New Year’s Words: A New Paltz Readers Forum

Next Year’s Words: A New Paltz Literary Forum
Contact: Susan Chute, curator and host
readandlisten@npnextyearswords.org
917.446.0993

POWERFUL POETS WILL PRESENT AT THE FINAL PROGRAM OF OUR 10TH SEASON ON JUNE 12TH!

Join us for the final program of our 10th season at Next Year’s Words, a New Paltz Literary Forum, on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, at 7:30 at Elting Memorial Library, 93 Main Street, New Paltz, New York 12561. We anticipate a wonderful celebration of the written word with our skilled poets.

The featured readers for this literary celebration at the library are Patrick Donnelly, Mary Makofske, and, sharing the 3rd spot together, Tana Miller and Jan Zlotnik Schmidt. There will also be an open mic. We always look forward to hearing your words.

The forum is free of charge, and all are welcome in person or via Zoom. If you are attending via zoom, register at https://cutt.ly/NYW-June-2024. (No need to register if you are attending in person.)

Patrick Donnelly is the author of five books of poetry: Willow Hammer (2025), Little-Known Operas (2019), Jesus Said (2017), Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (2012, a Lambda Literary Award finalist), and The Charge (2003). He is program director of The Frost Place (Robert Frost’s homestead in Franconia, NH), and its annual online Poetry Seminar. He has taught at Smith College, Colby College, the Lesley University MFA Program, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. His poems appear in American Poetry Review, Slate, Ploughshares, TheYale Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, and more. With his spouse Stephen D. Miller, Donnelly translates classical Japanese poetry and drama, and their translations have been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies.

Mary Makofske is the author of six books of poetry. Her most recent volues are: No Angels (Kelsay, 2023, nominated for the Eric Hoffer Award); The Gambler’s Daughter (chapbook, 2022); World Enough and Time (2017); and Traction (2011), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize. Her poems have appeared in 75 journals and 21 anthologies and have received first place prizes in Atlanta Review, New Millennium Writings, Littoral Press Broadside Contest, Lullwater Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Quiet Diamonds, The Ledge, and Cumberland Poetry Review, and the Hudson-Fowler Prize for a five-poem submission in Slant.

Tana Miller and Jan Zlotnik Schmidt are publishing a book of poems about Joseph Cornell, Joseph Cornell: The Man Who Loved Sparrows (forthcoming this summer from Kelsay Books), and will read poems from that volume, along with other poems. During a thirty-year teaching career, Tana Miller has authored language arts curriculum guides, co-founded and facilitated a grade 5-8 annual literary magazine, and presented whole language workshops in Hudson Valley schools and at the New York State Reading Conference. Her poetry has been published in several feminist journals and anthologized in A Slant of Light (2013), An Apple in Her Hand (co-author, 2018), and Rethinking the Ground Rules (co-author, 2022). Jan Zlotnik Schmidt is a Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita at SUNY New Paltz in the Department of English. Her work has been published in many journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Kansas Quarterly, Memoir (and), Vassar Review, and Westchester Review. Two volumes of her poetry were published by Edwin Mellen Press (We Speak in Tongues, 1991; She had this memory, 2000). Other poetry books include Foraging for Light (2019) and a chapbook about the life of Bess Houdini, Over the Moon Gone:The Vanishing Act of Bess Houdini (2024).