Listed in alphabetical order
Fiction | Nonfiction | Poetry | Moderators |
Gina Barreca, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Connecticut, is the author of the bestselling They Used to Call Me Snow White but I Drifted, as well as ten others books, including 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. In 2025, Publishers Weekly described her latest, Gina School as a “witty, wise, sometimes sharp-elbowed guide to living life right.” Gina is the founder and editor of the Fast Women series of flash nonfiction collections published by Woodhall Press.
Nicole Beckley is a writer and performer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Pacifica Review, Jabberwock Review, New Limestone Review, McSweeney’s, Tribeza, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Stanford University.
Ron Borges covered boxing, pro football, golf, baseball, hockey, and four Olympic Games for 25 years at the Boston Globe. He then became the lead sports columnist at the Boston Herald, where he also continued to cover prize fighting, as well as other sports. He has been named Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year five times, was selected one of America’s top 10 sports columnists by the Associated Press Sports Editors multiple times and his work has been anthologized in ‘Best Sports Stories’’ more than a dozen times. He is the author of “Present At The Creation’’ the autobiography of Upton Bell, son of legendary NFL commissioner Bert Belland a long-time NFL executive and “Fighting For Survival,” the autobiography of Christy Martin, boxing’s greatest female fighter. The latter was turned into the movie “Christy,” in 2025. An anthology of his collected writings on boxing titled “Punch Lines” will be published later this year. He was awarded the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism in 1993. On June 13, 2022 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Betty Cayouette is an author and the creator of the viral social media account @bettysbooklist. She graduated from Brandeis University in 2019 and lives in Salem, Massachusetts. One Last Shot was Betty’s debut novel, published in 2024 and followed by her sophomore novel, Tell Me How You Really Feel, in 2025. I Kissed Her First is her third novel.
Nancy Crochiere’s debut novel, Graceland (2023), was named a top summer read by Parade, Woman’s World, and Deep South magazine. Prior to writing fiction, Nancy was a family-humor columnist for two Massachusetts newspapers, was named Humor Writer of the Month by the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop, and collected her best-loved columns in The Mother Load. She lives north of Boston and occasionally acts as an extra in movies and TV shows; however, rumors that she once stalked Bradley Cooper are largely unfounded. You can learn more at www.nancycrochiere.com.
Elizabeth de Veer is the author of the 2021 novel The Ocean in Winter. Her second novel, The Blazekeeper of Bowmore House is a retelling of the classic Cinderella story in which the main character finds a letter her mother wrote while dying, divulging a royal heritage and a formative friendship with Cinderella’s stepmother. de Veer has a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and has been admitted to writing residencies at the Jentel Artist Residency, the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is a member of several writing groups, including Grub Street Writers’ Collective of Boston and the Newburyport Writers’ Group. She lives in Georgetown, Massachusetts.
Owen Grey is a poet and editor and is close to completing his graduate degree in counseling. A member of the Powow River Poets since 2012, he organized their celebration of Jane Kenyon in 2022, and he was a featured reader in the Powow Monthly Reading Series in 2023. He has hosted the Festival’s Breakfast with the Poets since 2023 and is looking forward to moderating again in 2026. His poems appear in The Powow River Poets Anthology II. He lives in Central Massachusetts.
Powow member page.
Liberty Hardy has worked as an indie bookseller, a judge for Book of the Month, and a Hollywood book scout. Currently she is a senior contributing editor for Book Riot, the co-host of the popular All the Books! podcast, and curator of the What’s My Page Again? newsletter. Liberty spends her days in the great state of Maine, where she reads over six hundred books a year and lives with her husband and her cats (who hate to read).
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.
Alexandra Jacobs is a book critic for The New York Times and the author of Still Here: The Madcap, Nervy, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch.
Susan Keatley has a PhD in chemistry and has written about scientists, computational biology, cancer, and science education among other topics for The New York Times, the Simons Foundation, and the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Formerly a high school science teacher, she created and hosts the Science Fare podcast, which connects specific classroom concepts to what real scientists do. She has been a moderator at the Newburyport Literary Festival and created the Manor Mill Prose Night author reading and open mic series in Monkton, Maryland. She writes fiction and is hopeful for her first novel which is on submission.
Sara Nelson is Senior Vice President, Executive Editor at Harper, the flagship imprint of HarperCollins. She has been the editor in chief of Publishers Weekly and the Editorial Director for Books at Amazon.com.
Alfred Nicol’s latest book of poems, After the Carnival, was published by Wiseblood Books in March 2025. He has published three other collections: Animal Psalms (Able Muse Press, 2016), Elegy for Everyone (Prospero’s World Press, 2010) and Winter Light (University of Evansville Press, 2004), winner of the 2004 Richard Wilbur Award. He has collaborated with Rhina P. Espaillat and artist Kate Sullivan to create the chapbook Brief Accident of Light (Kelsay Books, 2019), and with his sister, the artist Elise Nicol, to create Second Hand Second Mind (Blurb, 2011). Nicol also edited The Powow River Anthology (Ocean Press, 2006). His poems have been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2018, Contemporary Poetry of New England, and in Sonnets: 150 Contemporary Sonnets, and have appeared in Poetry, Commonweal, The Hopkins Review, The Dark Horse, New England Review, The Montreal Review, First Things, America, and The Formalist. Powow Member Page.
Zara Raab’s most recent book is a new edition of Swimming the Eel. Her poems appear in The Hudson Review, Verse Daily, Stand (UK), and elsewhere. A Powow River Poet, she lives in Amesbury. 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). She is also an artist—she trained at the Museum School, Boston, Massachusetts—and has won prizes for ekphrastic poetry. She’s had a glass bead/jewelry making business for over 20 years, with work seen in Lark Books, etc. She lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Powow member page.
Genre Fluid: Writing for YA Audiences vs. Writing for Adults — Sunday 2:15 PMAlli Tervo is a multidisciplinary poet and artivist. 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 is a 2025 recipient of a Fine Arts Work Center Scholarship, funded by the City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture. She believes that language is a radical method of love and healing and is deeply inspired by the artists around her.
A Powow River Poet and editor of The Powow River Poets Anthology II (Able Muse Press, 2021), co-organizes and hosts Powow monthly readings. Her second book, Shimmer, an ekphrastic poetry collection (Kelsay Books, 2023) pairs her art and poetry. Her poems appear in The Lyric, Ibbetson Street, Mezzo Cammin, The Poetry Porch, Loch Raven Review, Quill & Parchment, Pulsebeat, and several anthologies. Awards include the Robert Frost Poetry Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination. Born and raised in Rhode Island, she lives in Newburyport after forty years in academic and clinical optometry. Powow member page.
Deborah Warren’s poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, and The Yale Review. Her most recent book of poetry is Connoisseurs of Worms, (Paul Dry Books, 2021). Previous books include Ausonius: Moselle, Epigrams, and Other Poems (Routledge, 2017, translation); The Size of Happiness (Waywiser Press, 2003); Zero Meridian (Ivan R. Dee, 2004, New Criterion Poetry Prize); Dream with Flowers and Bowl of Fruit (Evansville, 2008, winner of the Richard Wilbur Award). She has been the recipient of the Meringoff Prize, the Robert Frost Award, the Robert Penn Warren Prize, and the Howard Nemerov Award. Her nonfiction work includes Strange to Say: Etymology for Serious Entertainment (Paul Dry, 2021); Weird Facts About Famous Figures (Skyhorse, 2024); and Street Smarts: From Footpath to Freeway (Paul Dry, 2026). Powow member page.
Steve Yarbrough, a Mississippi native, is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novels Stay Gone Days and The Unmade World. He is professor emeritus at Emerson College.