Archive

March 23, 2025: Nancy Barnes & Robin Barber

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Gallery of Readers presents Nancy Barnes & Robin Barber reading from their work.
Sunday, March 23, 2025, at 4 PM

Florence Civic Center
90 Park Street
Florence, Massachusetts 

Free and open to the public. Please come join us, all are welcome!

For those who can’t or prefer not to attend in person, a Zoom session will be available from 3:45 p.m. EDT on the day of the reading. (Be aware no admittance to the Zoom session after 4:05 p.m. for security purposes). Contact Robin or Carol — or one of the readers — for secure access to the zoom link.

Nancy Barnes

Nancy Barnes was a devoted New Yorker for many years, teaching cultural anthropology and education at The New School and working in the “small school” reform movement in public high schools. Now she is happily living in Northampton, writing personal essays and stories. Her work has been published in Hippocampus, Public Seminar, Pangyrus and other journals.

robin barber

Robin Barber was born at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Northampton, in 1947, lived in Amherst, Vermont, Indiana, and British Columbia over a span of 46 years, then settled down a few blocks from his birthplace. He is deeply grateful for so much, especially to be married to Carol Edelstein, to have a new grandson named Gus, who is almost 2, and to live in such a good town, with so many fine writers in it. He’s planning to read a collection of short pieces on March 23rd, the day before his 78th birthday.

Podcast: House by Suzanne Smith

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Suzanne Smith

SuzanNe Smith

Suzanne M. Smith’s devotion to her writing life has, until now, been a well-kept secret. She has worked for many years in data analysis and program evaluation, with a focus on equity in higher education and social services. Currently, she is Director of Research and Evaluation as Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. She was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the youngest of eight children in a lively, warm family, the source of her Ag and Gunner memoir. Ms. Smith earned her Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Smith College, and her Master’s in Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has raised two sons, Jack and Liam. She currently lives in the hills of Western Massachusetts, drawn there by her love for green open spaces and big skies.

In this podcast, Suzanne read from her chapbook, Ag and Gunner, a poignant memoir centering around her grandparent’s relationship and her experience of their later years.

February 23, 2025: Barbara Lucey & John M. Corbett

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Gallery of Readers presents Barbara Lucey & John M. Corbett reading from their work.
Sunday, February 23, 2025, at 4 PM

Florence Civic Center
90 Park Street
Florence, Massachusetts 

Free and open to the public. Please come join us, all are welcome!

For those who can’t or prefer not to attend in person, a Zoom session will be available from 3:45 p.m. EDT on the day of the reading. (Be aware no admittance to the Zoom session after 4:05 p.m. for security purposes). Contact Robin or Carol — or one of the readers — for secure access to the zoom link.

Barbara Lucey

A Holyoke native, Barbara Lucey spent her young working life in film production. Based in California and New York, she traveled to locations throughout the US and in Europe. Upon returning to Massachusetts, she specialized in nonprofit financial management at The Food Bank of Western Mass and the Five College consortium. She’s been writing since producing her first play at age 9. Barbara is the author of Meet Jimmy Fox for young readers, with illustrations by Nancy Haver, from Gallery of Readers Press. Her fiction has appeared in a dozen anthologies and she was awarded an OCARC writer’s residency in a Provincetown dune shack. These days Barbara is a part-time nonprofit financial consultant and editor. She loves to sing jazz standards and currently is packing her bags for a trip to Ireland.

John M. Corbett

Early on, John M. Corbett acquired the education of a working person and a parent. These experiences gave him a story to tell and the language to speak of it. He did some professional writing and was taught to level with the reader right away, in order to engage.  He tries to apply some version of that principle to his fiction. A selection of his stories, Bird Life, is available through Gallery of Readers Press.

January 12, 2025: James Brunel & Vanessa Adel

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Gallery of Readers presents James Brunel & Vanessa Adel reading from their work.
Sunday, January 12, 2025, at 4 PM

Florence Civic Center
90 Park Street
Florence, Massachusetts 

Free and open to the public. Please come join us, all are welcome!

For those who can’t or prefer not to attend in person, a Zoom session will be available from 3:45 p.m. EDT on the day of the reading. (Be aware no admittance to the Zoom session after 4:05 p.m. for security purposes). Contact Robin or Carol — or one of the readers — for secure access to the zoom link.

James Brunel
James Brunel

James Brunel’s work has been published in Switch, Linea, The Portland Review, and the 2017 Anthology of Writers of the Pioneer Valley. When he is not writing, he often works as a set decorator on feature films and television shows, often working on distant locations around the country that inspire his writing. More of his work can be read at his web site: Apropopolis. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with his wife Hilary, their two Bedlington Terriers, and many assorted mice.

Vanessa Adel
Vanessa Adel

Vanessa Adel is a committed educator with over two decades of teaching experience in a range of settings including the college classroom; art workshops with children; diversity trainings in organizations; and climate education in academic and non-profit settings. A long-time adjunct professor in sociology, she is currently pursuing independent climate research and training, as well as multi-genre writing and performance while homeschooling and providing full-time therapeutically intensive care for the youngest of her four children. Vanessa holds an M.A. in Intercultural Relations from Lesley University, and a PhD in sociology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She lives in Northampton with her partner and their two teenagers.

December 15, 2024: David Gillham & Jonathan Klate

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Gallery of Readers presents David Gillham & Jonathan Klate reading from their work.
Sunday, December 15, 2024, at 4 PM

Florence Civic Center
90 Park Street
Florence, Massachusetts 

Free and open to the public. Please come join us, all are welcome!

For those who can’t or prefer not to attend in person, a Zoom session will be available from 3:45 p.m. EDT on the day of the reading. (Be aware no admittance to the Zoom session after 4:05 p.m. for security purposes). Contact Robin or Carol — or one of the readers — for secure access to the zoom link.

David Gillham

David R. Gillham is the New York Times bestselling author of City of Women.  He is also the author of Annelies: A Novel of Anne Frank,  Shadows of Berlin, and the Audible original, Alone with the Stars: A Story of Amelia Earhart.  He studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California before turning to fiction. After moving to New York City, Gillham spent more than a decade in the book business, and now lives with his family in western Massachusetts.

Jonathan Klate
Jonathan Klate

Jonathan Klate’s poems, stories, and essays have appeared in regional and national publications including Tikkun magazine. His op-ed columns on a wide range of public interest subjects are published in newspapers and online zines around the country, and he was for years a featured columnist for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. His most recent collection of poetry is The Wondrous Improbability of Everything… and Yet the Necessity of Love. Dr. Klate has been a practitioner of traditional acupuncture and Chinese medicine for nearly 50 years. He is the author of a classic book in this field, The Tao of Acupuncture, and many articles in The Journal of Traditional Acupuncture.

Podcast: On The Edge by Kathie Fiveash

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Kathie Fiveash

Kathie Fiveash

Naturalist, teacher, homesteader, and writer, Kathie Fiveash, divides her year equally between Florence, Massachusetts, and Isle au Haut, Maine, a remote, unbridged island in Penobscot Bay. She is the author of four books, Earthbound, a chapbook of poems published by Gallery of Readers Press, Broad Brook – Poems from Fitzgerald Lake, published by Off the Common Books, Island Naturalist, an award-winning collection of essays about natural history on the coast of Maine, and Human/Nature, a book of poems, both of which are published by Penobscot Bay Press.


Podcast: WADING THROUGH QUICKSAND by LISA EKUS

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Lisa Ekus

Lisa Ekus majored in American literature at Barnard College (’79) and worked in a literary agency, followed by stints at Random House and Crown Publishers in Manhattan. She founded The Ekus Group, LLC in Hatfield in 1983, a full-service culinary agency. Lisa has represented a diverse selection of food personalities, writers, cookbooks, restaurants, and food products. She also is the proud owner of more than 7,000 cookbooks. The Guinness Book of World Records recently awarded Lisa the honor of having the largest personal cookbook collection in the world. Lisa is deeply committed to volunteerism and donates her time to several non-profit organizations in the hunger, health, and humanitarian arenas.

Podcast: Snow White through the Lens of Art History by Susan Cocalis

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Susan Cocalis

Susan Cocalis

Susan Cocalis was born to be retired. She is a gratefully recovering academic living in Northampton, MA. Her hobbies include crossword puzzles and any form of spoken word performance. (Public readings, story slams, improv, standup, ACPT Talent Show, and more.) Susan is the proud age of 77, born and educated in New Jersey. She moved up here in 1975 to take a position at UMass in German Studies, where she taught for 38 years and retired in 2013. Her most popular classes were Witches and Grimms to Disney. You can read more of Susan’s work in her book of verses, Lessons out of School.

Gallery of Readers