Writers Read: LAVA Team: Jan Maher, Jovonna Van Pelt, Lindy Whiton, Matthew Barlow, Vanessa Query [RESCHEDULED FROM 12/10]

Note: Due to weather, this event has been rescheduled to 12/17.

Writers Read is a monthly opportunity for an audience to come and listen to local writers in an intimate environment. Each second Wednesday of the month, three writers read from their work, followed by a discussion facilitated by Lindy Whiton, designer of Writers Read. These discussions have been eye opening, touching, and inspiring. Audiences have left the venue ready to write.

Jan Maher’s novels Heaven, Indiana; Earth As It Is; and short fiction collection The Persistence of Memory and Other Stories have each won Kirkus “Best Of” designations. Her stories and poems have been published regionally in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review; Compass Roads: Poems about the Pioneer Valley; Spoken Word in the Woods: An Anthology celebrating The Word Stage 10th Year – at The North Quabbin Garlic & Arts Festival – celebrating 25 years; and Valley and Beyond: A Writers Read Anthology. She is a co-coordinator at The LAVA Center, where she has read for Writers Read and Paul Richmond’s Third Tuesday. Three of her plays have been presented at LAVA: Most Dangerous Women, and As We Were: Nine Days in October as staged readings and Ismene in a full production. She is currently working on a third novel set in the fictional town of Heaven, Indiana.

Jovonna Van Pelt has stories to share: funny stories, difficult stories, personal revelations, casual observations. She has been a featured reader for Straw Dog Writers Guild, Poets at Large, Gateway City Arts, Great Falls Word Festival, and a multiple finalist in the Poet’s Seat competition. Jo’s poetry collection Unrelated Questions (Human Error Publishing, 2019) will be followed by a second volume of poetry and a book of Christmas short stories in 2026. She lives happily with her rescue cat in Greenfield, MA.

Lindy Whiton has been on the staff and Board of LAVA since 2020. She facilitates Writers Read and over the past year released her first book of poetry and photographs, “Spirit of the Rookery”

Matthew Barlow is a lapsed academic, writer, musician and co-founder of the DC-based non-profit, EmpowerEd.

Vanessa Query is a director, writer, performer, and organizer. She has written and directed several short films and has performed and produced all types of theater, such as sketch comedy, circus sideshow, devised theater, and mixed-media performance art. Her work has been performed and screened across the United States and in Ireland and India. She lives in Greenfield and is Manager and Co-coordinator of The LAVA Center. vanessaquery.com

$1-5 suggested donation, but all are welcome.

Any further questions may be directed at lindy@localaccess.org.