Fiction | Nonfiction | Poetry | Moderators |
Listed in alphabetical order
Kate Bolick is a journalist, essayist, critic, and author of Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own. A Newburyport native, she now lives in New Haven, CT, where she teaches writing at Yale University and is a senior editor of The Yale Review.
Gina Barreca, PhD, is the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Literature at UConn as well as winner of its highest award for teaching. Author of ten books, including the bestselling They Used to Call Me Snow White, but I Drifted: Women’s Strategic Use of Humor, Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in the Ivy League, and It’s Not That I’m Bitter, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World, Gina has also edited 17 collections. You’ve seen her on PBS’s American Masters, heard her on NPR’s This American Life, and delighted in the advice she’s dispensed on the TODAY show, CNN, the BBC, Entertainment Tonight, 48 Hours, and during several appearances on Oprah. You’ve read her in the New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Harvard Business Review and Psychology Today (where her blog has around 8 million views). Her books have been translated into several languages, she has a charming assortment of honorary doctorates, and she can be found in the Library of Congress or the make-up aisle of Walgreens. Feel free to ask her advice about concealer.
C.B. Bernard is the author of two novels—Small Animals Caught in Traps (2023) and Ordinary Bear (2024)—and Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now (2013), a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Travel Pick, Amazon bestseller, and finalist for an Oregon Book Award in nonfiction. He’s written about everything from fly fishing to wolves to maritime piracy. For much of his adult life, he called Alaska and Oregon home, but can now be found on the Rhode Island coast.
A veteran of stage and screen, Peter Berkrot’s career spans four decades. Highlights include feature roles in Caddyshack and Show-time’s Brotherhood, and appearances on America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries. He is a prominent acting coach and a regular VO contributor to the award-winning news program Frontline produced by WGBH in Boston. Peter served as director of narration for the Emmy-nominated The Truth About Cancer. A nominee for a 2025 Audie Award for the Audio Drama THE REAL EDUCATION OF TJ CROWLEY, Peter has voiced close to 700 audiobooks and more than 300 for children, winning 12 Earphones Awards and a solo 2012 Audie Award nomination. He received SOVAS awards in 2018 and 2019. His 2016 Audie Award was as part of a multi cast performance for THE STARLING PROJECT, starring Alfred Molina and was part of the ensemble in the Audible Original THE X-FILES: COLD CASES starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. In 2019 he was honored along with a brilliant cast of actors for THE VAULT OF HORROR, directed by William Dufris with an Independent Audiobook Award for AUDIO DRAMA.
Joshua Bodwell served as the executive director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance for nearly a decade before becoming the editorial director of Godine and Black Sparrow Press, where he acquired and edited work by authors such as Joan Baez, Ann Beattie, Jane Brox, Wanda Coleman, Andre Dubus, Andre Dubus III, Meredith Hall, Nina MacLaughlin, Wesley McNair, Billy O’Callaghan, and Simon Van Booy. Bodwell’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in magazines and quarterlies such as Ambit (London), Fiction Writers Review, Glimmer Train’s Writer’s Ask, Poets & Writers Magazine. Threepenny Review, and Slice. His journalism has garnered awards from the Maine and New England press associations. He was awarded the 2015 Marianne Russo Award from the Key West Literary Seminar.
Mark Cecil is an author, journalist and host of The Thoughtful Bro podcast, for which he conducts interviews with an eclectic roster of Academy-award winning and bestselling storytellers. Formerly a journalist for Reuters, he has also written for LitHub, The Millions, Writer’s Digest, and WBUR’s Cognoscenti, among other publications. His work has been featured on NPR, The Creative Independent, The Washington Post, and more. He is Head of Strategy for A Mighty Blaze and he has taught writing at Grub Street and UCLA. His debut novel BUNYAN AND HENRY, OR, THE BEAUTIFUL DESTINY is out now from Pantheon Books.
Chris Andrew Ciulla will be narrating his 550th title in his audiobook career at the end of March 2025. He just narrated Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride for HarperAudio, written by Will Leitch. Last year, he received two Audie nominations for Best Thriller (Snowstorm in August, Blackstone Audio) and Best Multi-Cast (Star Trek: No Man’s Land, Simon and Schuster Audio). He’s received parts of six Earphones Awards from AudioFile Magazine, a 2022 SOVAS nomination for Best Mystery (No One Will Miss Her, HarperCollins Audio), and an Odyssey Award (Sadie, Macmillan Audio). He is also the founder of Leonardo Audio. Through the strategic use of audiobook production, Leonardo Audio assists IP in achieving the multimedia endgame of TV/film production. Leo Audio also regularly produces audiobooks for Big-5 companies, independent publishers and author/rights-holders. Leonardo Audio has created Nor’easter Publishing as a regional imprint for Boston and greater New England. Its purpose is to cater to regional authors with nuance and specificity. We also develop local narration talent and engineering/post-production teams to best support a pipeline of New England-based audiobook titles.
Nancy Crochiere’s debut novel, Graceland (Avon/HarperCollins, 2023) was an Amazon Kindle bestseller and named a top summer read by Parade, Woman’s World, and Deep South Magazines. Prior to writing fiction, Nancy was a family-humor columnist for the Newburyport Daily News and the North Andover Eagle-Tribune and collected her essays into the book The Mother Load. With her children now grown, Nancy lives north of Boston with her husband and some houseplants that could use more attention. You can learn all her secrets at www.nancycrochiere.com.
Owen Grey is a poet, editor, and graduate student in counseling. He has been a member of the Powow River Poets since 2012. He organized their celebration of Jane Kenyon in 2022, and he was one of their featured readers in 2023. He has hosted Breakfast with the Poets in 2023 and 2024, and he is thrilled to be hosting in 2025. You can find his poems in The Powow River Poets Anthology II. He lives in central Massachusetts. Powow member page.
Connie Johnson Hambley‘s short stories appear in the Anthony Award-winning Mystery Writers of America’s anthology, Crime Hits Home as well as Mystery Magazine, and several Best New England Crime Stories. Her writing also appears in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Financial Advisor, and Nature. Connie is an active and supportive member of the crime-writing community in New England, as well as being a passionate fan of crime and tries to keep it in the fictional realm. Learn more about Connie’s award-winning novels – where family secrets link a world-class equestrian to a Boston-based terrorist cell – at www.conniejohnsonhambley.com and follow her on Facebook.
Timely Topics in Apocalyptic Fiction — Sunday 12 PMLiberty Hardy has worked as a Hollywood book scout, a Book of the Month judge, an indie bookseller, and more. She presently works as a senior contributing editor for Book Riot and is co-host of the popular All the Books! podcast. Liberty reads over 600 books a year and lives in the great state of Maine with her husband and three cats, who hate to read.
Hannah Harlow is co-owner of the Book Shop of Beverly Farms in Beverly, Mass. She’s also a recovering publishing industry veteran and writer whose work has appeared in WBUR’s Cognoscenti, Cleaver Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, and in a biweekly books column for The Manchester Cricket.
Drew is a life-long tennis player and reader/writer. He currently runs All Court Enrichment (ACE), allcourtenrichment.org, an organization that provides tennis and writing programs to youth in Cambridge, Somerville, and Medford.
Women and Myth: Retelling the World’s Oldest Stories From the Feminist Perspective — Sunday 10:30 AM
Erik Hoel is an essayist, fiction writer, and scientist who grew up in his mother’s independent bookstore, The Jabberwocky Bookshop. He later received his PhD in neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently a research assistant professor at Tufts University. Previously he was a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science, as well as a New York City Emerging Writers Fellow. He is the author of the novel The Revelations and the non-fiction book, The World Behind the World. Erik writes a popular Substack, The Intrinsic Perspective, and lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
Dr. Toussaint Losier is an Associate Professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies and serves as the director of the Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC) Program, both at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History and a Woodrow Wilson National Foundation Career Enhancement Fellow. He is co-author of Rethinking the American Prison Movement (Routledge, 2017) with Dan Berger and is completing a book manuscript tentatively titled, War for the City: Black Liberation, Street Organizations, and the Consolidation of the Carceral State (University of North Carolina Press, 2026). He previously co-taught a Black Studies class for two years at the South Bay House of Corrections and taught for six years in the St. Leonard’s Adult High School providing a fully accredited secondary education for formerly incarcerated women and men in Chicago.
Bob Moore has been writing poetry since the early 1990s. He’s released three books of poetry, his latest Body and Soul (Beech River Books, 2018). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Lyric, Honey Guide Magazine, Quill and Parchment, Teach. Write., and Piscataqua Poems 2 A Second Seacoast Anthology (Piscataqua Press). Moore has been a member of the Powow River Poets since 2008. He is co-editor of the poetry and art magazine, The Lit FUUSE. He is also the host of The First Friday Coffeehouse held monthly at the Exeter Unitarian Universalist Church. Moore has lived with his spouse in New Hampshire since 1984 and is a retired science teacher. Powow member page. Author, photography website.
Chicago-born Peter Orner is the author of two novels published by Little, Brown: The Second Coming Of Mavala Shikongo (2006) and Love And Shame And Love (2010), and three story collections also published by Little, Brown: Esther Stories (2001, 2013 with a foreword by Marilynne Robinson) Last Car Over The Sagamore Bridge (2013), and Maggie Brown & Others (2019). His essay collection/ memoir, Am I Alone Here?: Notes On Reading To Live And Living To Read (Catapult, 2016) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Orner is also the editor of three non-fiction books/oral histories for the Voice of Witness Series: Underground America: Narratives Of Undocumented Lives (VOW/ McSweeney’s, 2008), Hope Deferred: Narratives Of Zimbabwean Lives (VOW/ McSweeney’s, 2011) (co-edited with Annie Holmes), and Lavil: Live, Love And Death In Port-Au-Prince (VOW/ Verso Press, 2017; co-edited with Evan Lyon). Orner’s work has been translated into French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and Japanese. Orner holds the Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College, and lives with his family in Norwich and is a former honoree of the Newburyport Literary Festival.
José Edmundo Ocampo Reyes was born and raised in the Philippines. He is the author of Present Values (Backbone Press, 2018), winner of the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. His poems have appeared in Bennington Review, Poetry Northwest, Memorious, and Scoundrel Time; and have been featured on The Slowdown. Powow member page.
Holly Robinson is a novelist, journalist, and ghostwriter. As a ghostwriter, she has published fourteen nonfiction books with major publishers such as St. Martin’s, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin Random House. Under her name, she has published a memoir, five novels with Penguin Random House, and articles, essays, and humor columns in national publications. Holly holds a B.A. in biology and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Read more about Holly and her work at www.authorhollyrobinson.com.
Priscilla Turner Spada, the Festival’s Day of Poetry Book Table Manager since 2022, is a Powow River Poet, and a co-organizer, host and book-sales manager for the Powow reading series. She read from her chapbook Light in Unopened Windows (Finishing Line Press) at the 2024 Newburyport Literary Festival. Her poetry appears regularly in Ibbetson Street, Quill & Parchment, and in several anthologies: Merrimac Mic; Word Play (with artwork); and What is Home? (Portsmouth, NH Poet Laureate Project). Also an artist—having won prizes for ekphrastic poetry—she trained at the Museum School, Boston, MA. She’s had a glass bead / jewelry making business for over 20 years, with work seen in Lark Books, etc. She lives in Newburyport, MA. Powow member page.
A native New Yorker, Deborah Szabo attended the High School of Music and Art, where she dreamed of becoming Joan Baez. Instead, she became a high school English teacher in the Boston Public Schools during the turbulent ’70s. Since landing at Newburyport High School in 1982, Deborah continues to teach, coach the prize-winning NHS slam team, cook Poetry Soup, and curate an annual community Favorite Poem Project. After half a century of teaching, she still gets a thrill watching students discover the beauty of poetry.
Alli Tervo is a multidisciplinary poet, artivist, and body liberationist. Her poetry has been featured by GBH Media, displayed at Boston City Hall, and published in Palette Poetry, the Yellow Arrow Journal, and elsewhere. She believes that language is a radical method of love and healing, and hopes to remain forever inspired to capture the poetry of her life. She is abundantly grateful for the artists around her and their unceasing ability to motivate her. She has two cats with outrageously funny names and dares you to ask what they are. When she’s not writing, she can be found painting or seeing how sharp she can get her eyeliner wings.
Paulette Demers Turco is honored to serve as Program Moderator for the Festival’s Day of Poetry. Her second book, Shimmer, an ekphrastic poetry collection (Kelsay Books, 2023) pairs her art and poetry. A Powow River Poet, is a co-organizer and host for the Powow reading series, and editor of The Powow River Poets Anthology II (Able Muse Press, 2021). Her poems appear in The Lyric, Ibbetson Street, Mezzo Cammin, The Poetry Porch, Loch Raven Review, Quill & Parchment, and others. Awards include nomination for a Pushcart Prize and the Robert Frost Poetry Award. Born and raised in RI, she enjoys retirement in Newburyport following her career in optometry in academic settings. Powow member page.
Steve Yarbrough is the author of twelve books, most recently the novel Stay Gone Days. He has won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, the California Book Award and the Massachusetts Book Award, the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, and the Robert Penn Warren Award. He has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.
The Gateless Workshop: A Creative, Critic-Free Approach to Writing & Craft — Sunday 9:30 – 11 AMJill Oestreicher Gross is a native New Yorker who moved to Newburyport almost 20 years ago. She is a freelance writer and publicist who earned a master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and has written for publications including Reuters, Newburyport Magazine, and several healthcare trade publications.
Meg Mitchell Moore is the USA Today bestselling author of eight novels. She is not a native of Newburyport but she’s lived here longer than she’s lived anywhere else so she has adopted it as her hometown. She has an undergraduate degree from Providence College (go Friars) and a master’s degree in English Literature from New York University. She loves writing, reading, and running on the North Shore and spending time with/attempting to rein in the chaos of her husband, their three teen and young adult daughters, and two exuberantly shedding golden retrievers.
Literary Festival Poetry Program Co-Host, Moderator, and Planner
Zara Raab’s most recent book is a new edition of Swimming the Eel. Her poems appear in Arts & Letters, Nimrod, The Dark Horse, River Styx, The Hudson Review, Verse Daily, New Verse News, and Stand (UK). Her literary reviews have appeared in Poet Lore, Poetry Flash, Raven Chronicles, and elsewhere. Having grown up north of San Francisco, where her great-great grandparents settled, she earned degrees from Mills College, University of Michigan, and Lesley University, and eventually settled on the East Coast, north of Boston. She is a Powow River Poet living in a tiny house on Powow Street in Amesbury. Photo credit: Lee Perlman.