Dreams for a Broken World reading

The LAVA Center in downtown Greenfield will present a special reading this month to cap LAVA’s month-long focus on local writing and writers.

Five of twenty-four contributors to the newly-released anthology Dreams for a Broken World, representing a range of genres, will share their work addressing questions of what it means to live in a fragmented and uncertain world, and how we find a better way forward. Publishers Weekly reviewed Dreams as “24 impressive stories of healing and rebuilding.”

The local writers featured are:

Céline Keating is the award-winning author of two novels, Layla (2011) and Play for Me (2015), and is the co-editor of anthology On Montauk: A Literary Celebration. Her novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things will be published in October 2023.

Joy Baglio is the founder of Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop. Her fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Tin House, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions and The Missouri Review. Recent honors include fellowships from Yaddo and The Elizabeth George Foundation, among others. Find her online at www.JoyBaglio.com.

Tina Egnoski is the author most recently of the novel Burn Down This World and the story collection You Can Tell Me Anything. Her work, both fiction and poetry, has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Cimarron Review, Evening Street Review, Gris-Gris and Masters Review. She received a 2022 Merit Fellowship in Fiction from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Along with writing, she’s also a papermaker and bookbinder.

Robert V.S. Redick’s 2021 epic fantasy Sidewinders has been called “a brilliant fever dream of a novel that is bound to impress” by Grimdark Magazine and “a breathtaking work” by C.S.E. Cooney. His previous novel, Master Assassins, was a finalist for the 2018 Booknest Award for Best Novel. He is also the author of The Chathrand Voyage Quartet. His short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld and various anthologies. He has taught fiction writing in the Stonecoast (Maine) and University of Nevada MFA Programs.

Jan Maher’s novels Heaven, Indiana and Earth As It Is, and her short story collection The Persistence of Memory and Other Stories have each garnered “Best Of” designation from Kirkus Reviews. Howard Zinn has said of her play Most Dangerous Women that it “both educates and inspires.” She is a co-coordinator of The LAVA Center.

Published by Essential Dreams Press, Dreams for a Broken World will be available for purchase, with all proceeds benefiting The Rosenberg Fund for Children.

The fund is an Easthampton-based nonprofit public foundation that aids children in the U.S. whose parents are targeted progressive activists. Series editor Julie C. Day and guest editor Ellen Meeropol will moderate the event, and Rosenberg Fund for Children executive director Jenn Meeropol will speak briefly.

There will be a short question and answer period at the end. The event is free to the public — purchases to support The Rosenberg Fund and donations to The LAVA Center are appreciated.

Part of Write Nov—> https://localaccess.org/write-nov/