FRIENDS OF GALLERY OF READERS You are cordially invited to A CELEBRATION OF THE PINEAPPLE ‘ZINE & SWITCH, A MAGAZINE OF MICRO FICTION
We’d love to have your company Sunday, June 22, 4 p.m. Florence Civic Center 90 Park Street Florence, MA
The final event of this year’s reading series will feature short readings by
Susan Cocalis, Celia Jeffries, Barbara Lucey, Vanessa Adel, Norma Roche, Walker Resnick, Nancy Barnes, Lisa Ekus, Jennifer Jacobson, John M. Corbett, Liz George and others.
All are welcome! Expect delicious refreshments, books galore, and some surprise items for sale.
Come to enjoy the offerings and connect with friends.
Gallery of Readers is a grant-funded nonprofit facing financial challenges. We hope to have your support.
Gallery of Readers presents Leo Hwang and Jennifer Jacobson reading from their work.
Saturday, May 17 at 4 p.m.Forbes Library (Coolidge Room) 20 West Street Northampton, MA
Leo Hwang
Leo Hwang’s work has appeared in Human Being & Literature, Meat for Tea, The Massachusetts Review, Glimmer Train Stories, Fiction,Gulf Coast, and other literary magazines. He was the recipient of the Rosselli/de Filippis Scholarship at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and has been awarded scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Mr. Hwang received his B.A. in English and Fine Arts from the University of the South, and an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and received his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts in Geosciences with a focus on the diverse community economies of artists and artisans in Franklin County. Mr. Hwang is currently the Associate Dean of Inclusive Excellence in the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He also plays guitar in two bands, Vimana and The Warblers, and bass in the Original Cowards.
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Jennifer Jacobson
Prose writer, teacher, and storyteller, Jennifer Jacobson’s work has been published in the Master’s Review, Chronogram, Linea, Switch, jubilat, Storyteller Magazine and elsewhere. Her stories received honorable mentions from Glimmer Train,Hunger Mountain, Symphony Space, and the Tennessee Williams Festival. Born in Zomba, Malawi, Jennifer now lives in western Massachusetts and works at UMass Amherst. She served as the Associate Director of the MFA for Poets and Writers and the Director of the Juniper Summer Writing Institutes from 2014 to 2022. She is currently the English Department’s Director of Community Engagement. Her favorite summer activity (after baking berry pies) is teaching creative writing at Smith’s pre-college program which she has been delighted to do since 2014.
Gallery of Readers presents Opal Gayle & Rachel Hass reading from their work. Sunday, April 13, 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.
Opal Gayle
Opal Gayle grew up in rural Jamaica. She is the recipient of the 2019 St Botolph’s Club Foundation Emerging Artist Grant and a finalist in the 2021 Miami Book Fair Emerging Writers Fellowship. A member of Gallery of Readers, Valley Society, and Boston Writers of Color, she writes memoir, essays, short stories, and poetry. Her personal essays have appeared in the Write Angles Journal, WOW: Women on Writing, Stargazing Stories, and Switch. She lives in New England where she works as a world language teacher. Follow her on instagram @opalgayle78.
Rachel Hass
Rachel Hass has published short stories in The Louisville Review, The Jabberwock Review and The Vermont Literary Review. An excerpt from a longer work of fiction Sand, was selected for an honorable mention in the Santa Fe Writer’s Project Literary Awards Program. Currently at work on a novel set in Berlin during the Second World War, the story is based on parts of her own German Jewish family history and inspired by her great-grandfather, who hid throughout the war, and survived, and helped other Jews to hide. Born in London, and raised in Cambridge, MA, Rachel Hass first came to Western MA to attend Hampshire College where she studied writing with Nina Payne and Andrew Salkey. A graduate of the MFA in writing program at Vermont College, Rachel has lived in Northampton for more than 30 years.
