Chapter and Verse Literary Reading Series

A Special Program by the Writers’ Room of Boston

FRIDAY, December 9, 2016 at 7:30 pm

The Writers’ Room of Boston is a nonprofit organization committed to supporting the creation of new literature by providing a secure, affordable workspace and an engaged community to emerging and established writers in downtown Boston.

Participants

Alexander Danner is the President of the Board of Directors for The Writers’ Room of Boston, where he was also awarded the Ivan Gold Fellowship in 2005. In addition to being the co-creator of the serial audio drama Greater Boston, he writes comics and prose fiction. His stories have appeared in Poetry & Prose, The Saturday Evening Post, and Fantasy Scroll Magazine, as well as the Machine of Death anthology. He is the co-author of two textbooks: Comics: A Global History, 1968-Present with Dan Mazur, and Character Design for Graphic Novels with Steven Withrow.

For her day job, Liz Breen writes television commercials for clients like Progressive Insurance and the National Association of Realtors. At night, she focuses on short stories and flash fiction. Her work has appeared in the Columbia Journal, CHEAP POP and Cleaver Magazine, among others. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Debka Colson writes fiction, poetry and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in North American Review, Slab, Folio, Roar, and The Rumpus, among others, and in two anthologies. Debka completed her MFA at Lesley University and is the Program Director for the Writers’ Room of Boston, where she was awarded the Ivan Gold Fellowship in 2013. In her home base of Jamaica Plain, she serves as the Flash Fiction Contest Coordinator for JP Reads.

Eric Hyett is a poet, linguist and translator from Cambridge. His poetry, as well as his co-translations of contemporary Japanese poet Kiriu Minashita, appear frequently in major literary journals including, most recently, the Cincinnati Review, The Hudson Review, Barrow Street, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and Antioch Review. Eric is presently finishing two poetry manuscripts and a memoir. He is the first “legacy” member of The Writers’ Room of Boston (his mother, Barbara Helfgott Hyett was a founder) and serves on the Board.

Ellin Sarot is a poet and editor. She was the inaugural 2014 Gish Jen Fellow at the Writers’ Room of Boston and now serves on the Board. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, String Poet, Main Street Rag, and Deronda Review, among others, and in anthologies, including Veils, Halos, and Shackles; International Poetry on the Abuse and Oppression of Women; and Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence. Ellin grew up in NYC but now lives in Cambridge where street trees are everywhere and, lately, also wild turkeys.

Brent Whelan retired recently after many years of teaching high school English at Commonwealth School in Boston in order to devote himself to writing fiction. He joined the WROB in the fall of 2015, and has completed a very rough draft of a novel there, along with a number of short stories. He is married with three grown children. He also writes blogs on various political and cultural matters.

Ari Belathar is a Mexican poet and playwright in exile. After being kidnapped and tortured by the Mexican National Army in 2001 due to her work as a student activist and independent journalist, she escaped to Canada as a political refugee. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies around the world. Ari has been awarded residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, The Arctic Circle, and Blue Mountain Center. She relocated to the U.S. in 2014 and is the current Writers’ Room of Boston Poetry Fellow. 

Aaron Krol has received poetry fellowships from the Massachusetts Culutral Council and the Saint Botolph Club Foundation, and has been published in 32 Poems, Mississippi Review, KROnline, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. He grew up in Baltimore, and now lives in Watertown with his wife, Shannon Wagner, a fellow alum of the MFA creative writing program at Emerson College.

Suggested donation: $5.00 or whatever you can afford. (We mean this. We would rather have you than your money.) Free refreshments are served.

Parking Information: The Loring-Greenough House has a parking lot, but four spaces are reserved for ZIP Cars. Please respect these spaces, and also please try not to park on the grass. There is nonrestricted street parking and a large, free public parking lot off Centre Street between Burroughs and Thomas Streets just a block from the Loring-Greenough House.

For information check our website at http://jamaicapondpoets.com or email dorothy.derifield@gmail.com or call 617-325-8388.