HVWC Published Student Reading with Ann Bookman, B. Fulton Jennes, Beth Morris, and Cynthia Parker-Ohene (in person and via Zoom)

Join Sophia Bannister (at HVWC) and Jennifer Franklin (on Zoom) as they celebrate the publications of three students and one Board Member of the Hudson Valley Writers Center.

We are happy to hold this event in person in accordance with the current state and CDC health guidelines. We will be asking attendees to attend in a mask and show proof of vaccination. (Proof of vaccination includes Excelsior Pass or a photo / hard copy of the completed vaccination card.) Please visit our Covid-19 policies page for complete details. We are pleased to report that HVWC has a new retrofitted HVAC system.

Unable to attend in person? Join our live stream via Zoom. Please register below. You will be sent the Zoom link immediately via email (please check spam filters) or email admin@writerscenter.org with any questions.

Ann Bookman is a poet, anthropologist and social justice advocate. She has been studying poetry for twenty years with Boston area poets and in residential workshops at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.  Her poems have been published in Chronogram, Larcom Review and Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose, among others. In 2012, her chapbook, Point of Attachment, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her first full-length collection, Blood Lines, is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2022.

Bookman has held a number of research and teaching positions in the academy, including Brandeis University, MIT and the College of the Holy Cross. A nationally known scholar and policy expert in women’s issues, work/family balance and community engagement, she has published widely in scholarly journals and is the co-author with Sandra Morgen of Women and the Politics of Empowerment (Temple University Press) and the author of Starting in Our Own Backyards: How working families can build community and survive the new economy (Routledge). Bookman has also worked in government. She was a Presidential Appointee during the Clinton administration, serving as Policy and Research Director of the Women’s Bureau at the US Department of Labor and as Executive Director of the bipartisan Commission on Family and Medical Leave.  Her career has been bookended by positions focused on women’s creativity, potential and power.  Early in her career she served as Associate Director of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College working with an interdisciplinary group of women scholars, writers and artists. From 2013 through 2018, she was Director of the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at UMass Boston weaving an intersectional feminist perspective into her teaching, research and activism. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston.

The Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, Connecticut, B. Fulton Jennes also serves as poet-in-residence for the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. A corporate copy writer and editor for the first 25 years of her career, she devoted the second portion to teaching English—particularly poetry and creative writing—to public-school students. Jennes’ poems have or will appear in The Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Night Heron Barks, Tar River Poetry, Stone Canoe, The Vassar Review,  Ekphrastic Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Connecticut River Journal, ArtAscent, Naugatuck River Journal, Frost Meadow Review, and many other publications. Her daughter Mallory, who plays a significant role in Blinded Birds, now serves as an addiction counselor.

Beth SK Morris is the author of two poetry books: In Florida (2010) and Nowhere to be Found (2014). Her work has appeared in Artemis, Avocet, Broadkill Review, Crosswinds, High Shelf, Pank, Passager, and Poetica among others. Her poems have also been included in anthologies by Hurricane Press, The International Library of Poetry, Whispering Angels, the North Sea Poetry Scene Press commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and White Oak Press. Beth holds Master Degrees in Speech Science, English Language and Literature, and a Ph.D in Speech and Hearing Science from the Graduate School and Center of the City University of New York. She retired from a career as a college professor and corporate consultant through her company, Unispeech, to concentrate on her writing. After a ten-year hiatus in Florida, Beth returned to New York City and revisited her volunteer work at the WTC Ground Zero Relief Project for the first time since 9/11. In the Aftermath is her “coming to terms” with this life-changing experience.