Poetry Reading with Rachel Guido

Join us in the front room of the library on Wed. November 12 at 4pm for a Poetry Reading with Poets and Authors Rachel Guido deVries and Laura Braaten. Rachel Guido DeVries is a Southern-Italian American, and a poet and novelist. She grew up near Paterson, New Jersey, and has lived in central New York since 1970. Her poems have appeared in magazines including Yellow Silk, Voices in Italian Americana, the Paterson Literary Review, and Blueline. She has published books of poetry and novels. In 1984, Rachel Guido DeVries founded the Community Writers’ Project, in Syracuse, New York, which she directed until 1995. She is a past director of The Women’s Writers Center, formerly in Cazenovia, NY, and of the Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops. A past recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and a New York State Council for the Arts Writer-in- Residence Award, she received a Special Opportunities Stipend from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts for travel to California to read at the Sonoma County Book Fair, and the Petaluma Poetry Walk in September, 2002. She previously worked as poet-in-the-schools in upstate New York, and taught creative writing through the Humanistic Studies Center of Syracuse University, where she was awarded the Teacher of the Year award in 1993. Laura Braaten is a poet and textile artist. She lived in the Cazenovia area for almost thirty years. Her poetry has appeared in The South Boston Literary Gazette, Dharma Connection, and A Light in April: The Cazenovia Writers’ Group Anthology. Laura’s writing is inspired by the landscape of Upstate New York as well as her Southern roots as a native of Atlanta. She previously worked as a clinical psychologist. Laura has two adult daughters and now resides in Ithaca, where she writes, reads at open mics, and teaches textile arts.