• Wednesday, March 1st at 7:30 P.M.

Dina Friedman will read & sign copies of her new book—Escaping into the Night—for young adults & adults of all ages.   Friedman has taught writing since 1981 at Mount Holyoke College, Holyoke Community College & the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.   Her poetry, fiction, & drama have been published in numerous magazines & literary journals, including The Sun, Calyx, Peregrine, Amelia, The Worcester Review, Hurricane Alice, Tsunami, Poetry Motel, Slant, & many others.   Her second novel will be published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux in the Fall of 2006, & she is just putting the finishing touches on a third novel.   (Read more!)

• Thursday, March 2nd at 8:00 P.M.

Eleni Sikelianos will read as a part of the University of Massachusetts M.F.A. Program's Visiting Writer Series in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts.   Sikelianos has won two Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative American Writing, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, a Fulbright fellowship, & the James D. Phelan Award.   She has published three volumes of poetry, The California Poem, The Book of Jon, & Earliest Worlds.   Her work has appeared in journals such as Sulfur, New American Writing, Fence, & Grand Street.

• Friday, March 3 at 8:00 P.M.

Quale Press party & booksigning.   Join us in celebrating Quale Press authors, including Dennis Barone, David Giannini, Holly Iglesias, Peter Johnson, Mary Koncel, & Gian Lombardo.

• Sunday, March 5th at 3:00 P.M.

“Jubilat/Jones Reading Series”   Poets Daisy Fried & Rynn Williams will read in the Trustees Room at the Jones Library in Amherst.   Fried is the author of two books of poetry, the new volume, My Brother Is Getting Arrested Again & an earlier collection, She Didn’t Mean to Do It, which won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize.   Her poems have been published in American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Colorado Review, Indiana Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Threepenny Review, & many other journals.   William’s collection of poetry, Adonis Garage, was the recipient of the 2004 Prairie Schooner Book Award for Poetry, & was published in the fall of 2005 by the University of Nebraska Press.   Her poems have appeared in The Nation, Field, The Massachusetts Review, & Puerto del Sol, among other magazines.

• Thursday, March 9th at 7:30 P.M.

The irrepressible & inimitable Jane Isenberg returns to Amherst from her Washington exile to read from her latest mystery novel, Hot Wired.   Isenberg is author a series of mystery novels starring Bel Barrett, including Death in a Hot Flash, Hot & Bothered, Out of Hormone’s Way, The ‘M’ Word, Midlife Can be Murder, & Hot on the Trail.

• Friday, March 10th at 8:00 P.M.

“Live Lit”   Students in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts will read from their recent work.   Evenings usually include a mix of poetry & fiction.   This evening's performers are Seth Parker, Jon Link, Seth Landman, & Natalie Lyalin.

• Saturday, March 11th at 8:00 P.M.

Poets Brian Kim Stefans & Craig Watson will read.   Stefans is author of Free Space Comix, Gulf, Angry Penguins, & most recently, Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics, which “explodes with ingredients of essay, games, & poetry”.   Watson is author of True News, Free Will, Reason, & Picture of the Picture of the Image in the Glass.   Andrew Joron, writing of Watson, said, “Watson's engaged lyric continues to discover ‘more songs in the gaps’ of the system; as he traces the antinomies, his long poems build toward an almost orchestral scale and ordonnance”.

• Wednesday, March 15th at 8:00 P.M.

"Anne Halley Poetry Prize Reading"   Brian Swann, winner of the 2nd annual Anne Halley Poetry Prize, sponsored by the Massachussetts Review, will read from his prize-winning volume, Snow House.   Swann has published in The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, TriQuarterly, & the Iowa, Kenyon, Paris, & Partisan Reviews.   He is author of six books of poetry & five of short fiction, & has translated sixteen volumes of poetry.   He has taught at Princeton & Rutgers & is now Professor of English at the Cooper Union.

The Anne Halley Poetry Prize is named in memorial for Anne Halley, to honor her 25 years of work as poetry co-editor of the Massachusetts Review as well as her work as a poet & writer.   Her last collection of poetry, Rumors of the Turning Wheel, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2003.

• Thursday, March 16th at 8:00 P.M.

Patricia Powell will read as a part of the University of Massachusetts M.F.A. Program's Visiting Writer Series in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts.   Powell, who was born in Jamaica & immigrated to the United States with her family in 1982, is author of The Pagoda, A Small Gathering of Bones, & a forthcoming novel, The Good Life.   She is Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in fiction at Harvard University & lives in Watertown, Massachusetts.

• Friday, March 17th at 8:00 P.M.

Poets Susan Wheeler & Eléna Rivera will read from recent work.   Wheeler is author of four volumes of poetry, Bag ‘o’ Diamonds, Smokes, Source Codes, & Ledger, as well as a novel, Record Palace.   Rivera is author of Unknowne Land; a chapbook, Wale; or, the Corse as well as two artists books, Her Hand & A Botanist's Dream.

• Monday, March 27th at 8:00 P.M.

Macedonian poets Lidija Dimkovska & Aleš Mustar will read from recent work.   Poet, essayist, literary theoretician, translator, Dimkovksa worked as a translator in Macedonian language & literature at the Faculty of Philology in Bucharest, Romania.   She is author of several volumes of poetry, including Progenies of the East, Fire of Letters, Bitten Nails, & Nobel vs. Nobel; editor of Twenty Young Macedonian Poets & winner of "Studentski zbor" Prize for best debut book.   Mustar holds degrees in English & pedagogy from the University of Ljubljana & a Ph.D. in Romanian literature from the University of Bucharest.   His poetry has been published in the most important Slovenian literary magazines & has been translated into Czech, Serbian, Polish, Macedonian, English & Romanian.   He has written for the theater & is a translator of Romanian & Macedonian literature.   Mustar recently published his first book, Courte(ous) Interpretations.

• Wednesday, March 29th at 5:30 P.M.

Join us in celebrating the publication of a new book edited by Joyce Berkman —Contemplating Edith Stein.   Berkman is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts & co-directs the Valley Women's History Collective.   She is author of The Healing Imagination of Olive Scheiner: Beyond South African Colonialism.   (Read more!)

• Wednesday, March 29th at 8:00 P.M.

CANCELEDRon Hansen will read from recent work.   Hansen is author of the novels Isn't it Romantic?, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Desperadoes, Atticus, & Mariette in Ecstasy; a collection of short stories, Nebraska; a collection of essays, A Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith & Fiction; & a children's book, The Shadowmaker.   According to Contemporary Novelists, Hansen's books “occupy...a curious half-way house between popular & high culture; between the worlds of art & entertainment”.   A book by Hansen provides a good read as well as a searching study of morality.

• Thursday, March 30th at 8:00 P.M.

CANCELED Thomas Sayers Ellis will read as a part of the University of Massachusetts M.F.A. Program's Visiting Writer Series in Memorial Hall at the University of Massachusetts.   Ellis was born & raised in Washington, D.C., & co-founded The Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts.   He is author several volumes of poetry, including The Maverick Room, & The Genuine Negro Hero.

• Thursday, March 30th at 8:00 P.M.

Mark Rudman will read in the Pryune Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115) on the Amherst College campus.   Rudman is author of many volumes of poetry, including The Couple & Sundays on the Phone   His Rider trilogy, comprising The Millenium Hotel, Provoked in Venice & Rider, received the National Book Critics Circle Award.   He lives in New York City with his wife & son & teaches poetry part-time at NYU.

• Friday, March 31st at 8:00 P.M.

“Live Lit”   Students in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts will read from their recent work.   Evenings usually include a mix of poetry & fiction.   This evening's performers are Kismet Al-Hussaini, Kim Hagerich, Erica Monteiro, & Andrew Roberts.