Word Thursdays 30th Anniversary In-Person at Bright Hill on April 28 at 7 PM

Word Thursdays, Bright Hill Press & Literary Center's legacy program, will celebrate 30 years of readings by presenting an in-person reading on Thursday, April 28, 2022, at 7 pm EST, at Bright Hill Press & Literary Center, 94 Church St., Treadwell, NY (next door to the Methodist Church). The reading will also stream live on Facebook. The featured poets and writers are Robert Bensen, Oneonta; Ginnah Howard, Otego; Bertha Rogers, Treadwell; and Sharon Ruetenik, Delhi, all of whom were featured during Word Thursdays' first year, 1992, and who have been long-time participants in Bright Hill's programs. Refreshments will be served during the intermission. Local poets and writers, among them Lisa Wujnovich, Michael Piercy and Teresa Winchester, are invited to read from their own work or work by others for up to three minutes. Suggested donation is $3, and free to students. Donations to Bright Hill are gratefully accepted via Paypal by visiting this link, https://paypal.me/brighthillpress, by check made out to Bright Hill Press Inc, and mailed to 94 Church Street, Treadwell, NY 13846, or by credit card by personal appointment by emailing info@brighthillpress.org. Virtual "donation jar:" https://paypal.me/brighthillpress RSVP to the event on here.

Robert Bensen’s volume, What Lightning Spoke: New & Selected Poems, will be published by Bright Hill Press in June 2022. After retiring as Professor Emeritus and former Director of Writing at Hartwick College (1978-2017), he founded and currently directs the Seeing Things Poetry Workshop for Bright Hill Literary Center. His poems, essays, editions, and studies have been widely published and earned awards and fellowships from the NEA, NEH, Newbery Library, NYSCA, Illinois Arts Council, Harvard University, NY State Fair, Eric Hoffer Award, and elsewhere. He has taught writing and literature at SUNY Oneonta, Parkland College, and the University of Illinois. For more information visit: https://robertbensen.com/

Bertha Rogers's most recent poetry collection is Wild, Again (Salmon Poetry, Ireland, 2019); her translation of all 95 of the thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Poems, Uncommon Creatures, was published in 2019. Her forthcoming collection, What Want Brings: New & Selected Poems, will be published in 2023 (Salmon Poetry). Rogers co-founded Bright Hill Press with her husband (now deceased), Ernest M. Fishman; she retired in 2017 but still leads kid's literary workshops and edits poetry collections. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize nine times, and she has received fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and others.

Sharon Ruetenik, poet and educator, has published in several anthologies and journals, most recently Iconoclast and Evening Street Review. Her chapbook, The Wooden Bowl, illustrates the role of women from Eve to Dorothy. Ruetenik was awarded a fellowship at the Saltonstall Foundation and at Platte Clove. She has taught poetry classes for Writers in the Mountains and functioned as a facilitator for the New York Council of the Humanities directing discussions on such diverse subjects as WWI, the Muslim Journey, and A History of Aging. Sharon Ruetenik has an abiding interest in What Ifs and a natural proclivity for incongruities.

Ginnah Howard taught high school English for twenty-seven years and began writing when she was in her mid-forties. Her work has appeared in Water-Stone Review, Permafrost, and A Room of One’s Own, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. For more information, visit www.ginnahhoward.com.

Word Thursdays at Bright Hil

On a snowy evening in January of 1992, the Bright Hill Word Thursdays Reading Series was inaugurated at the home of Bertha Rogers and Ernest Fishman, just up the road from Treadwell, NY. So much has happened during our 30 years of operation, including:   * Word Thursdays, the continuing series, presenting open readings followed by readings and discussion by featured authors;    *  Bright Hill Books, publishing anthologies as well as poetry collections, chapbooks and interdisciplinary collections by individual authors since 1994;    *  The NYSCA Literary Map of New York State and the NYSCA Literary Tree: nyslittree.org (since 1999), developed and administered by BHP, in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts.   *  Word Thursdays Share the Words HS Poetry Mentoring Program and Competition, affording young poets a chance to write and present their own poetry in a public competition since 1996;   *  Bright Hill Literary Workshops for Kids & Adults, offering, since 1994, innovative programs that celebrate and incorporate the elegant use of words with other disciplines;   *  BHLC Internship Program for College and HS Students, offering, since 1994, students an opportunity to learn the business of literature.   *  Bright Hill Presents: Annual History & Nonfiction Day; Chamber music in the library; and Songs from the Great American Songbook; Great American Poets Day; and Veterans and Communities Day.

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