Word Thursdays Features Binghampton Writer Jaimee Wriston Colbert and Woodstock Poet Alison Koffler, May 27

On Thursday, May 27, Word Thursdays will feature Binghamton writer Jaimee Wriston Colbert and Woodstock and Bronx poet Alison Koffler. They will read from their work after the open mic, which begins at 7 pm. The readings will take place in Bright Hill's Word & Image Gallery. There will be an intermission with refreshments. Bright Hill Literary Center is located at 94 Church Street, Treadwell, one block north of Barlow's General Store on Co. Hwy 14. There is an admission fee of $3, but the evening is free to those 18 and under.

Jaimee Wriston Colbert is the author of a new novel, Shark Girls, which earned a starred review in Booklist and was nominated for the ALA Notable Books for 2010 list; a linked stories collection, Dream Lives of Butterflies, which won a gold medal in the 2008 Independent Publisher Awards; a novel, Climbing the God Tree, winner of the Willa Cather Fiction Prize; and the fiction collection Sex, Salvation, and the Automobile, winner of the Zephyr Publishing Prize. Her stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including: TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Tampa Review, Connecticut Review, New Letters (and archived in New Letters On The Air), and broadcast on NPR’s “Selected Shorts.”  A recent story in Isotope won the 2009 Editors’ Fiction Prize, and another story won the 2008 Jane’s Stories National Short Story Award. Originally from Hawaii, she is Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY, Binghamton University.

Alison Koffler received her Masters’ Degree in English from Lehman College. She was the recipient of the Poetry Teacher of the Year in 2003 and three times the winner of the Bronx Council on the Arts’ BRIO Award for poetry in 1993, 2000 and 2006. Her poems have appeared in such publications as Iris: a Journal for Women, Heliotrope, Kalliope, Home Planet News and Universe at Your Door:  The Slabsides Poets. She currently works as an on-site teacher- consultant for the New York City Writing Project at Lehman College, and lives in the Bronx and Woodstock, New York.

Bright Hill Center's 2010 programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts , the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O'Connor Foundation, the Otis A. Thompson Foundation, the Walter Rich Charitable Foundation, the A. C. Molinari Foundation, area businesses, and its members and friends. Bright Hill's Community Library & Internet Wing, which features a large collection of literary and art- related volumes as well as children's literature, is free and open to the public Mondays and Tuesdays, 10 am - 4 pm, Wednesdays, 9 am - noon, during Word Thursdays readings, and by appointment. For further information about BHLC and its programs, contact Bright Hill Center at 607-829- 5055 or email the Center at wordthur@stny.rr.com.