NJPoets.com - Skylands Writers & Artists Assoc., Inc.

Joan Cusack Handler of Englewood, memoirist, and Director: John Harms Theatre Writers' Series, in a reading and discussion of women's memoir writing.

Daniela Gioseffi, Presdient of SWAA, Inc. American Book Award winning author, and memoirist, will host and moderate a discussion with the audience on women's memoirs and autobiographical fiction.

Refreshments will be served during a reception with the featured presenters, followed by an OPEN READING inviting participation by the audience. Poetry or Prose pertaining to women's lives can be read at the open mic.by men or women.

Joan Cusack Handler has published poetry in Agni, Boston Review, Poetry East, Southern Humanities Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets & Wisconsin Review, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998.As publisher of the not-for-profit, independent CavanKerry Press, Ms. Handler emphasizes literary voice in the works of established and emerging poets. A psychologist in clinical practice, she is also interested in introducing a literary audience to books that focus on both the aesthetic as well as the psychological impediments to the expression of voice, i.e. envy, dejection and censorship-real or perceived from within or without. Ms. Handler was co-founder and Director of Presenting Poetry and Prose-- a literary series at the John Harms Center for the Arts in New Jersey. She also conducts poetry workshops for beginning and experienced writers, (served as workshop leader and featured reader at a recent Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival) and is a member of the resident faculty at The Frost Place Poetry Festival in Franconia, New Hampshire and also sits on the Board of Governors of the Poetry Society of America. Recipient of many awards, Ms. Handler was honored by The Boston Review, the Chester H. Jones Foundation, the Eve of St. Agnes Competition, Roberts Writing Awards, Gloucester County College and the Allen Ginsberg Competitions.

Meredith Sue Willis, born and raised in West Virginia, has lived for many years in New Jersey and is the author of ten published books. One of her books was praised by the New York Times Book Review as providing "a[n]...important lesson on the nature and function of literature itself." Her trilogy about growing up the United States in the nineteen-sixties ranges from homecomingprincesses to the war against poverty and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. This trilogy (the first two books originally published by Scribner's) includes Higher Ground, Only Great Changes, and Trespassers, all available in paperback from Hamilton Stone Editions, P.O. Box 43, Maplewood, NJ 07040. Her short stories, In the Mountains of America, are available from Mercury House, 785 Market Street, Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94103. Meredith Sue Willis has also published two novels for children, The Secret Super Powers of Marco and Marco's Monster from HarperCollins and three books on writing, Deep Revision, Personal Fiction Writing, and Blazing Pencils, available from Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 5 Union Square West, New York, NY 10003. All of her work is also available online through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Backinprint.com and through her website http://members.aol.com/MSueWillis.

Centenary College's Main Building, at 400 Jefferson St. is located down Church St. From Mid-Main St. Hackettstown. Main Street Hackettstown is Rt.46. Hackettstown can be reached from Rt. 517 West from Exit 19, Interstate Rt. 80.

[Back to Top]

NJPoets.com