Genesee Reading Series: Bill Pruitt & Charles Banks

Now in its 36th year, the Genesee Reading Series is a smorgasbord for your literary palate. Come every month on the second Tuesday, and by the end of the year, you will have feasted on the work of 24 regional authors (some prominent, some emerging; writers of fiction, poetry, essay, creative nonfiction, memoir). It’s up close and personal in the intimate Performance Space upstairs. Stay afterwards and talk to the authors while eating cookies. $3 for members, $6 for the general public.

Charles “SeaBe” Banks has been writing full time since 2008.  His book, My First Poetry Book, is available through Amazon . His specialty is burlesque and ekphrastic poetry. His work can be found on Facebook and other social media sites. Work also appears found in “A Flash of Dark,” Poetry & Flash Fiction – An Afro-Futurism Anthology ( Scott Williams, Editor). He is often seen at poetry reading events throughout Rochester.

Bill Pruitt has been a construction laborer, a librarian, a physical therapy courier, a loading dock receiver, a manager in a natural foods collective, a teacher of English to non-native speakers and an assistant editor for Narrative Magazine. He started writing poetry after graduating from college, and fiction in earnest after retiring from teaching. His poems have been published in Ploughshares, Country Journal, Blueline, Cottonwood and Poetry Now, two chapbooks from White Pine and FootHills Press, and the self-published Walking Home from the Eastman House. He has taught storytelling and performed traditional and original tales at hundreds of libraries, schools and other institutions. Most recently he performed his original and completely documented story about the intertwining lives of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, “Two Kinds of Fear” at such places as Rundel Library as part of its Rich History series, Brighton Library, Greece Historical Society, the YWCA on Bittner Street and the Charlotte Perkins mansion. Since retiring from teaching he has published short stories in Hypertext, Crack the Spine, Indiana Voice Journal, Midway Journal, Adelaide Literary Magazine and Oyster River Pages. With his wife, Pam, he has a daughter, Cedar, a son, Elliott, and two grandchildren.