CONTACT: Chris Fanning
Director of Communications
chrisf@wab.org | 315-719-7262
Writers & Books Hosts Virtual Reading and Conversation on July 30, 2020
Rochester, NY—Writers & Books, Rochester’s home for the literary arts, hosts poets
Denise Abercrombie and Jonathan Andersen for a virtual reading on Thursday,
July 30, 7 pm. After presenting selections from their published works, the poets will join Writers & Books’ executive director Alison Meyers in conversation about their craft and writing practice, the role of poetry as an agent for change, their work as teachers, and living together on a small farm in rural Connecticut. The public may register for the authors’ admission-free reading on Writers & Books’ website.
Abercrombie’s work has appeared in anthologies and numerous journals, including Minnesota Review, Fireweed, Phoebe: Journal of Feminist Scholarship, Theory and Aesthetics, The Lumberyard: A Radio Magazine, Struggle, and Writing on the Edge. She has read widely, including as a featured poet at the 49th International Poetry Festival in Belgrade (2012) and Smederevo’s Poetry Autumn (2014). The director of Fine Arts at E.O. Smith High School in Storrs, CT, Denise occasionally performs and directs original and existing works with Stage Left Ensemble in small theaters, cafes, and prisons.
Andersen is the award-winning author of Augur (Red Dragonfly Press, 2018), recipient of the 2017 David Martison-Meadowhawk Poetry Prize; The Burden Note (Meridian Prize, 2014), an English/ Serbo- Croatian chapbook; and Stomp and Sing (2005). Editor of the anthology Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other U.S.A. (Smokestack Books, 2008), he has been a featured reader throughout the eastern United States, the United Kingdom, and Serbia. He is a professor of English at Quinebaug Valley Community College in CT.
Writers & Books is one of the oldest and largest community-based literary centers in the nation and the only one of its kind in the eight-county Greater Rochester, NY, area. Incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit in 1981, in 1985, Writers & Books moved to its three-story home at 740 University Avenue in the Neighborhood of the Arts. Writers & Books engages youth and adults with the literary arts through workshops, readings, presentations, and a small bookshop. The organization’s flagship programs include Rochester Reads, a community-wide one-book initiative, and SummerWrite, a reading and writing camp serving 575 youth every July and August. www.wab.org