but hopeful, cultural critique that invites people to tell and live better stories.