The Hudson Valley Writers Guild announces a reading by three local writers in its “Community of Writers” series. The reading by journalist Steve Barnes, poet/activist Nancy Klepsch & novelist Tom Swyers will be on Sunday, March 26, 2017 from 2:00PM to 4:00PM at the Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Ave., Albany, NY, 2nd floor Community Room. The reading is free & open to the public.
Steve Barnes is senior writer and restaurant columnist for the Albany Times Union, where he has worked for more than 20 years. In addition to covering local restaurants and the arts, he was commissioned by “The Colbert Report” to review a strip club from an aesthetic perspective, and he was once booed by an arenaful of people after Billy Joel mentioned him by name from the stage. His Table Hopping blog, the most popular individually authored blog on timesunion.com, draws more than 400,000 readers per month. A proud resident of downtown Albany, where a cannon fired down Pearl Street after 5 p.m. would now actually kill someone, he has taught journalism at the University at Albany for the past 11 years.
Nancy Klepsch is a teacher, poet, and community activist. She just recently finished leading a project called Breathing these Words to provide pop-up poetry readings and workshops to youth and seniors and to create poetry walks around the topic of vacant buildings through Breathing Lights. Her poems have been published in The Altar Collective, Sinister Wisdom, Oberon, 13th Moon and Chronogram among others, and online on Barzakh and AlbanyPoets.com. She is the co-host, with Dan Wilcox, of the Second Sunday @ 2 open mic for poetry and prose in Troy, NY, where she lives, and one of the founders of Riverside Community Press.
Tom Swyers studied creative writing at the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College. He is an attorney, New York State judge, and an award-winning author. His debut novel, Saving Babe Ruth, was a 2015 recipient of two Benjamin Franklin Book Awards for “Best First Book, Fiction” (first place) and “Best Popular Fiction” (second place). This spring he plans to release his second novel: a legal thriller entitled The Killdeer Connection. It is set in Albany and its surroundings as well as in North Dakota. He grew up in Niskayuna and lives there with his family today.
For more information about this event contact Dan Wilcox: dwlcx@earthlink.net; 518-482-0262.
About the Hudson Valley Writers Guild
The Hudson Valley Writers Guild, founded in 1983, is a non-profit membership organization of and for writers throughout the region. The Guild serves as an information clearinghouse for the local writing community, and furthers writing and reading in the region through its public programs, peer workshops, and special member benefits. For more information, go to www.hvwg.org.
