CategoryReading Events

April 13, 2025: Opal Gayle & Rachel Hass

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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.

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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.

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.

Gallery of Readers