March 27, 2024

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join novelists and Bay Path MFA faculty members Jennifer Baker & Yi Shun Lai as they read from and discuss their latest books, Forgive Me Not and The Suffragist’s Guide to the Antarctic. Together they will speak about the joys and challenges of writing for a young adult audience. How can authors best tackle serious topics of survival, activism, forgiveness, grief, and regret for younger audiences? 

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February 28, 2024

7:00pm to 8:00pm

What does it mean to be a joyous traveler in today’s world of climate change, uncertainty, and conflict around the globe? Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism—including the color of one’s skin and passport—author Shahnaz Habib considers who gets to travel and who gets to write about the experience. The New York Times called Shahnaz, "a ruthlessly honest and funny observer," and her informed and candid observations about the history and experience of travel are as delightful as they are insightful. 

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January 31, 2024

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Gail Ward Olmsted, author of Landscape of a Marriage, talks about inspiration, second chances, family connections, and the process of researching and writing fiction based in fact. In 1858, newly widowed with three children, Mary Perkins Olmsted abides by her husband’s deathbed wishes, and agrees to marry his brother, Frederick Law Olmsted. She joins her new husband on his quest to create the “beating green heart” in the center of New York City that will become Central Park. Discovering the surprising partnership of this real-life couple on her own family tree, Gail Ward Olmsted wanted to learn more. In Landscape of a Marriage, she uncovers Mary’s own journey and reveals her role in an alliance that would transform urban centers across America.

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November 8, 2023 

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join author and Bay Path MFA faculty member Susan Kiyo Ito, as she reads from her new memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, and talks with director Leanna James Blackwell about writing, adoption, and secrets. Growing up as an adopted mixed-race child, Susan knows only that her birth mother was Japanese American and her father white. But finding her reluctant birth mother in her early 20s is only the beginning of her search for answers, history, and identity. Along the way, Susan grapples with her own choices about motherhood, the painful legacy of Japanese American internment camps during World War II, and the right to know and tell her own story.

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September 27, 2023

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join author and Bay Path MFA professor Melanie Brooks as she discusses writing about family secrets and reads from her new memoir, A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All. The author of Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma chronicles her quest to understand the consequences of silence and shame in the wake of her surgeon father's diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in 1985, when she was 13 years old. 

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March 29, 2023 

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join authors and Bay Path MFA alums Kim Livingston and Anne Pinkerton as they read from their forthcoming books and discuss the joys, perils, and anxieties of writing about family.

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Wednesday January 25, 2023

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join author Fred Sokol as he discusses his latest novel, Silverbirch Summer, as well as his previous and forthcoming works of fiction, nonfiction, and cultural criticism.

Fred Sokol was Director of Theater Arts at American International College and Bay Path University. In all, he has directed and produced 45 shows.

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Wednesday November 16, 2022

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join the writers and editors of Multiplicity to celebrate the milestone moments that span a life. In poetry and personal essays selected from our 2022 issue, our writers illuminate the subtle joys, rediscovered moments, and dramatic revelations of childhood, youth, midlife, and eldering - and share the inspiration for their work.

Featuring readings by Maria Luisa Arroyo, Sudha Balaghopal, Ann Klotz, Sandra Salinas Newton, Lou Storey, and Peter Welch.

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Wednesday October 19, 2022

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join author and Bay Path MFA faculty member Sari Botton for an evening of reading and discussion centered around her latest book, And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo.

Sari describes her memoir as "an introspective collection of essays about the joys and pains of feeling like a misfit." A contributing editor at Catapult magazine, Sari is also the editor of two bestselling anthologies: Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York. Sari is the former Essays Editor for Longreads, and in 2021, launched Oldster, a Substack newsletter focused on the many ways we age. 

Click here for more information on author Sari Botton.

Click here to order And You May Find Yourself...

Click here for a transcript of this recording.

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Tuesday March 29, 2022

7:00pm to 8:00pm

Join author Meredith O'Brien as she discusses her latest book, Uncomfortably Numb. This medical memoir traces the moment Meredith first experiences what she later learns is a multiple sclerosis symptom, through the two-year diagnostic process, and, ultimately to the other side where she had to make an uneasy peace with the incurable and chronic disease of the central nervous system. 

Click here for more information on author Meredith O'Brien.

Click here for the transcript of this event.

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February 1, 2022

7pm to 8:30pm

Join Janice Berliner as she discusses her latest book, In Good Conscience. "In Good Conscience exposes both the beauty and the ugly underbelly of sibling rivalry, relationships, love and forgiveness. Following the acclaim of Brooke’s Promise, In Good Conscience once again challenges the reader’s sense of what is right, ethical, and just." 

Read more about Janice Berliner on her website!

Click here for a transcript of this event. 

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November 3, 2021

7pm to 8:30pm

Join author Linda Cardillo as she discusses her latest book, Love That Moves the Sun, as well as her inspiration in the amazing true life of 16th century poet Vittoria Colonna and her process for crafting a work of historical fiction. 

Visit https://www.lindacardillo.com/ for more information on author Linda Cardillo.

Click here for a transcript of this event. 

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October 5, 2021

7pm to 8:30pm

Join author Dr. Jen Stratton as well as mouth and foot painter Christopher Kuster for a discussion of their book, disability representation in children's literature, and building a more inclusive world. 

Find more information on Mouth and Foot Painting Artists here.

Find more information on Nick Springer and Jen Stratton's Team Possible here.

The full transcript of this recording can be found here. 

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March 16, 2021

7pm to 8:30pm

Join author Fred Sokol as he discusses his latest novel, Destiny (from Bellastoria Press), as well as his previous and forthcoming works of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism. As Director of Theater Arts at Bay Path University, American International College, and Asnuntuck Community College, Fred Sokol has directed and produced 45 shows. As an arts journalist, he has reviewed more than 2500 plays for the Springfield Republican, www.talkinbroadway.com, and has interviewed such artists as Bernadette Peters, August Wilson, and Susan Sarandon. His novel Mendel and Morris was published in 2011. Its sequel novel, Destiny, was published in 2020.

(Please note: due to a technical glitch, the recording for this event was lost).

February 16, 2021

7pm to 8:30pm

Genetic counselor and first time novelist Janice Berliner puts her professional background to good use in her enthralling debut story where medical science intersects with mystery. What starts out as a simple story of a couple struggling to conceive quickly evolves into a multigenerational saga of devastating family secrets. The tension mounts as two mothers are forced to uncover truths that they don’t want to face and discover a past that will have life-altering consequences for them and everyone they love. 

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January 19, 2021

7pm to 9pm

This two-hour highly interactive online workshop provides a plan for first-time authors for finishing your manuscript, getting it edited, choosing the best format and cover design, and publishing it for the audience that matters to you. [Family and friends, the local area, your favorite charity, or the world.] To gain the most from this workshop, attendees should have a work in mind or in progress. Attendees will meet as a full group and in small group breakout sessions led by experienced publishers and authors from Bellastoria Press.

https://www.bellastoriapress.com/

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