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Stephen J. West

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

In his debut Soft-Boiled: An Investigation Of Masculinity and the Writer's Life, Stephen J. West seamlessly weaves together personal experiences, studies of detective thrillers, and critical texts on masculinity to offer an honest and moving journey towards self-discovery. Thought-provoking and lyrical, Soft-Boiled poses essential questions: What are the implications of creating art based on another […]

Free – $20

Chen Chen

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Chen Chen will be in conversation with author and poet Peter Conners, Publisher and Executive Director of BOA Editions. Portrait by Margarita Corporan In his highly anticipated second collection of poems, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency, Chen Chen continues his investigation of family, both blood and chosen, examining what one inherits and what […]

Free

Artist in Residence | Gallery Talk with Ellen Driscoll

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Behind the Curtain: View Eyechart, then join us for artist Ellen Driscoll’s talk on her creative process. Admission is free. Gift donations are appreciated. The gallery talk will also be streamed via Zoom. The link will be in your email confirmation. Choose the ticket price that’s right for you: Free, $5, $10, $15 or $20

Free – $20

Jason Mott: Second Saturday Book Club Conversation

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Hell of a Book “Hell of a Book teetertotters real life and fiction in a dizzying yet dazzling exploration of exploration itself. Jason Mott brings much of what he's known for and a lot of what we do not expect to this inventive offering.”—Kiese Laymon This is an in-person event at 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY.  Masks […]

Free

David B. Seaburn

W&B Online Class Rochester, United States

What contributes to a writer’s voice? How is it different from a character’s voice? How does one create characters’ voices that are as real as one’s own? Photographer and writer Wright Morris said, “Voice is the presence of what is most personal to the writer. Through voice, the writer is invisibly omnipresent.” This workshop will […]

$40

Cynthia Dewi Oka

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Cynthia Dewi Oka will be in conversation with author and poet Peter Conners, Publisher and Executive Director of BOA Editions. In her fourth poetry collection, Cynthia Dewi Oka performs a lyric accounting of the anti-Communist genocide of 1965, which, led by the Indonesian military and with American assistance, erased and devastated millions of lives in […]

Free

Cyrus Cassells

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

In the aftermath of the Stand Your Ground killing of his close friend’s father, Cassells explores the brutality, bigotry, and betrayal at the heart of current America. Taking his cue from Civil Rights- and Vietnam War-era poets and songwriters who inspired him in his youth, he presents a frank, bulletin-fierce indictment of unraveling democracy in […]

Free – $20

Valerie Dimino

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

In The Man Behind the Curtain: A Memoir (Possibilities Press, 2022), Jessica Renee with co-author Valerie Dimino tells her story of rape and sexual assault by her step-father starting at the age of 11. Only when she was 15 and her boyfriend asked the right questions did the truth come to light—a terrible truth that […]

Free – $20

Reading, Q & A, Book Signing

Penfield Public Library 1985 Baird Road, Penfield, NY, United States

Sponsored by The Penfield Public Library & The Friends of the Penfield Public Library Penfield Public Library, 1985 Baird Road, Penfield, NY 14526 (also live streamed) Free Admission | ASL Interpretation In-person event registration: Call 585. 340.8720 or visit penfield.org/library Live-streamed event starting at 6:55 pm:  Roku:Search for "Penfield TV" in your app store AppleTV: Search […]

Reading, Q & A, Book Signing

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County 115 South Ave., Rochester, NY, United States

Sponsored by Friends & Foundation of the Rochester Public Library Central Library of Rochester & Monroe County Kate Gleason Auditorium 115 South Avenue, Rochester, NY 14604 Free Admission | ASL Interpretation Register at Library here. Can't attend in person? Watch the live stream, posted to the Library's YouTube Channel The video will remain posted and […]

Reading, Facilitated Conversation, Book Signing

St. John Fisher University 3690 East Ave, Pittsford, NY, United States

Sponsored by St. John Fisher University St. John Fisher University Kearney Hall, Cleary Family Auditorium 3690 East Avenue Rochester, NY 14618 In-person | Registration required | ASL Interpretation Doors open at 7 pm Click for larger image     Parking: Lot A via main campus entrance See #16 on campus map Kearney Hall is up […]

Free – $20

Reception and Priority Seating at Keynote

The Strong National Museum of Play 1 Manhattan Square Dr, Rochester, NY, United States

Hosted by The Strong National Museum of Play The Strong National Museum of Play Central Lobby One Manhattan Square Rochester, NY 14607   Registration required   Click map for a larger image All guests must enter the museum through The Strong’s Howell Street entrance. While under construction, The Strong and its access roads may not appear accurately […]

$125

Author’s Keynote and Book Signing

The Strong National Museum of Play 1 Manhattan Square Dr, Rochester, NY, United States

Hosted by The Strong National Museum of Play The Strong National Museum of Play Paychex Theater One Manhattan Square, Rochester, NY Doors open at 7 pm | ASL Interpreted This event will also be live streamed via Zoom. Register for the streamed event here. Click map for a larger image     All guests must enter […]

Free – $20

Artist in Residence | Poetry Reading with Kathy Engel

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Kathy Engel reads new work and selected pieces from Eyechart. Admission is free. Gift donations are appreciated.   Choose the ticket price that’s right for you: Free, $5, $10, $15 or $20

Free – $20

Matt Donovan

Writers & Books Online 740 University Ave, Rochester, NY, United States

Matt Donovan will be in conversation with author and poet Peter Conners, Publisher and Executive Director of BOA Editions. The Dug-Up Gun Museum confronts our country’s obsession with guns to explore America’s deep-seated political divisions and issues linked to violence, race, power, and privilege. Taking its title from an actual museum located in Wyoming, this […]

Free

Tyrese L. Coleman

W&B Online Class Rochester, United States

Flash fiction and flash nonfiction are highly popular yet sometimes misunderstood genres. A common misconception is that flash is easy to write because it is short (1,000 words or fewer). But creating a successful piece of flash requires effort and practice. This workshop introduces you to what makes flash work as narrative– the form and […]

$40

Clifford Thompson: Conversation – POSTPONED

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues November 12 @ EST 11:00 am - 12:00 pm When Donald Trump ascends to the presidency, Thompson finds himself questioning his most deeply held convictions. In the grip of contradictory emotions, he turns for guidance to the wisdom of writers he admires while knowing that the answers to his questions about America […]

Free

Craig Morgan Teicher

Writers & Books Online 740 University Ave, Rochester, NY, United States

Craig Morgan Teicher will be in conversation with author and poet Peter Conners, Publisher and Executive Director of BOA Editions. A seminal voice in American prose poetry from the sixties onward, Russell Edson’s (1935-2014) career is surveyed in a single volume edited for our times, presenting a new and contemporary view of a poet of […]

Free

Poetry Workshop: Getting Unstuck

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Writer’s Block: Is there such a thing? William Stafford’s solution: Ignore "high standards" and "get into action." Exercising our writing muscles every day can help prepare us for when the big poem needs to be born. In this workshop we’ll explore this and other ways to move through fear and the doldrums. Criticism—especially from the […]

$40

Luther Hughes

Writers & Books Online 740 University Ave, Rochester, NY, United States

Luther Hughes will be in conversation with author and poet Peter Conners, Publisher and Executive Director of BOA Editions. A Shiver in the Leaves is stunningly cinematic in its layered portrayal of the never-ending dualities of a queer Black poet’s life in the city. Hughes's interrogation of selfhood renders a sharply intimate and viscerally powerful […]

Free

Carley Moore

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Carley Moore will be in conversation with Sejal Shah. It’s early summer in New York City, 2020. The city is largely shut down, and Orpheus—our queer, disabled, poly hero—is lonely, devoid of touch and community. Orpheus manages to buy a bike just before they sell out and takes to the streets looking for Eurydice, the […]

Free – $20

Test: Woo Commerce-Scholarship Integration

Virtual Classroom NY, United States

We live to create at Write On. The heart of this virtual class for teens is a weekly workshop of student writing, in which every participant feels encouraged and supported by the group while receiving constructive suggestions for growth. Short lessons connect current student work to relevant published writing, classical literary structures, and mechanics. Classes […]

$225

Nishant Batsha

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Nishant Batsha will be in conversation with Joshua Dubler Spanning from the lush terrain of the South Pacific to the golden hills of San Francisco, Mother Ocean Father Nation is an entrancing debut about how one family, at the mercy of a nation broken by legacies of power and oppression, forges a path to find […]

Free – $20

MJ Iuppa: The Weight of Air

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

 “A new book by M.J. Iuppa is always a treat, and The Weight of Air is one of her finest. . .these exquisitely crafted, concise poems are full of quiet surprises and keen observations. Both the pandemic and the author’s own health crisis contribute to the book’s twin emphases on mortality and on nature’s bounty.” […]

Free – $20

Elizabeth Everett: A Love by Design

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Elizabeth Everett will be in conversation with Lauren Accardo. A Love by Design is the final installment in the Secret Scientists of London series. You couldn’t design a better hero than the very eligible and extremely charming Earl Grantham. Unless, of course, you are Margaret Gault, who wants nothing to do with the man who […]

Free – $20

David Seaburn: Give Me Shelter

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

In Seaburn’s most recent novel, the dual challenges of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the unexplained loss of parents are the driving forces behind the lives of two boys and their grandfather. Over time, intergenerational connections between family members and friends create the shelter the book’s characters need for their common journey. This is […]

Free – $20

THEE Legacy: Honoring the Living

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

A program of Flower City Noire Collective, Inc. Black Femme Book Week, Day 2  February 16 @ EST 4:00 pm - 8:00 pm     All events are free, but donations to Flower City Noire are welcome. Location: Writers & Books, 740 University Ave., Rochester, NY Eldridge McClaney: Reading & Presentation @ 4 - 4:45 pm […]

Free
Recurring

I Hear a Story, a Song, a Shout : Black History Month Story Series

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Tell me a fact, and I may learn something. Tell me a truth, and I might believe. Tell me a theory and I’ll see if it works. Tell me a story, and it may live in my heart forever. --East Indian Proverb Join Storyteller-in-Residence Almeta Whitis and percussionist Steve Imburgia for celebratory, family-friendly storytelling and […]

Free – $20

Alicia Puglionesi

Writers & Books Online 740 University Ave, Rochester, NY, United States

Popular narratives of American history conceal as much as they reveal. In Whose Ruins tells another story: winding through the US landscape, from Native American earthworks in West Virginia to the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, this history is a tour of sites that were mined for an empire’s power. Showing the hidden costs of ruthless […]

Free – $20

Gabrielle Civil: The Déjà Vu: Black Dreams & Black Time

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Emerging from the intersection of pandemic and uprising, the déjà vu activates forms both new and ancestral, drawing movement, speech, and lyric essay into performance memoir. As Civil considers Haitian tourist paintings, dance rituals, race at the movies, black feminist legacies, and more, she reflects on her personal losses and desires, speculates on black time, […]

Free – $20

Unlearning Racism

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Join authors Bill Wynne and John Strazzabosco for a guided discussion of racial biases and the harms they cause. Bill Wynne is a first-time author and greater Rochester-based white antiracist activist. The experiential insights in his memoir Understanding and Combating Racism: My Path from Oblivious American to Evolving Activist are premised on the human networks […]

Free – $20

Alicia Mountain: Four in Hand

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Comprised of four heroic crowns of sonnets, Alicia Mountain’s Four in Hand is both formal and experimental, ranging from lyric romantic and familial narratives to blank verses of reconfigured found text pulled from financial newsletter emails. Language and white space equally captivate with their sparsity and abundance as Mountain pursues the implications of national political […]

Free

Margaret Ray: Good Grief, the Ground

Selected by Stephanie Burt as the winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize, Good Grief, the Ground interrogates the everyday violences nonchalantly inflicted onto women through personal, political, and national lenses. Moving between adolescence and adulthood, Ray alternates between dark humor and heart-wrenching honesty to explore grief, anxiety, queer longing, girlhood, escape from the […]

Free

Stephen Schottenfeld: This Room Is Made of Noise

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

In this quietly mesmerizing novel, no one, including the protagonist, is ever entirely sure of their motivations. Existing in the liminal spaces between altruism and greed, This Room Is Made of Noise deftly explores the shades of gray that lie between our desires and our demons. “Everything you want in a novel: exquisitely imagined, big-hearted, […]

Free – $20

Jessica Q. Stark: Buffalo Girl

Told through personal, national, and cultural histories, Buffalo Girl is a feminist indictment of the violence used to define and control women’s bodies. Interspersed throughout this hybrid work are a series of collaged photographs featuring Stark’s mother’s black-and-white photography from Vietnam, beautifully and hauntingly layered over various natural landscapes—lush tropical plants, dense forests, pockets of […]

Free

Ravi Mangla Fiction Workshop: The Sentence as an Event

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

What makes a powerful sentence? How do you write sentences that worm their way into the ear and propel the reader forward? In this workshop, we'll analyze the anatomy of compelling sentences by looking at a range of authors, including Christine Schutt, Michael Ondaatje, and Jamaica Kincaid. You will have time and opportunity to practice […]

$40

Christopher and Jessica Ottnod: Lumo’s Wish

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Join Christopher and Jessica Ottnod as they read from and discuss the road to publishing their first children’s book, Lumo’s Wish, described as “a lush, atmospheric picture book” focused on the joy of self-discovery. Learn about Christopher’s background in illustration and Jessica’s experience in the book publishing industry, and how their combined skills led to […]

Free – $20

Mahtem Shiferraw: Nomenclatures of Invisibility

Shiferraw calls us to carve out space for the multitudes of selves we carry when we migrate across boundaries of body, language, and land. With momentum, giving name to everything in her path from the longing that comes with migration to her beloved eucalyptus tree, she blurs physical and temporal borders, paying homage to ancestors […]

Free

Felipe Luciano at The Avenue: Healing is Art

The Avenue Blackbox Theatre 780 Joseph Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Felipe Luciano will intersperse a selection of iconic original poems with insights on art and healing drawn from his history as an activist for social justice, community empowerment, and ethnic pride. Following his presentation, he will be joined in conversation by theatre and film artist David Shakes, founder of the Rochester-based North Star Players. Q […]

Terence Degnan & Denver Butson: New Works

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

The poems in Terence Degnan’s new collection, I Can Wonder Anything (Finishing Line Press, 2023), have been described by Rhode Island’s Poet Laureate Tina Cane as “such a fine balance between grit and grace, it kind of hurts. It’s the good kind of hurt you should run out and read.” Degan is the author of […]

Free – $20

Kristen Gentry: Mama Said

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

The linked stories in Mama Said are set in Louisville, Kentucky, a city with a rich history steeped in tobacco, bourbon, and gambling, indulgences that can quickly become gripping and destructive vices. Set amid the tail end of the crack epidemic and the rise of the opioid crisis, Mama Said evokes Black family life in […]

Free – $20

Mary Lynn Reed: Phantom Advances

Writers & Books Online 740 University Ave, Rochester, NY, United States

In Mary Lynn Reed’s debut short story collection, Phantom Advances, young queer women travel America’s back roads, roaming through the South, Midwest, New York, and California, while questions of gender and identity ride shotgun. Peering through bug-stained windshields and the viewfinders of old film cameras, these wanderers find love, heartbreak, and little pieces of themselves wherever […]

Free – $20

Windows: Writing in the Gallery with Almeta Whitis and David Bleich

Image City Photography Gallery 722 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

David Bleich's "Windows," a stunning collection of large-scale urban window and landscape photo images, is fertile ground for teens and tweens' creativity. Guided by master artists and elders Whitis and Bleich, participants, ages 12 - 18, will be encouraged to respond to depictions of the urban landscape with their personal stories and deepen their experience […]

$20

Jeannine Hall Gailey: Flare, Corona

740 University Ave, Rochester, NY, United States

Against a constellation of solar weather events and an evolving pandemic, Flare, Corona paints a self-portrait of the ways in which we prevail and persevere through health adversities while facing an uncertain future. Gailey juxtaposes eclipses and hurricanes with a body’s many medical challenges, including neurological symptoms, highlighting the miraculous while melding the personal with […]

Free

Shanna Rebis: Poetic Love Frenzy

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Shanna Rebis, a licensed cosmetologist and holistic life coach, will read from her inspirational work Poetic Love Frenzy. An audience Q & A and book signing will follow. Rebis says to her readers, “You, my friend, have within you a master plan and a creative genius. Come be inspired and invigorated. But you must believe […]

Free – $20

Postponed Creative Writing & Printmaking: Concrete Poems & Flash Essays with Anastasia Nikolis

Rathus Studio 936 Exchange ST, Rochester, NY, United States

Respond imaginatively to a prompt in any genre, then put your inspiration into print. In this workshop at Rathus Studio, 936 Exchange Street, Rochester, writing instructor Anastasia Nikolis will present a short piece of published writing, facilitate a brief discussion, and provide a related prompt. With Evan Bobrow's guidance, you’ll explore the fascinating risograph printing […]

$80

George Looney: The Visibility of Things Long Submerged

Dripping with Southern gothic flavors, The Visibility of Things Long Submerged gazes at the holy and the obscene while plumbing gritty secrets of the human heart. With swamps, alligators, revival tents, faith healers, sex, death, guilt, sin and snakes, Looney leads us through a dark landscape brimming with the miraculous and the peculiar alike. Densely […]

Free

Open House at Gell | Saturday, May 27

Gell: A Finger Lakes Creative Retreat 6581 W Hollow Rd., Naples, United States

Stop by for tea and pastries, bucolic vistas, and a chance to view extensive renovations at Gell Cottage, Gleason Lodge, and our tree house. Hear about opportunities for writing residencies, enrichment activities, and daylong retreats for individuals and area organizations and businesses. There will be another open house on Saturday, June 10. To reserve ticket(s) for this […]

Free

Sarah Cedeño: Not Something We Discuss Often

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

Sarah Cedeño’s debut nonfiction collection Not Something We Discuss Often (Harbor Editions, 2022) explores womanhood and illness through essays ranging from recounting a reiki healing her family organized after a diagnosis to the discovery of her great aunt’s hoarding when her father inherited her house. The collection seeks to understand how illness, whether invisible, whether physical, […]

Free – $20

On Writing Illness: Craft and Prompts with Sarah Cedeno

Writers & Books 740 University Avenue, Rochester, NY, United States

“There is, let us confess it (and illness is the great confessional) a childish outspokenness in illness; things are said, truths blurted out, which the cautious respectability of health conceals.” --Virginia Woolf, “On Being Ill” Illness impacts all our lives. It can make us uncomfortable, take away from us, push others away. But through the […]

$40
If you would like to make a request for any accommodation, please email us at accommodation@wab.org at least 10 days prior to the event or workshop.
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