May 17 – In-Person

Caribbean-American poet Amy M. Alvarez is the winner of both the 2025 American Book Award and CariCon Poetry Prize for her book, Makeshift Altar (2024). She is also the co-editor of Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (2023).  She currently teaches writing and literature at Boston College.

Wendy Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her fourth collection, Harvest of What Remains, received honorable mention for the Paul Nemser Prize and was published in January by Lily Poetry Review Books. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, J Journal, Mid-American Review, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, The Sun, and The Threepenny Review, among others. She was awarded the 2025 E.E. Cummings prize from the New England Poetry Club. A recipient of the 2021 Juror’s Prize for Art on the Trails, Southborough, MA, Wendy served as poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, from 2018-2023 and as programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club from 2016–2024.