Adult

Donna Reis is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection No Passing Zone  and the chapbook Certain.  Her non-fiction book, Seeking Ghosts in the Warwick Valley was published in 2003.  She is co-editor and contributor to Blue for Bill: A Tribute to William  Matthews.

When not touring nationally, Tom Miller is playing bass for The City Ramblers, Tom does freelance gigs in Boston and New York. He has written and produced soundtrack music for PBS

Barbara Crooker's poems have appeared in magazines such as The Green Mountains Review, The Hollins Critic, The Christian Science Monitor, and a myriad of others.  A twenty-nine time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and five time nominee for Best of the Net, she was a 1997 Grammy Awards Finalist for her part in the audio version of the popular anthology, Grow Old Along With Me--The Best is Yet to Be.  Join us for a workshop, novice to experienced, followed by a poetry reading.

Janet Hamil is an American poet, spoken word artist and painter.  Her poem "K-E-R-O-U-A-C" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her fifth collection, Body of Water, was nominated for the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Prize. 

Husband and wife Solonche and Siegel co-authored Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books 2002) and individually have published widely.

Joan I. Siegel

Howard Horowitz is the author of Close to the Ground.  His map poems, combining poetry and geology, have appeared in the New York Times and in literary journals. An open mic will follow the reading.

Read your own poems or poems by your favorite poets to celebrate the winter solstice and the holidays.

Mary Makofske will lead a discussion of Eaarth by Bill McKibben, fourth book in our Earthwise series. 

Eaarth declares that we have already changed the earth we evolved on, so it will be much less hospitable, and must lower our impact and learn to cope with challenging conditions.  Though he summons alarming data and projections, McKibben believes we can build a sustainable future.

Copies available at the Library.

Mary Makofske will lead a discussion of The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, third book in our Earthwise series. 

Speculative fiction about what happens after a plague almost wipes out the human race.  Bioengineered new "humans" and God's gardeners try to cope with the results.

Amazon.com says, "By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and easily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive."

Copies available at the Library.

Mary Makofske will lead a discussion of Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte, second book in our Earthwise series. 

With an engaging style, Royte measures and then follows her garbage to see where, and how, it's disposed of.  In the process, she introduces fascinating facts and people.

Booklist called Garbage Land "downright entertaining."

Copies available at the Library.

Marry Makofske will lead a discussion of Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake.  Told in several different voices, this novel vividly depicts the impact of mountain-top coal removal on West Virginians pulled between their intimate connection to their land and their economic dependence on mining.

Copies available at the Library