Betty Buchsbaum is Professor Emerita at Mass College of Art in Boston where she taught literature and writing and served as Dean and Provost. Her published work includes the poetry collection, The Love Word (Chicory Blue Press), and the chapbook Voices Off (Finishing Line Press). Her poems and essays appeared in various journals (including Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Women’s Review of Books) and in four anthologies. She received prizes from Solo magazine and the New England Poetry Club. Her family includes three daughters, their husbands, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Her beloved husband died in 2021.

Wendy Drexler is a recipient of a 2022 artist fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her fourth collection, Notes from the Column of Memory, was published in September 2022 by Terrapin Books. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, J Journal, Nimrod, Pangyrus, Prairie Schooner, and The Threepenny Review, among others, and forthcoming in The Sun. She’s been the poet in residence at New Mission High School in Hyde Park, MA, since 2018, and is programming co-chair for the New England Poetry Club. 

Gary Whited practices poetry, philosophy and psychotherapy. He has been working on a translation project of the 5th century BCE fragments of Parmenides’ poem for the past five decades. His current book, Being, Here published by Wayfarer Books (Homebound Publications) dances between the poetic voice of the ancient Greek Parmenides and the poetic remembrances of a young life on a cattle ranch on the Montana prairie. His first book, Having Listened, won the 2013 Homebound Publications Poetry Contest and received a Benjamin Franklin Silver Book Award. His poems have also appeared in journals, including Salamander, Plainsongs, The Aurorean, Atlanta Review, Narrative, The Red Letters and Comstock Review. Gary currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Featured reader: Dennis Hinrichsen

Dennis Hinrichsen’s most recent book is Flesh-plastique from Green Linden Press. Previous books of his have been awarded the Akron, FIELD, Tampa, Michael Waters, Grid and Wishing Jewel Poetry Prizes. New work of his is appearing or forthcoming in Ballast, diode, The Glacier, Jet Fuel Review, Marrow, National Poetry Review, The Pedestal, Third Coast, Timber, and Under a Warm Green Linden. He lives in Lansing, Michigan where from 2017-2019 he served as the area’s inaugural Poet Laureate.

Opener: Sheleen McElhinney

Sheleen McElhinney’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lily Poetry Review, Bayou Magazine, Free State Review, Slant, and elsewhere. Her debut book, Every Little Vanishing, was the winner of the 2021 Write Bloody Publishing book award. She currently lives in Bucks County, Pa. 

Featured reader: Jane Wong

Jane Wong is the author of the memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023). She also wrote two poetry collections: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James, 2021) and Overpour (Action Books, 2016). A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room, Artist Trust, Hedgebrook, UCross, Loghaven, and others. She grew up in a take-out restaurant on the Jersey shore and is an Associate Professor at Western Washington University.

Opener: Susan Nissenbaum Becker

Susan Nisenbaum Becker’s poems have been widely published in print, on line, and in anthologies and was nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize. She is a playwright, actor, arts organizer, and artistic collaborator performing with writers, musicians, dancers and visual artists. Her first full-length book of poems, Little Architects of Time and Space, was published by Word Poetry in 2013. Her second manuscript, Dance in the Blood, was a finalist for the 2019 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize, and a semifinalist in Persea Book’s 2020 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award. Her short video project, Motherblood, completed in 2018 which focuses on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, won a 2019 Distinguished Film Award in the Canadian Shorts Film Festival. 

Featured reader: Matthew Olzmann

Matthew Olzmann is the author of Constellation Route as well as two previous collections of poetry: Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olzmann’s poems have appeared in the New York Times, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prizes, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. He is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College and also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Opener: Helli Fang

Helli Fang is the author of the chapbook Village of Knives (Driftwood Press, 2020). She holds an MFA from New York University’s Creative Writing Program, and her poetry has appeared in Diode, The Margins, Salt Hill, The Adroit Journal, DIALOGIST, Columbia Journal, Blueshift Journal, and more. She currently lives in Queens, NY and works as a freelance illustrator.