\]/ March 2026 Events
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Events

< March 2026 >

Events listed in white are at the bookshop; events listed in yellow are elsewhere.

Unless noted otherwise all events at the bookshop are free & open to the public.   We recommend masks!

For events elsewhere, there may be vaccine or masking requirements.   Please follow the links to check.

Maureen Groden, R.N. will read from & talk about her new book, When a Loved One Is Dying: Conversations about Care, Connection, & Coping at the Amherst Senior Center, Bangs Community Center, 70 Boltwood Walk, Amherst, as part of Amherst Neighbors event series.   Groden has been a hospice nurse & educator for several decades.   She has held leadership positions as the Director of Hospice & Palliative Care at several major health care systems, including Mass General Brigham/Cooley Dickinson & Hospice Life Care/Holyoke Medical Center.   Groden has taught community health nursing at several baccalaureate nursing programs, primarily the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Joseph Lee will read from & talk about his new book, Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, & the Search for Indigenous Identity.   Lee is an Aquinnah Wampanoag writer whose work has appeared in such places as The Guardian, BuzzFeed News, & Vox.   His new book, which was a finalist for the 2026 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction, a Time Must-Read Book of 2025, an NPR Books WE Love Most * a Tribal College Best Native Studies Book of 2025, a sweeping, personal exploration of Indigenous identity & the challenges facing Indigenous people around the world.
Joseph Earl Thomas will read at The Aliki Perroti & Seth Frank Lyceum, 197 South Pleasant Street, Amherst College, as part of the Amherst College Creative Writing Visiting Writer Series.   Thomas is the author of Sink, a memoir, finalist for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize; the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; & the forthcoming story collection Leviathan Beach.   For more information, see here.
Dr. Pooja Sarin Tandon will read from & talk about her new book, Digging Into Nature: Outdoor Adventures for Happier & Healthier Kids at the Campus Center Auditorium, UMass, Amherst.   Tandon is a general pediatrician & health researcher who has dedicated her career to advancing children’s health by promoting healthy behaviors & reducing disparities.   In particular, her work has focused on play equity (“play for all children”), & promoting access to physical activity & outdoor recreation.   She is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine, a Professor at the UW School of Public Health, & a researcher at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
Maureen Groden, R.N. will read from & talk about her new book, When a Loved One Is Dying: Conversations about Care, Connection, & Coping at the Venture Way Collaborative, 200 Venture Way, Hadley, as part of Fisher Home’s community programs .   Groden has been a hospice nurse & educator for several decades.   She has held leadership positions as the Director of Hospice & Palliative Care at several major health care systems, including Mass General Brigham/Cooley Dickinson & Hospice Life Care/Holyoke Medical Center.   Groden has taught community health nursing at several baccalaureate nursing programs, primarily the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.   For more information & to register, go here.




Local poets Eileen Cleary, Steven Riel, & Clay Ventre will read from recent work.  Ventre’s 2023 book, It’s Not Love Till Someone Loses an Eye, was a finalist for the Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize.   His newest book, Excellent Wildlife Photos, was published last year.   His work has been published in IIterant, Souvenir Lit Journal, Jubilat, & Queen Mob’s Teahouse, among others.  He edits the Incessant Pipe poetry journal.   Riel is the author of two full-length collections of poetry: Fellow Odd Fellow & Edgemere.   His most recent chapbook Postcard from P-town was a runner-up for the inaugural Robin Becker Chapbook Prize.   His poems have appeared in several anthologies & numerous periodicals, including The Minnesota Review & International Poetry Review.   He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the Franco-American literary e-journal >Résonance.   He was the poetry editor of RFD from 1987 to 1995.   Cleary (she/her) is the author of Wild Pack of the Living, 2 a.m. with Keats, & Child Ward of the Commonwealth , which received an honorable mention for the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize.   She co-edited the anthology Voices Amidst the Virus which was the featured text at the 2021 MSU Filmetry Festival.   Cleary is Editor-in-Chief of Lily Poetry Review & Lily Poetry Review Books, & curates the Lily Poetry Salon.
Howard French, will give the Distinguished Annual Lecture in History, “Africa’s Struggle for a Place in the World,” in Room N151, Integrative Learning Center, UMass, Amherst.   French is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism & was a foreign correspondent & senior writer for the New York Times, having worked as a bureau chief in China, Japan, West & Central Africa, & Central America & the Caribbean.   French is author of many books, most recently, The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, & Global Blackness at High Tide.  Other books include Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, & the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War & Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power.   For more information, see here.


Carolina Ebeid & Jeff Pethybridge will read at The Aliki Perroti & Seth Frank Lyceum, 197 South Pleasant Street, Amherst College, as part of the Amherst College Creative Writing Visiting Writer Series.   Ebeid is a multimedia poet.   She is the author of You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior & the chapbook Dauerwunder: a brief record of facts.   Pethybridge is the author of Striven: The Bright Treatise.   His work appears widely in journals such as Chicago Review, Poor Claudia, The Iowa Review, & others.   He teaches in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University where he is Director of the Summer Writing Program.   For more information, see here.
Leila Philip will read at the Munson Memorial Library Hall, 1046 South East Street, Amherst, about her book Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America as part of the Jones Library’s On the Same Page.   Praised by reviewers (“Fascinating,” The Washington Post; “Full of charm and wonder,” The Wall Street Journal; “Inspiring,” The New York Times), Beaverland offers a revelatory dive into the world of the beaver— the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history & may save its ecological future.  Philip follows fur trappers through waist-high water, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, & the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers.   For more information on all of the related events, see here.


Candace Curran & Lauren Schmidt will read from recent poetry.   Curran was raised alongside Wachusett Mountain by a coyote & a Ford mechanic doing the best they could.   Publications include, Bone Cages & Playing in Wrecks.   She is the Elyse Wolf prize winner for The Sound of Her Good Name.   Curran is co-founder of INTERFACE I-I0 & Exploded View, collaborative word & image poetry & art performance groups.   Her work can be found in journals, Meat for Tea, Silkworm, RAW NerVZ Haiku, & others.   Schmidt, is the author of four collections of poetry—Two Black Eyes & a Patch of Hair Missing; The Voodoo Doll Parade, selected for the Main Street Rag Author’s Choice Chapbook Series; Psalms of The Dining Room, a sequence of poems about her volunteer experience at a soup kitchen; & most recently, Filthy Labors, a finalist for the Brittingham/Pollak Poetry Prize.   Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, & Alaska Quarterly Review, The Progressive, & others.   Her awards include the So to Speak Poetry Prize, the Neil Postman Prize for Metaphor, The Janet B. McCabe Prize for Poetry, & the Bellevue Literary Review’s Vilcek Prize for Poetry.
2026 Literary Arts Festival
Emily Stokes, Peter Gizzi, & Dan Bevacqua will talk about publishing in the Old Chapel, UMass Amherst.   Stokes is the Editor of The Paris Review & was previously a senior editor at The New Yorker.   Gizzi teaches in the M.F.A. Program here at UMass, Amherst.   He is author of numerous volume of poetry, including, Now it’s Dark; Archeophonics, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; & Fierce Elegy, which won the Poetry Award of the Massachusetts Books Awards, & the T. S. Eliot Prize, awarded by the T. S. Eliot Foundation.   Bevacqua teaches undergraduates in the Low-Residency M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at Western New English Univeristy.  Molly Bit, is his debut novel; his short stories & non-fiction have appeared in The Paris Review, The Best American Mystery Stories, & Lithub, among others.   For more information go here.
2026 Literary Arts Festival
Jordy Rosenberg & Fred Moten, with Brandon Lopez, will read in the Old Chapel, UMass Amherst.   Rosenberg is the author of the novels Confessions of the Fox, & most recently, Night Night Fawn; as well as a scholarly monograph about 18th-century religious enthusiasts.   Confessions was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, a Publishing Triangle Award, the UK Historical Writers Association Debut Crown Award, & longlisted for The Dublin Literary Award.   Moten is a professor of performance studies & comparative literature at New York University concerned with social movement, aesthetic experiment, & Black studies.   He has written a number of books of poetry & criticism, including In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition; Hughson's Tavern ; B. Jenkins; Feel Trio, which was a finalist for the National Book Award & the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, & winner of the California Book Award; among many others.   He will be reading in collaboration with Lopez, who a composer & contrabassist working in the field of far left musics, with a primary focus in improvisation.   For more information go here.


Philip Metres & John Hennessy will read from recent work.   Metres’ books include Fugitive/Refuge, Shrapnel Maps, Pictures at an Exhibition, & Sand Opera.  He has published poems, essays, & reviews in literary journals & magazines including Poetry, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Tin House, Massachusetts Review, & others.   Hennessy is author of three poetry collections, Exit Garden State, Coney Island Pilgrims, & Bridge & Tunnel, & his poems appear in The Best American Poetry 2024, The New Republic, Poetry, The Yale Review, & others.   With Ostap Kin he is the translator of Serhiy Zhadan’s award-winning A New Orthography; the anthology Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond; & Yuri Andrukhovych’s Set Change.  Hennessy is poetry editor of The Common & teaches at UMass, Amherst.
2026 Literary Arts Festival
Current M.F.A. students will read from their work in the Old Chapel, UMass Amherst.   For more information go here.
2026 Literary Arts Festival
Two concurrent panels on editing & publishing will take place in the Old Chapel, UMass Amherst as follows:

Poetry: Suzanna Tamminen, Peter Gizzi, & Abby Chabitnoy.

Prose: Ben Brooks , Iwalani Kim, & Gabriel Bump.  For more information go here.

2026 Literary Arts Festival
Sarah Ghazal Ali, Thérèse Soukar Chehade, Nathan Hill, & Daniel Moysaenko will read in the Old Chapel, UMass Amherst.   For more information go here.
Loretta Ross & Marlene Freid will talk about their recent book, Abortion & Reproductive Justice: The Essential Guide to Winning Rights at the Mt. Toby Friends Meeting House, 194 Long Plain Rd., Leverett MA sponsored by the Franklin County Reproductive Just Task Force.   Ross is a co-founder of Atlanta-based Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective.   Fried is one of the co-founders of the National Network of Abortion Rights Funds.   For more information go to the Reproductive Justice Task Force website.
UMass, Amherst, economics professor Arindrajit (Arin) Dube will talk about his new book, The Wage Standard: What’s Wrong in the Labor Market & How to Fix It, with a colleague in the Economics Department, Michael Ash.   As Daron Acemoglu, Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences wrote, “The slowdown of the income growth of working people in the United States is one of the most striking & consequential events of the last half century (just think of all the discontent & political turmoil that have followed it).   The Wage Standard makes a powerful argument that the main culprit is the growing power of corporations & the weakening of labor market institutions & norms that enable workers to get a fair share of improvements in productivity and profits.”
Justin Haynes will read at The Aliki Perroti & Seth Frank Lyceum, 197 South Pleasant Street, Amherst College, as part of the Amherst College Creative Writing Visiting Writer Series.  Hynes is author of the novel, Ibis & has been published in various journals including SX Salon Small Axe Project & Caribbean Quarterly  For more information, see here.
N.K. Jemisin will read as part of the Troy Lecture Series at the UMass Student Union Ballroom, UMass, Amherst.   Jemisin is an American science fiction & fantasy writer.   Her fiction includes a wide range of themes, notably cultural conflict & oppression. Her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, & the subsequent books in her “Inheritance Trilogy” received critical acclaim.   Jemisin has won several awards for her work, including the Locus Award.   Her “Broken Earth” series made her the first African American author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel, as well as the first author to win in three consecutive years, & the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy.  She won a fourth Hugo Award, for Best Novelette, in 2020 for “Emergency Skin”, & a fifth Hugo Award, for Best Graphic Story, in 2022 for Far Sector.   Jemisin was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program prize in 2020.   In 2025, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association named Jemisin the 42nd Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction & fantasy.   N.B. Tickets must be gotten in advance.   For more information, see here.
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