Cambridge Common Writers

Writers’ Room of Boston Reading Series: Featuring Amy Yelin
2021-09-09 19:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Online
Join the Writers’ Room of Boston to welcome Robin Lippincott and Amy Yelin (Nonfiction, June 2005) for the next event in their reading series. This event is free and open to all, hosted on Crowdcast.

Amy Yelin is a versatile wordsmith whose articles, essays and author interviews have appeared in Salon.com, The Boston Globe, The Boston Globe Magazine, Brainchild, The Gettysburg Review, The Missouri Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Literary Mama, The ManifestStation, and other publications. Her awards and recognitions include a Pushcart nomination for “The Memoirist” (Lunch Ticket), a Best of the Net nomination for “Taboo” (Pithead Chapel), and a Best American Essays notable mention for “Torn” (The Baltimore Review).

Amy earned her MFA in creative writing at Lesley University, where upon graduation she mentored students for several years as part of the program’s interdisciplinary component. She occasionally teaches for Grub Street in Boston and most recently she was also awarded a fellowship to The Writers’ Room in Boston. She is currently working on a memoir titled, A Stranger There.

The Poets Corner: The Red Thread with Andrea Ballou Read and Anne Riesenberg
2021-09-12 16:00 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Join The Poets Corner to hear poetry from four women’s voices.

Megan Grumbling will be reading from Persephone in the Late Anthropocene, along with:

Andrea Ballou Read (Poetry, June 2015)Anne Riesenberg (Nonfiction)Abby Flanagan

Andrea Read’s poems have appeared most recently in Barrow Street, Black Rabbit Quarterly, Copper Nickel, FIELD, Ilanot Review, Plume, The Missouri Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. Andrea is the recipient of a National Resource Fellowship, a Tinker Foundation Grant, an Artist’s Fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council, as well as a Project Grant for a weekly poetry workshop for elders in Somerville. She serves on the board of the Somerville Arts Council and divides her time between Massachusetts and her home in Maine.

Anne Riesenberg is a writer, photographer and Five-Element acupuncturist living in Newcastle, Maine. Winner of Blue Mesa Review’s Nonfiction and Storm Cellar’s Force Majeure contests, her work can be found in Lily Poetry Review, Pleiades, Posit, Heavy Feather Review, The New Guard’s BANG!, The Maine Review and elsewhere. Current projects include a pair of books about harm and healing, and The Palace of Unbearable Feeling, a chapbook of visual poetry. She is a founding board member of Hewnoaks Artist Colony.

Virtual: Buki Papillon with Michael Lowenthal, An Ordinary Wonder
2021-09-14 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Event
Join Porter Square Books for a virtual event with local author Buki Papillon (Fiction, June 2007) for her debut novel, An Ordinary Wonder! Buki will be joined in conversation by Michael Lowenthal (Fiction, MFA Writing Faculty), author of the newly released story collection Sex with Strangers. This event is free and virtual, hosted on Crowdcast.

Buki Papillon was born in Nigeria, the oldest of six. After studying law at Hull University in the UK, she completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has received several fellowships and awards for her writing and is an alumnus of Key West Literary, Vermont Studio Centre and Vona Voices residencies and workshops. Her work was published in Post Road Magazine and the Del Sol Review. She has in the past been a travel adviser, events host and chef. Buki currently lives in Boston, where she is resigned to finding inspiration in the long winters.

Michael Lowenthal is the author of four novels: The Same Embrace, Avoidance, Charity Girl, and The Paternity Test. He lives in Boston.

Blue Desert Book Signing with Celia Jeffries
2021-09-18 11:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Joanne Rossman, 6 Birch Street, Roslindate, Massachusetts, 02131, United States
Celia Jeffries (Fiction/Nonfiction, 2008) will be signing copies of her debut novel, Blue Desert at Joanne Rossman in Roslindale, MA.

Filmspiration: A Generative Writing Workshop (with Movies!)
2021-09-29 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Event
Have a case of writers block? Looking for writing inspiration and don’t know where to find it? Join the Passengers Prose staff for a generative writing workshop that will use film clips as springboards. Hosted by Angelo D’Amato Jr (Fiction, June 2020).

Inspired by a True Story: A Brooklyn Book Festival panel featuring Saraciea J. Fennell
2021-10-03 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | Center Stage (Columbus Park), Columbus Park, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States
Everyday lives and experiences feed into the creative force behind these powerful books, from exploring the Latinx diaspora through fifteen different voices and the trials and triumphs of growing up Black and queer, to the life of a Jamaican-American teen on the cusp of adulthood, a worldwide pandemic, and a tidal wave of social justice activism. Saraciea Fennell (WFYP, January 2020) (Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed), George M. Johnson (All Boys Aren’t Blue), and C. J. Farley (Zero O’Clock) discuss how real-life events can inspire moving, unforgettable storytelling. Moderated by David Levithan (Take Me With You When You Go).

Proof of vaccination is required for all author events

NBF Presents: An Afternoon with the National Book Awards: A Brooklyn Book Festival panel featuring Candice Iloh
2021-10-03 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Main Stage on Borough Hall Plaza, Columbus Park, Brooklyn, New York, 11201, United States
What do books that investigate bodies, Blackness, the judicial system, and the end of the world have in common? Join 2020 National Book Award–honored authors Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind, Finalist, Fiction), Lillian-Yvonne Bertram (Travesty Generator, Longlist, Poetry), Michelle Bowdler (Is Rape a Crime?: A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto, Longlist, Nonfiction), and Candice Iloh (WFYP, June 2017) (Every Body Looking, Finalist, Young People’s Literature) for a cross-genre conversation on the intersections of contemporary literature, recognition, and community—behind and beyond computer screens. Moderated by Ruth Dickey, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation.

Pamela Petro & Jane Brox - The Long Field, A Memoir of Wales and The Presence of Absence
2021-10-04 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Pamela Petro writes, ‘I’m not Welsh by birth or ancestry. I’m simply Welsh by choice.’

In The Long Field, she burrows deep into the Welsh countryside to tell how this small country became a big part of an American writer’s life. Petro (Nonfiction and Graphic Novel & Comics, MFA Writing Faculty) and her friend, author Jane Brox (Nonfiction, MFA Writing Faculty), sit down for a conversation about the book, about writing memoir and about the powerful places that hold us and keep calling us back.

Pamela Petro is the author of Travels in an Old Tongue, Sitting Up With The Dead and The Slow Breathe of Stone. Jane Brox has written five books, most recently Silence: A Social History of One Of The Least Understood Elements of Our Lives (2019), which received the 2020 Maine Literary Award for NonFiction.

Virtual YA Author Talk: Maggie Tokuda-Hall talks Squad with Sara Farizan
2021-10-27 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Event
The Silver Unicorn Bookstore will host a virtual talk with YA author Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Sara Farizan (WFYP, January 2012) about Tokuda-Hall’s new book, Squad.

When Becca transfers to a high school in an elite San Francisco suburb, she’s worried she’s not going to fit in. To her surprise, she’s immediately adopted by the most popular girls in school. At first glance, Marley, Arianna, and Mandy are perfect. But at a party under a full moon, Becca learns that they also have a big secret.Becca’s new friends are werewolves. Their prey? Slimy boys who take advantage of unsuspecting girls. Eager to be accepted, Becca allows her friends to turn her into a werewolf, and finally, for the first time in her life, she feels like she truly belongs.But things get complicated when Arianna’s predatory boyfriend is killed, and the cops begin searching for a serial killer. As their pack begins to buckle under the pressure—and their moral high ground gets muddier and muddier—Becca realizes that she might have feelings for one of her new best friends.

The Ocean State Review: 10th Anniversary Reading
2021-11-03 17:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | URI Alumni Center, 73 Upper College Rd, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, 02881, United States
Open to the public.

Q&A and book signing featuring award-winning writers.Colin ChannerColin Channer was born in Jamaica and educated there and in New York. His many books include the novella The Girl with the Golden Shoes and the poetry collection Providential.

Hester Kaplan (Fiction, MFA Writing Faculty)Hester Kaplan is the author of the story collections The Edge of Marriage, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and Unravished, and the novels Kinship Theory and The Tell.

Penelope CrayPenelope Cray is the author of Miracles Come on Mondays (Pleiades, 2020), selected by Kazim Ali for the 2018 Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose.

Robin HemleyRobin Hemley has published fourteen books, most recently Borderline Citizen: Dispatches from the Outskirts of Nationhood (Nebraska 2020). The Art and Craft of Stories from Asia, which he co-authored with Xu Xi, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2021.

Kent Memorial Library Presents: Book & Beyond with Celeste Mohammed
2021-11-10 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
The “Books and Beyond” series is proud to bring another cultural experience to KML with Caribbean born author Celeste Mohammed (Fiction, June 2016). Celeste will be talking about her debut novel Pleasantview via Zoom live from Trinidad.Celeste Mohammed holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lives on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago.

Pleasantview is written in remarkable combination of Standard English and Trinidad Creole. Mohammed’s engaging novel is a refreshing portrait of island life told in stories that are crafted with candor and movement.

Registration Required

Emerson YA Author Alumni Panel
2021-11-17 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Come out to this young adult author alumni panel on Wednesday 11/17 at 7pm on Zoom! Hear from Amy Tintera (All These Monsters & All These Warriors), Margot Wood (Fresh), Maurene Goo (Somewhere Only We Know & The Way You Make Me Feel), and Katie Cotugno (Fiction, June 2015) (You Say It First & Rules for Being a Girl) about their books, their Emerson experience, and their thoughts on the world of YA publishing.

Sewanee Reading Series with Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, Clifford Garstang, Karin Cecile Davidson, and Mashuq Mushtaq Deen
2021-11-18 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Online Event
Registration for the virtual SWC Reading Series is free, and they’ll raffle books at all readings.

Karin Cecile Davidson (Fiction, June 2009) is the author of the novel Sybelia Drive. Her stories have appeared in Five Points, Story, The Massachusetts Review, Colorado Review, Passages North, Post Road, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. Her awards include an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Waasmode Prize, the Orlando Prize, and residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Studios of Key West. Independent bookstore link: Pagination Bookshop.

Tufts English Department Creative Writing Showcase
2021-12-01 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Tufts University, 419 Boston Ave, Medford, Massachusetts, 02155, United States
A reading from recent books by faculty and staff, followed by an audience Q&A. Featuring Poetry alum Jennifer LeBlanc (June 2012). This event will follow Tufts’ COVID protocols. Please complete the health survey and wear a mask. The event will be held in the Sophia Gordon Hall, Room 100.

Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival: Short Fiction Story Awards Ceremony
2021-12-04 18:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Facebook Live
Hosted by fiction alum Celeste Mohammed (June 2016) and featuring remarks by Dr. Elizabeth Nunez, the Short Fiction Story Awards Ceremony will celebrate the work of Patrice Grell-Yursik and Akhim Alexis.

Streaming live from the BCLF Facebook page.

Lily Poetry Salon Celebrates Jon D. Lee & Michael Mercurio
2021-12-05 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Event
Join the Lily Poetry Salon as they celebrate Jon D Lee’s (Poetry, January 2017) In/Desiderato.

Jon D. Lee is the author of four books, including IN/DESIDERATO and An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perceptions of Disease. His poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Atlantic, Sugar House Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, One, Lily Poetry Review, The Laurel Review, and The Inflectionist Review. He has an MFA in Poetry from Lesley University and a Ph.D. in Folklore. Lee teaches at Suffolk University, where he also serves as a senior poetry reader for Salamander.

Also joining will be fellow poetry alum Michael Mercurio (January 2017). Michael Mercurio’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sierra (the magazine of the Sierra Club), The Inflectionist Review, Lily Poetry Review, THRUSH, Palette Poetry, Bear Review, Cider Press Review, Sugar House Review, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. His poem “Mercy in a Cold April” was included in the anthology Voices Amidst the Virus and was adapted into a short film by filmmaker Michael Rautio. Michael lives and writes in Western Massachusetts, where he teaches occasional workshops for Writers in Progress and serves on the steering committee for the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival, held each September at Emily Dickinson’s house. In addition, Michael is Director of Community Engagement for the Faraday Publishing Company, a non-profit press dedicated to amplifying the voices of marginalized and underrepresented writers. A graduate of the Lesley University low-residency MFA in creative writing, Michael is also executive director of Cambridge Common Writers, an association for alumni, faculty, and friends of the Lesley MFA program. Michael also curates What The Universe Is: A Reading Series, with a Zoom reading held each month. Find out more about him at poetmercurio.com.

Creative Writing Minor Speaker Series: Enzo Silon Surin & Cheryl Clark Vermeulen
2021-12-06 18:30 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
The final reading in the Creative Writing Minor Speaker Series. A reading & conversation about first books, literary friendships, and interdisciplinary arts.

Enzo Silon Surin (Poetry, 2012), Haitian-born poet, educator, speaker, publisher and social advocate, is the author of When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press, July 2020) and two chapbooks, A Letter of Resignation: An American Libretto (2017) and Higher Ground. He is a PEN New England Celebrated New Voice in Poetry, the recipient of a Brother Thomas Fellowship from The Boston Foundation and a 2020 Denis Diderot [A-i-R] Grant as an Artist-in-Residence at Chateau d’Orquevaux in Orquevaux, France. Surin’s work gives voice to experiences that take place in what he calls “broken spaces” and his poems have been featured in numerous publications and exhibits. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, teaches creative writing and literature at Bunker Hill Community College and is President and Director of Faraday Publishing.

Cheryl Clark Vermeulen is author of the book They Can Take It Out (this reading is a part of the launch for the book due out in November by The Word Works, 2021) and the chapbooks Dead-Eye Spring and This Paper Lantern. Her poems, translations, and poetry reviews have appeared in Caketrain, The Drunken Boat, Jubilat, Tarpaulin Sky, Third Coast, Two Lines, Interim, DIAGRAM, EOAGH, among others, and the anthology Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico. She received an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Beyond teaching at MassArt, she is Poetry Editor at Pangyrus. She lives in Jamaica Plain with her family.

Dr. Lisa Gruenberg discusses her memoir My City of Dreams with Laurel Braitman
2021-12-07 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online Event
Join author Dr. Lisa Gruenberg (Nonfiction, June 2007) for a virtual reading and discussion of her second-generation Holocaust memoir, My City of Dreams. This event, hosted by the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and their Medicine and the Muse Program, will be moderated by Laurel Braitman, the program’s Director of Writing and Storytelling and author of the New York Times bestseller, Animal Madness.

In My City of Dreams, Gruenberg, confronted with her elderly father’s flashbacks and nightmares, begins to inhabit the story of his sister Mia, who disappeared into Germany in 1941 when she was just fifteen years old. After her father’s death in 2005, Gruenberg traveled to Vienna, Germany and back to her childhood to explore this lost landscape, and to trace the fates of Mia, their extended family, friends and neighbors. Using letters, old photographs, primary source documents and her father’s writing, she weaves her story with theirs.

Jane Brox (Nonfiction, MFA Writing Faculty), author of Brilliant and Silence writes: “Gruenberg’s search for coherence becomes a journey of both discovery and imagination, and ultimately brings her to an understanding that proves also to be a form of healing.” My City of Dreams is a gift – an honest and thoughtful book, beautifully written and full of compassion.

Learn more about My City of Dreams here: lisagruenberg.com

Holiday Book Signing of The Barn with Leah H. Rogers
2021-12-11 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Canio’s Books, 290 Main Street, Sag Harbor, New York, 11963, United States
Holiday book signing with children’s book author Leah H. Rogers (WFYP, January 2017). Copies of her new book, The Barn, illustrated by Barry Root will be on hand. This charming, heart warming book is a winner for children who love animals.

Reading & Book Launch for "The Elixir of Denial" with E. Christopher Clark
2021-12-21 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Facebook Live
Join author E. Christopher Clark for a reading and book launch event for The Elixir of Denial, the fourth book in his Stains of Time Series. Bring your Q’s and Chris will bring his A’s.

Julie Schlack Launch, in Conversation With Jim Glickman
2022-01-05 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Join Belmont Books for the virtual launch of Julie Schlack’s (Nonfiction, June 2013) new book, Burning and Dodging, which she will be discussing with author James Glickman.

Julie Wittes Schlack writes and teaches both fiction and creative nonfiction. Her cultural memoir, This All-at-Onceness, was named by Kirkus Reviews as one of the best Indie Nonfiction Books of 2019, and her novel, Burning and Dodging, was just released in late December of 2021. Her essays and stories have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Pangyrus, Shenandoah, The Writer’s Chronicle, Ninth Letter, Eleven Eleven, and The Tampa Review. She received a Hopwood Award for Fiction, and her essays have been finalists for the Annie Dillard Nonfiction Award and the Clarissa Dalloway Nonfiction Award. She is a regular contributor to NPR station WBUR’s journal of ideas and opinions, Cognoscenti. You can read some of Julie’s work at www.juliewittesschlack.com.

Lesley MFA Winter Reading Series -- David Elliott & Kyoko Mori
2022-01-07 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Join David Elliott (WFYP, MFA Writing Faculty) and Kyoko Mori (Nonfiction, MFA Writing Faculty) as they read from their work. Registration is free and open to the public.

Lesley MFA Winter Reading Series -- Kyle Lukoff
2022-01-08 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Lesley University’s All Lesley Reads Visiting Writer for the January 2022 residency will be Kyle Lukoff, author of the National Book Award finalist middle grade novel, Too Bright to See, the Stonewall-award winning picture book, When Aidan Became A Brother, Explosion at the Poem Factory, and many more.

While becoming a writer Kyle worked as a bookseller for 10 years, and then nine more years as a school librarian. He lives in New York City, and “hopes you’re having a nice day.”

Registration is free and open to the public.

Lesley MFA Winter Reading Series — Andrea Wang
2022-01-09 11:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Picture book writing seminar with Andrea Wang (WFYP, June 2011). Registration is free and open to the public.

Lesley MFA Winter Reading Series — Adrian Matejka & Grace Talusan
2022-01-09 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Join Adrian Matejka (Poetry, MFA Writing Faculty) and Grace Talusan, Visiting Nonfiction Author, as they read from their work. Registration is free and open to the public.

Solstice January 2022 Guest Faculty Reading
2022-01-09 19:30 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Hear a sampling of three-minute readings from Solstice‘s winter 2022 guest faculty and writers-in-residence. Readers include:

• Robbie Gamble (Poetry, January 2017)• Annie Harnett• Lee Hope• Sydney Lea• Shelley Linso• Beth Little• Devi Lockwood• Suzanne S. Rancourt• Lisa Stringfellow• Terrance Hayes

Lesley MFA Winter Reading Series — Tracey Baptiste & Matthew Henry
2022-01-10 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Join Tracey Baptiste (WFYP, MFA Writing Faculty) and Matthew Henry, Visiting Poet, as they read from their work. Registration is free and open to the public.

Lesley MFA Winter Reading Series — SJ Rozan & Thato Mwosa
2022-01-12 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Online Zoom Event
Join SJ Rozan, Visiting Author, Fiction, and WSS Alum Thato Mwosa (June 2017) as they read from and show their work. Registration is free and open to the public.

CCW Virtual Reading January 2022
2022-01-12 20:00 - 21:00 UTC | Online Zoom Event
Cambridge Common Writers will be hosting a virtual reading once more during the January Residency for Lesley University. This event is free and open to the public.

Readers:

Michelle Boland (Poetry, January 2019)Kathy Park Woolbert (Nonfiction, June 2010)Andrea Wang (WFYP, June 2011)Thato Mwosa (WSS, June 2017)Lisa DeSiro (Poetry, June 2010)Jorge Armenteros (Fiction, June 2012)

NEPC / Voices of Poetry - Back at the Library--Featuring Eileen Cleary
2022-01-20 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Online Event
Eileen Cleary (Poetry, June 2016) – founder & editor of Lily Poetry Review and Lily Poetry Review Books – will be reading her work at this free virtual poetry event, presented by New England Poetry Club and Voices of Poetry (hosted by Cambridge Public Library).

Other poets who will be reading include Charles Coe, Susan Donnelly, and Paul Nemser.
