Speaker: Three News Gal Poets

Description

The tabloid newsroom may at first seem like an unlikely breeding ground for poetry, but three former Boston Herald colleagues – Rosemary Herbert, who was the Herald’s book review editor and garden columnist; food writer Clara Silverstein; and photographer Stephanie Mitchell – will prove otherwise. In a discussion and reading that promises to be unusually lively and varied, they will present the lessons they learned during their deadline-driven news gal days that served them well along their paths to becoming poets. The trio will also treat listeners to readings from a stimulating mix of work from their very different books, all coincidentally published within a year of each other by Finishing Line Press.

Herbert’s Sisters in Time is inspired by her experience unearthing the remains of a young pagan woman during an archeological dig in a fourth-century, Roman-era cemetery in Winchester, England. Silverstein’s Above the Fall Line traces her life beginning with her upbringing in Richmond, Virginia, where she faced challenges wrought by the early death of her father and her experience with school desegregation. Mitchell’s Viewfinder interprets in verse iconic images from the history of photography and her personal family.

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About these writers:

Rosemary Herbert is a writer whose work spans genres. Her poetry and prose are published in The Paris Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Radar Poetry, Harvard Review, The Paddock Review, and elsewhere. She has served as a member of the board of the National Book Critics Circle and reviewed for the New York Times Book Review and other media. Her eight books in the detective fiction genre include the Edgar Award-nominated The Oxford Companion to Crime & Mystery Writing, and A New Omnibus of Crime, and Front Page Teaser: A Liz Higgins Mystery, the latter inspired by her newsroom experience.

Clara Silverstein is the author of the memoir White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation, and the historical novel Secrets in a House Divided. Her additional nonfiction books include The Boston Chef’s Table, and other cookbooks. She teaches at Grub Street has worked as a journalist, historian, and as Program Director of the Chautauqua Writer’s Center. Her poems have appeared in publications including Blackbird, Paterson Literary Review, Baseball Bard, and at Boston City Hall.

Stephanie Blair Mitchell is an award-winning photographer, and Director of Photography at Harvard University. Her photographs have been selected for exhibitions curated by the National Press Photographers Association and the Cambridge Art Association, awarded recognition from the Boston Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year Contest, and have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Time Magazine, Der Spiegel, and elsewhere. Her poetry is published in the Harvard Review Online and The Paddock Review. 

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Appetizers - $25 / person