Spotlight: Kathy Engel

I have no choice. I live in the lusciousness, power and danger of words, commas, dashes, line breaks, and also pauses and erasures, the stutters and struggles of the birth and death of language — even as I embrace silences, or quiet spaces between words. Poetry works through the poet I think. —Kathy Engel

Spotlight: Jewelle Gomez

Now, when I think of my father, it is those fleeting moments that bring his face to my mind most precisely. His determination was a force of nature. And freedom was always his goal. He spoke of it to me and everyone who would listen so often that freedom became a tangible thing, a thing to taste like berry pie. And it became our name—Freeman—when we escaped slavery and settled in Charlmont. — from The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

Spotlight: Martha Southgate

“I think it’s wonderful if that’s a result of my work but I believe sitting down with that as my goal would result in less compelling fiction—both to me and to my readers. I believe you have to start and continue writing via characters and situations that you are deeply interested in and that excite you. Everything flows from that.”
Martha Southgate

Spotlight: Cheryl Boyce-Taylor

ARRIVAL is a poetic love story between mother and daughter. The poems are road maps, intertwining generations with a narrative beginning in 1950 with a woman who is pregnant with twins. In her seventh month she delivers a stillborn boy and a baby girl weighing less than two pounds. From there, the evocation of a series of catastrophic family events brings forth Cheryl Boyce-Taylor’s power to strip her readers down to their most vulnerable.

Spotlight: Margot Farrington

I never consider how I’ll read a poem while writing it. When reading it to listeners, the greatest gift I can give them is spontaneity. Something in the read or recited poem should always remain fluid, open to surprise. – Margot Farrington

Spotlight: Kamilah Aisha Moon

Babes that sleep in hewn rock cradles
learn to bear the hardness coming.
Tough grace forged in tender bones—
may this serve & bless them well.
—– Kamilah Aisha Moon

Spotlight: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Known for her stunning fine art photography, her literary portraits and her lyric videos, Rachel Eliza Griffiths joins Festival of Women Writers 2017

What A Time We Had! Highlights of Festival of Women Writers 2016

On the weekend after Labor Day 2016, September 9, 10 & 11th, the tiny village of Hobart, New York hosted its fourth annual Festival of Women Writers. It was an exciting three-day Festival of public readings, writing workshops, panel discussion, bookselling, book buying, food, and camaraderie. Hosted and sponsored by the six independent bookstores of…

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