All readings from 7–9pm
Friday, April 3 Open Mic: you! Bring your short poems to the open mic at the White River Craft Center!
Thursday, April 9: The Pie Poets at Esther Mesh Room, Chandler featuring Ina Anderson, Doreen Ballard, Beverly Breen, Debby Franzoni and Hatsy McGraw.
The Pie Poets all live in Vermont and have been working together on their poems and having fun for 15 years. They took their name from their first anthology, Perhaps It Was the Pie, published in 2014. Their second anthology, The Party Cabinet, appeared in 2023.
Ina Anderson taught writing and literature at Vermont State Colleges for many years. She has published two collections of poetry, Journey into Space, 2017, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and Sky Furniture, 2024. Her poems have appeared in Perhaps It Was the Pie and The Party Cabinet, and other anthologies. She is also a fiber artist, and lives in South Royalton.
Doreen Ballard started writing poems and prose as a child. She is a retired Special Education Teacher. Her poems have appeared in PoemTown Randolph and PoemCity Montpelier, and in the anthologies, Perhaps It Was The Pie, and The Party Cabinet. Doreen lives in South Woodstock, Vermont.
Beverly Breen is the pen name of retired English teacher, Beverly Barton. She lives in Thetford with her husband Gary and cat Sophie. Her work has appeared in Vermont PoemTowns and PoemCity Montpelier, and in the anthologies Perhaps It Was the Pie, The Party Cabinet, and Life in New England: Poetry Anthology.
Debby Franzoni lives on Lake Bomoseen in Castleton, Vt. She began writing poetry in 2008 when she retired from teaching. Her poems have appeared in the anthologies Perhaps It Was the Pie, and The Party Cabinet. She is indebted to the Pies group for their encouragement and teaching.
Hatsy McGraw has published poems in several journals including Bloodroot, Hanging Loose, The Salon, and Across Borders. Her poems have appeared in the anthologies, Birchsong: Poetry Centered in Vermont, Perhaps It Was the Pie and The Party Cabinet. She was a 2023 Sundog Poetry Award finalist. Hatsy lives in Hartland, Vermont.
Thursday, April 16 – VT Poet Geof Hewitt at Esther Mesh Room, Chandler. Started writing poetry when he was 17. “I don’t know whether what I write is poetry. I call them poems.” he said on Vermont Public in 2025. Living in Calais, Hewitt is the author of four books of poems and three books for teachers, and reads and performs throughout the state.
Saturday, April 25 – Silloway Maple Farmer Poets, Silloway Farm, Randolph Center. Readers that evening are Katie Spring, Sasha Hom and Taylor Mardis Katz. Taylor Mardis Katz is a staple at the Farmer Poets reading at Silloway. She is a poet and farmer and runs Free Verse Farm, an herb farm & apothecary in Chelsea.
Katie Spring is a writer, mother, and co-creator of Good Heart Farmstead in Worcester, Vermont. She believes that creativity is as essential as food, and her writing is a testament to the ways that creativity nourishes us. Katie’s newsletter, Art & Soil, explores how we grow a world of connection, belonging, and really good food. Find her online at katiespring.substack.com.
Sasha Hom is a text-based artist and was trained in fiction writing at Warren Wilson College where she earned her MFA. She is a recipient of an Elizabeth George Award, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant, a Vermont Artist Development Award, a Brink Literary Journal Award for Hybrid Writing, and a Holden Scholarship awardee. Her work can be found at The Millions, Kweli Journal, Literary Mama and elsewhere. Her first novella, Sidework, was a New Immigrant Writing Series selection published by Black Lawrence Press in March of 2025.
After a decade of living in canvas tents in California, she and her partner and four children fled wildfires and are now goat farmers living in yurts on 600-acres of cooperatively owned land in Central Vermont.
Mardis Katz is a poet, herb farmer, small-town grocer, and ordained minister living in Chelsea, Vermont, where she co-manages a shop, apothecary, farm, and homestead with her partner, Misha. She also co-creates various poetry & community events across Vermont, and parents one small and exciting young person named Linden.
Taylor’s poems have been published in a variety of literary journals such as Barnstorm and the Connecticut Review, and featured on radio stations, podcasts, and in the Vermont Statehouse. To read more of her poems & stay updated on what she’s reading, sign up for her newsletter, Party Poet on the Hillside, which can be found on Substack.
