Festival Poets and Hosts

This is a writer of poetry and prose whose works have appeared in numerous publications across the Northeast. Perennials marks her fourth collection of poetry. Her previous books include Messy on the Inside and Rain - Dark as Water in Winter, both published by Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press. In 2003, she produced On the Edge, a recitation of poems on CD. Additionally, she has penned several plays, two novels and is now working on a compilation of fictional short stories. She’s earned a BFA in Theatre from Central Connecticut State University where she is currently finishing her graduate thesis project towards an MA in English. In 2005, Eileen left a twelve-year award-winning career as a radio news host and broadcast journalist to pursue a life of writing and teaching. She was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Greater Hartford Arts Council in 2003 and again in 2008. She has taught creative writing in several colleges and cultural institutions as well as the York Correctional Institute, Connecticut’s only maximum security prison for women. For nearly two decades, Eileen and her husband, Wayne Horgan, have co-owned Heroes & Hitters, a comic book store in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. The two live in Central Connecticut with their cats, Buddy and Trouble.
 

is a Professor of English and Director of the American Studies Program at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford, Connecticut.  He is the author of three books of short fiction: Abusing the Telephone (Drogue Press, 1994), The Returns (Sun & Moon Press, 1996), and Echoes (Potes & Poets Press, 1997).  Echoes received the 1997 America Award for most outstanding book of fiction by a living American writer.  He is also the author of two novellas, Temple of the Rat (Left Hand Books, 2000) and God’s Whisper (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005), and the author of a collection of short prose pieces, The Walls of Circumstance (Avec Books, 2004).  Quale Press published two hybrid-works of memoir, prose poetry, and short fiction: Precise Machine (2006) and North Arrow (2008).  He is co-editor with James Finnegan of Visiting Wallace: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Wallace Stevens (University of Iowa Press, 2009) and editor of Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995).  Left Hand Books published his selected poems entitled Separate Objects in 1998.  His essays on American literature and culture have appeared in journals such as American Studies, Critique, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Voices in Italian Americana.  A graduate of Bard College, he received his Ph.D. in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, and in 1992 he held the Thomas Jefferson Chair, a distinguished Fulbright lecturing award, in the Netherlands.

is the author of _In the Solar Wind_ (Doubleday), a selection of the National Poetry Series, and _Little Apocalypse_  (Ashland Poetry), winner of the Richard Snyder Memorial Prize.  Her work has appeared widely in anthologies and journals such as Poetry, The Nation, Field, Threepenny Review, and Yale Review. She's taught at MIT, Smith College, Syracuse University, Boston University, Connecticut College, and most recently at the Center for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies in Athens.

She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and has been a fellow at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.  She teaches yoga and writes in Mystic, CT.
 

Professor Emeritus of Theater and Sign Language at Three Rivers Community College, John Basinger's credits include a long-time involvement with Theater and Storytelling. With the National Theatre of the Deaf, John performed as actor and musician in many of the company's national and international tours, as well as on Broadway. He is presently a member of the board of the National Theater of the Deaf. John was a member of the arts week faculty at the Omega Institute for 11 years. He appeared in Paramount Pictures' Children of a Lesser God, at the Long Wharf Theater, Hartford Stage Company, the Vineyard Playhouse on Martha's Vineyard and the Manhattan Theater Club. John was a Mellon Fellow in Theater at Yale University and is the author numerous plays including the outdoor drama "Benedict Arnold: A Brave Revenge," which had its inaugural production in Washington Park in Groton, Connecticut, in 2003. John is a nationally recognized storyteller, an enthusiastic supporter of the Slam Poetry movement, and an arts activist in Middletown, CT.

See John perform and find out more about his Paradise Lost performances at http://www.paradiselostperformances.com/
 

is the President of the Connecticut Poetry Society and the Contest Chairperson of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Her poems have been published in the anthology, Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge, Grayson Press, 2003,J Journal, John Jay School of Criminal Justice; Passager, Connecticut River Review, Connecticut Poetry Society; Long River Run, and Caduceus, Yale Art Place. Her poems have also won contests in the Connecticut River Review and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. She is an attorney and instructor of legal studies at the University of Hartford. Her textbook, Forensic Evidence in Court: A Case Study Approach, was published in 2008 by Carolina Academic Press.

s recognized for his insightful and entertaining poetry. He was a member of the Poetry Slam Team that participated in a national competition in Middletown, CT in 1995. Ernie has instructed students in the art of performance poetry in many CT towns, including: Hartford, New haven, Torrington, New Britain, Farmington and Simsbury. He has been a featured poet at the "Spoken Word" readings at the Wood Memorial Library. Mr. Blue says, "Poetry answers the questions that were never asked." Participation in the Million Man March had a profound affect on the artist. Ernie keeps his heritage and responsibility as an African-American male at the center of his art. Decades of history are covered in a single poem. Mr. Blue is a retired corrections officer who lives in Waterbury, CT.
 

To buy a copy, visit D/e/a/d/b/e/a/t Press.
 

began writing poetry in her early teens as a way of crystallizing all observations, impressions and experiences.  People have described her poetry as perceptive, mystical, personal, cathartic, confessional, and even political.  In addition to organizing the Eclectic Poetry Open Mic in Meriden, she has performed spoken word with the band Plan 9, read at AS220 in Rhode Island, and for the Riverwood Poetry Series and Women Composers Festival in Connecticut.  Melissa currently lives in Meriden, works as a naturalist, and volunteers for the various environmental groups.
 

is the author of two poetry collections, With the Hollow of Your Hand and A Place at the Table. During the past thirty years he has given many poetry readings at venues such as the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival. Selected as 1980 Poet of the Year by the New England Association of Teachers of English, Foley recently retired from South Windsor High School, where he chaired the English Department and directed dramatic productions. Having grown up in Hartford, he now resides in Weatogue, Connecticut with his wife, Diane, an elementary school teacher.

has been a writer and artist for many years, but she began to concentrate on poetry only after dropping out of Smith College and into the depths of addiction and drug-related behavior. After many arrests and hospital stays, she is now in recovery from addiction, thanks to family, friends, AA, and poetry. Her first book, Crazy Girl with Lighter, was recently published. Having studied at Manchester Community College and Asnuntuck Community College, Jen will enter The University of Connecticut in the fall. She lives in Manchester, CT.

retired from the City of Hartford where she juggled her job as a bureaucrat with her life as a poet. She recently moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts where she is a dealer of shabby antiques and high class junk - a calling she finds far more compatible with the writing life. She is a member of the Ipswich Cultural Council.

Priscilla uses family history and life's commonplaces to convey her sense of "truth through lies." She is a founding member of the Connecticut women's poetry group, Artemis Rising, and is a member of the Ipswich Poetry Group. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies; her chapbook PATHways was nominated for a Pushcart prize.

Recently Priscilla's creative muse has led her into the world of visual arts. She is collaborating with another North Shore artist on a line of blank photo cards, and is working on a number of mixed media pieces. These pieces allow her to experientially develop some of the themes she explores in her poetry.

is editor of the CT Poet Newsletter.  His fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as The Fairfield Review, Bent Pin Quarterly, and the Connecticut River Review, among others, and he has read at numerous venues around the state.  Years ago, John earned a double degree in writing and literature, but he has spent his adult life trying to unlearn what he was taught.

was born and raised in Hartford in a lineage of Connecticut Irish farmers on her mother’s side and Illinois Finnish immigrants on her father‘s. Recipient of an MA in English from Trinity College, for many years she pursued a career in insurance communications, a career she abandoned in order to concentrate on the writing of poetry. In the past decade, her work has received five Pushcart Prize nominations and has appeared in numerous literary journals including The Worcester Review, Atlanta Review, South Carolina Review, and Poet Lore. Her chapbook Against Disappearance was published as finalist for the 2001 Redgreene Press Poetry Prize. Commitments to poetry and to community have led her to work in the Bloomfield Public Library, where she directs a poetry series presenting area writers to an ever-expanding audience. With her husband, Ray, she lives on an old farm in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

is the author of Quarry. He teaches literature and composition at Northwestern Community College in Winsted, Connecticut, works in a group home to support three handicapped men, and is also a self-employed carpentry contractor. He earned an MFA degree from New England College in 2007.  In former lives he was a teacher in the Boston public schools, caretaker for a summer camp, and Fillmore East usher. He lives in Goshen, CT, with Queenie Troy.

In the Celtic tradition of storytelling, Kathryn's poems shape themselves as narrative pieces reflecting her connection to family and the world around her. Kathryn currently teaches English in Portland, CT, where she also runs a creative writing program for middle and high school students. She has taught poetry workshops in schools throughout the state, and has been an invited poet to facilitate workshops with the Litchfield Performing Arts' Project Poetry Live! Her work has appeared in a variety of journals, including The Helix and NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English). She is a member of The Random Meetinghouse Poets.

books of poems are The White Eyelash, Dailies & Rushes, a finalist for The National Book Critics Circle Award, Among Flowers, and forthcoming My Glass Eye.  Her books have been critically acclaimed by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Poetry, Publishers Weekly, Vanity Fair, among others. Her poems have appeared numerous journals and anthologies.

Before joining the Core Faculty of The Bennington Writing Seminars, Susan taught poetry at University of Connecticut, Southampton College, Chautauqua Institute, Willard-Cybulski Mens’ Prison, and California Institute of the Arts.

As a librettist, her works have been performed by the Glimmerglass Opera and The Baroque Choral Guild in The Netherlands, Italy, New York, and California.  In 2010, three symphonies in California will premiere her new song cycle, written for soprano Christine Brewer, in collaboration with composer David Carlson.

She has been awarded several national poetry fellowships and four international fellowships to France, Italy, Scotland, and Switzerland. She is the recipient of a 2009 Connecticut Commission on Culture poetry fellowship and the 2009 winner of The Poetry Society of America’s Lyric Award.

is a member of Artemis Rising. She lives in Cromwell, Connecticut, where she is a homemaker. She holds a B. A. in comparative literature and an M. B. A. in finance. You can't have too much education for this job. She has been a performance poet since 1998, when she began sneaking down to the local coffeehouse, and lately she has begun sneaking into print.

has been writing poetry seriously for the past ten years. Her poems have appears in publications in both the United States and England. A former hippie who lived communally in the northern California woods - without electricity for 15 years - she now makes her home in Newtown, CT. Author of the recently published "A Rose Between Her Teeth", Suzy is a founding member of the Artemis Rising women's writing circle and a regular featured reader around New England.
 

is a native of Connecticut who has been writing poetry since the age of seven. She has published poetry in Connecticut Review, The Prose Poem, Underwood Review, Connecticut Artists, and High Tide. She has written a number of nonfiction articles for newspapers and magazines, and has coauthored two books on child and family issues. Ms. Lang now teaches writing at Southern Connecticut State University. She is amateur naturalist and environmental advocate, a member of the Quinnipiac River Watershed Association, a fellow of the Connecticut Writing Project, and a member of the poetry group Artemis Rising.
 

Marcia Lewis

works as Branch Manager of the Faxon Library in West Hartford—where she actively incorporates her belief that the role of public libraries is to encourage sharing---including reading, writing, cultural exchange, and the creative process.

Over the last six years, she has sponsored the ongoing FAXON POETS group which meets monthly to share work and has published 3 chapbooks of original poetry.

LisaAnn LoBasso

Refusing to characterize her poetic style as either academic or performance, LisaAnn LoBasso considers herself most at home among artists. With over 20 years experience, she has produced countless readings and collaborative arts events, such as the Up Close, Let Loose Traveling Poets’ Reading Series, and Operation Soapbox, while still racking  up her own credentials, including Poet Ambassador of Kern County in California, as well as appearances at venues and universities from West Coast to East. LisaAnn’s work has been lauded as both dynamic and boundary-breaking; dubbed a poetry minstrel by Las Vegas City Life Weekly, she has featured with diverse and noteworthy poets, such as Nicholas Roerich Prize winner Lee McCarthy, California Poet Laureate Al Young, and Paterson Award Winner Indran Amirthanayagam. Twice nominated for California Poet Laureate 2008, she has two poetry books in print: In the Swollen a poetry collection (2003), and Oleander Milkshake, (2008). In her spare time, LisaAnn develops creative writing programs, theatre scripts, arts-education programs, and public arts installations with artists as far as England. She travels worldwide and recently just returned from living in India for three months. LisaAnn has worked closely with Gluck Award winner Frances Mconnel, National Book Award finalist and critically acclaimed author Susan Straight, and Pulitzer Prize nominee Maurya Simon.
 

Rennie McQuilkin’s poetry has been published by The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The American Scholar, The Southern Review, The Yale Review, The Hudson Review, Crazyhorse, and other journals. He is the author of ten poetry collections and has received fellowships from the NEA as well as the State of Connecticut. His New & Selected is just out. For many years he directed the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival at Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT, and subsequently founded Antrim House Books, which publishes the work of Northeastern poets. He lives in Simsbury, CT.

is a New Haven performance poet and a social justice and anti-war activist. She is also a freelance writer, and an events coordinator for both community and cultural festivals. Her poems, essays, and articles have appeared in numerous journals and newspapers in Connecticut.
 

is an attorney in private practice in Manchester , with an emphasis on elder law. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, among them: RUNES, Connecticut River Review, Broken Bridge Review , Common Ground Review and Caduceus. She has received awards from Artists Embassy International’s Dancing Poetry Contest, Late Blooms, and the Arthur Anthony Cultural Arts Foundation. The East Haddam Stage Company selected one of her poems to be performed as part of its 2008 production, Plays and Poetry. She is membership chair of the Connecticut Poetry Society and a director of the Riverwood Poetry Series.

is the author of three poetry collections, the most recent (Death & Rapture in the Animal Kingdom) being newly published. She lives by the Housatonic River, which keeps her afloat spiritually; works by day at a Bridgeport steel company, which keeps her grounded; and shares the spirit of her father, Red Pollard, which keeps her flying on Pegasus just as he flew on Seabiscuit. At various points in her life she has been a folk-singer, seam-stitcher, nanny, teacher, solderer, and print shop calligrapher. She received the Academy of American Poets Prize from the University of Bridgeport, and for several years edited The Connecticut River Review. Norah Pollard lives in Stratford, Connecticut, with her cats Lilybeet and Phoenix.

has been a successful freelance writer, editor of national and local magazines, and teacher of writing. Poetry credits include Poetry, Carolina Quarterly, Iowa Review, Cortland Review, Salt River Review, Valparaiso Review and the anthologies Sweet Nothings (poetry of rock and roll), Off the Cuffs (poetry by and about the police), and The Cancer Poetry Project. His poetry collections My Night With the Language Thieves and Take Five: Poems in 5/4 Time, and his novel in verse, Situations, have been published by Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press. His songs have been recorded by Orleans, John Hall and Fred Koller. He writes an online column, New York Writing Careers Examiner (http://www.examiner.com/x-2862-NY-Writing-Careers-Examiner). He is the author of a dozen or so published novels, and has written screenplays ranging from cult classic The Cheerleaders to the English language version of the Academy Award-winning Z. He is president and artistic director of Opus 40 in Saugerties, NY.
 

Victoria Rivas

has been published in many journals including a poem about her other passion, martial arts, in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts. Poems about her hometown, Erie, PA, have been included in two anthologies, Working Hard for the Money from Bottom Dog Press and Along the Lake edited by Sean Thomas Dougherty. Recent publications include poems about her math students. “Keisha’s Gone” placed 43rd in the 77th Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition. “Balancing Equation” was published in The Cleave poetry webzine.

Kate Rushin

is the author of The Black Back-Ups (Firebrand Books). Her “The Bridge Poem” appears in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, a ground-breaking feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. Her work is widely anthologized and has been published in such journals as Callaloo.

A Connecticut resident, Kate currently teaches creative writing at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. Previously, she taught at Wesleyan University as Associate Professor and Visiting Poet.  She has read and presented workshops at Hill-Stead Museum’s Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, and has led workshops for the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies and Cave Canem Foundation. She has served as a judge for the Connecticut State University-IMPAC Young Writers Award, the Connecticut Poetry Circuit Student Poetry Contest, and the NEA’s/Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Out Loud.

Kate received her B.A. from Oberlin College and her M.F.A. from Brown University. She is a former Fellow of The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and a graduate fellow of Cave Canem Foundation.
 

Dana Sonnenschein

is a full professor at Southern Connecticut State University, where she has been teaching literature and writing since 1994.  This year her manuscript Bear Country was awarded the NFSPS Stevens Prize, and the National Federation of State Poetry Societies will publish the book in June.  Her previous publications include two chapbooks, Corvus (Wind, 2003) and No Angels But These (Main Street Rag, 2005), and one full-length collection, Natural Forms (Word Press, 2006).  Recently, her poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Camas, Isotope, The MacGuffin, Northwest Review, Seneca Review, and Quarter After Eight.  She and her husband (and their three cats) live in southern Connecticut, where their yard is visited regularly by deer, squirrels, chipmunks, foxes, and a host of birds—but no bears.

of Falls Village, is a poet, a dynamic performer, workshop facilitor and a Connecticut Teaching Artist, a promoter of peace.

Through his award-winning poetry, Ameen spreads the gospel of peace wherever he goes. Evolution Ink is a network of good work and community outreach keeping the Arts alive and empowering students to achieve any aspiration. Ameen teaches for the Litchfield Performing Arts and coaches wrestling in Region One. He has appeared on, MTV in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, as well as on radio, and has performed his poetry throughout the continental United States, in London, Madrid, Paris, Lebanon and the Canary Islands. In 2002 he was invited to participate in the Seeds of Peace camp in Maine.

The Connecticut Commission on the Arts has recently selected him as a Master Teaching Artist. Nominated for The Governor's Award for his contribution to the cultural enhancement of Connecticut through the Arts 2003 and 2005. Recipient of the 2005 Distinguished Advocate for Culture and Tourism Award for selfless dedication to promoting Connecticut through the Arts. In August of 2006 he was invited to membership in The National Arts Club.

is a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont (B.A.) and The Bread Loaf School of English (M.A.).  Her first book of poems, This Body of Silk,  was awarded the 1986 Samuel French Morse Prize (judge: X. J. Kennedy) and was published by Northeastern University Press.  A second volume, The Wedding Boat, was published in 1995 by Owl Creek Press in Seattle.  A third volume, The Leaving: New and Selected Poems, was published by Autumn House Press and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001.  A fourth volume, The Golden Hour, appeared in June 2006 and was also nominated for a Pulitzer.  Her work has been included in the Best American Poetry series, read on National Public Radio by Garrison Keillor, and featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally syndicated newspaper column. She recently edited The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry.
 

is a writer whose work has been translated into nearly a dozen foreign languages, Suffolk County's First Poet Laureate GEORGE WALLACE has engaged audiences internationally from Carnegie Hall to open air festivals, and from tiny coffeeshops and cafes to universities world-wide. His eighteenth book of poetry was published in 2008 by Shivastan Press in Woodstock. He performs and teaches across America and England, hosts poetry events regularly at the Bowery Poetry Club and Cornelia Street Cafe in Manhattan, teaches at Pace University, and edits Poetrybay and other publications. He was recently named a 'next generation Beat poet' by the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac committee.