Join us for a reading and writing craft discussion with PVWW's fall 2024 writing instructors! Each author-instructor will read from their own work, as well as  share a kernel of writing (or life) wisdom. After the readings, we'll open to Q&A and discussion with the audience! Come ready to ask the fall instructors your burning writing-related questions, OR ask them about their favorite foods, their arcane hobbies, what superpower they wish they had, the meaning of life, or any of the other big questions writers (and humans) wrestle with daily. You can also browse their workshops (and bios) on the PVWW website under "Courses." Hosted by PVWW Founder / Director Joy Baglio. 

JOIN ZOOM MEETING

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81279269812

SUBMIT A QUESTION

If you have a burning question - either about writing (or life!) - that you'd like to put to our writing instructors, please email your question(s) to admin@pioneervalleywriters.com at least a few days before the event! 

WHERE

The reading will be live on Facebook (here) as well as live on Zoom. You can RSVP right here on this Facebook event OR on our website at www.PioneerValleyWriters.org under Events!

FEATURED READERS / 2024 FALL WRITING INSTRUCTORS (Reading order)

1. Michael Mercurio

2. Melenie Freedom-Flynn

3. Leonora Desar

4. Sarah Jane Cody

5. Drew Johnson

6. Gail Thomas

7. Robert V.S. Redick

8. Anita Gill

9. Peter Medeiros

10. Liz Harmer

11. Carolyn Zaikowski

12. Blair Hurley

13. Elizabeth Gonzalez James

BIOS

A poet, editor, and occasional critic, MICHAEL MERCURIO lives and writes in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. His poems, interviews, and reviews have been published or are forthcoming in Palette Poetry, Thrush, The Common, Cream City Review, Sierra, and elsewhere. Michael founded and curates What The Universe Is: A (Virtual) Reading Series, where established and emerging poets read together monthly on Zoom. You can learn more at www.poetmercurio.com.

MELENIE FREEDOM FLYNN leads an ongoing Prose Writing Group at PVWW, which opens to enrollment each season. Her memoir-in-progress is currently being supported by grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation and Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, Djerassi Artist-in-Residence Fellowship, Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, and scholarships to the Community of Writers Workshop. Her essay “Message from Your Inmate” won the annual nonfiction contest at Vela Magazine and her recent work can be seen in Provincetown Arts Magazine and the Straw Dog Pandemic Poetry and Prose Journal. A graduate of the MFA Acting Program at California Institute of the Arts, Melenie has performed in theatres across the country including the New York Theatre Workshop, the Kitchen (NY), Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre (MA), and Majestic Theatre (MA). Visit her online at meleniefreedomflynn.com.

LEONORA DESAR's fiction has appeared in places such as River Styx, Passages North, The Cincinnati Review, Black Warrior Review, and Columbia Journal, where she was chosen as a finalist by Ottessa Moshfegh. She has been selected for The Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2021, Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2021, and the Wigleaf Top 50 (2019, 2020, 2021). She was a runner-up/finalist in Quarter After Eight’s Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest, judged by Stuart Dybek, and Crazyhorse’s Crazyshorts! contest. Her journalism has appeared in Psychology Today, WomansDay.com, Parenting magazine, WomansDay.com, Business Insider, and others. She holds an MFA in fiction from NYU, where she taught creative writing, and an MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

SARAH JANE CODY is a Marketing Assistant at PVWW, in addition to her role as an instructor. Her stories and essays have appeared in journals such as in The Common, Gulf Coast, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. She is a contributing prose editor at Pigeon Pages. She was a finalist for Pleiades’s 2018 G.B. Crump Prize in Experimental Fiction. She’s a graduate of the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College and an alumnus of Tin House’s Summer Workshop. Currently, she’s at work on a novel. Find her online at www.sarahjanecody.com

DREW JOHNSON's stories have appeared in Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, The Cupboard, Gulf Coast, New England Review, and elsewhere. Reviews, essays, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming at Literary Hub, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Paris Review Daily, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the University of Virginia.

GAIL THOMAS' books are Trail of Roots, Leaving Paradise, Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, among others. Among her awards are the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back, the Quartet Journal’s Editor’s Choice Prize, and Seven Kitchen Press’s A.V. Christie Chapbook Series award for Trail of Roots. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Gail visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog and works with immigrant and refugee communities in Western Massachusetts. You may read more about her work at www.gailthomaspoet.com.

ROBERT V.S. REDICK is the author of two epic fantasy series: The Fire Sacraments and The Chathrand Voyage Quartet. He is a former professor in the Stonecoast and University of Nevada Reno MFA programs, Hampshire College, and Clark University, and has taught for many years with the Shared Worlds Summer Writing Program. His stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Puerto del Sol, and various anthologies, including Dreams For a Broken World (2023). He was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel, the Booknest Award for Best Novel, and the Thomas Dunn/AWP award for Best Novel. He holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

ANITA GILL is a Fulbright Scholar whose work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Kweli, Prairie Schooner, The Offing, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her writing has been listed as Notable in Best American Essays and has won The Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction. She holds an MA in Literature from American University, and an MFA in Writing from Pacific University. She currently serves as Nonfiction Editor for Hypertext Review while working on a novel.

PETER MEDEIROS teaches writing and Kung Fu--though never at the same time. His teaching in and around Boston remains a major inspiration for much of his fiction. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. He been publishing fiction since 2013, and was most recently featured in the July 2022 issue of GigaNotoSaurus.  Peter is represented by Susan Velazquez Colmant at JABerwocky Literary Agency.

LIZ HARMER is the author of the novels The Amateurs (2018) and Strange Loops (2023). Her stories, essays, and poems have been published at the Globe & Mail, The Walrus, Best Canadian Stories, The New Quarterly, Hazlitt, Image Journal, and elsewhere. A recent fellow at the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, she was also the runner-up for the Mitchell Prize in poetry. She’s the winner of a National Magazine Award for Personal Journalism, a CRAFT Literary Creative Nonfiction Award, and the WAGs-ProQuest Award Distinguished Masters Thesis, among other prizes. She teaches in the MFA program at Chapman University.

CAROLYN ZAIKOWSKI is the author of the hybrid novel In Dream, I Dance by Myself, and I Collapse (Civil Coping Mechanisms Press). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared widely in The Washington Post, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, Alaska Quarterly, West Branch, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and is currently an English professor, writing consultant, and volunteer death doula. Find her online at www.carolynzaikowski.com.

​BLAIR HURLEY is the author of THE DEVOTED, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her second novel, MINOR PROPHETS will be published in 2023. Her work is published in New England Review, Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Guernica, Paris Review Daily, West Branch, and elsewhere. She is a Pushcart Prize winner and an ASME Fiction award finalist.

ELIZABETH GONZALEZ JAMES is a screenwriter and author of the novels, Mona at Sea and The Bullet Swallower, as well as the chapbook, Five Conversations About Peter Sellers. She teaches fiction writing at Grub Street. Originally from South Texas, Elizabeth now lives with her family in Massachusetts.

​HOST / PVWW FOUNDER & DIRECTOR

JOY BAGLIO ​is the founder/director of Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop (PVWW). Her short stories have appeared widely, in journals such as The Missouri Review, Tin House, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, The Iowa Review, TriQuarterly, Gulf Coast, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. Recent honors include fellowships, scholarships, and grants from Yaddo, Ragdale, The Elizabeth George Foundation, Bread Loaf,  Sewanee, The Speculative Literature Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale, The Kerouac Project, and Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Joy holds an MFA from The New School and is currently at work on both a collection of short stories and two novels. She's represented by Peter Steinberg at United Talent Agency (UTA). In her free time, she plays the bagpipes. Follow her on twitter at @JoyBaglio or visit her online at www.joybaglio.com.