Free Admission! / Start 5:15pm / Doors 5pm

Please join us for an evening of talented local writers to celebrate the release of Michele Harris' debut book of poetry Blackdamp! Danielle Jones, Matt Purdy, Danielle Fontaine, and Michele Harris will read selections from their original poetry and prose. Copies of Blackdamp will be available for purchase at the event.

Danielle Jones holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and is associate director of the Writers House at Merrimack College. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Memorious, Southern Poetry Review, Zone 3, and elsewhere. She’s a recipient of a 2014 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award.

Matt Purdy’s work has appeared in journals such as One Story, the Mississippi Review, Quick Fiction, the Iron Horse Literary Review, the Mid-American Review, and Best New American Voices. He is the recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award and received a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Texas Tech University. He lives in Cambridge and teaches in Boston.

Danielle (Goncalves) Fontaine received her MFA in 2012 from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and is currently a creative writing instructor for their OLLI program. Her poems have earned honorable mentions in both the Writer’s Digest and the Academy of American Poets contests and, as a finalist, her poem “Bottle” appears in the Modern Grimmoire Anthology. Her work can also be found on NPR’s “Here and Now” website as well as in Mortar, Prick of the Spindle, Front Range, Juked Poetry, and others.

Michele Harris received the 2011 David A. Kennedy prize, and her poem Instinct was selected as a finalist for the 2018 New Millennium Award. Her debut book Blackdamp was published by David Robert Books in 2019. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Tishman Review, New Millennium Writings, The Prose-Poem Project, Anderbo, Cicada, Dirtflask, Sheepshead Review, The Columbia College Literary Review, Stirring, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she teaches Literature for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. She works at MIT and lives in Cambridge.  Visit her online at michelewritespoetry.com.