The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Mad River Literary Festival to open Tuesday at NCCC in Winsted
WINSTED — Northwestern Connecticut Community College’s annual Mad River Literary Festival will be held April 10 and 11 starting at 6:30 p.m. in Founders Hall Auditorium on its campus in Winsted.
The festival coincides with the publication of the annual Mad River Anthology, a journal of student writing in almost continual publication since the college was founded in 1965.
On April 10, a community reading emceed by NCCC public speaking students and featuring community members and students, will be highlighted by readings by three faculty poets — Kateri Kosek, Jacqueline Welsh and Jim Kelleher.
Poets Daniel Donaghy and Margo Schilpp will read on April 11.
Readings each night will be followed by a reception and book signing.
About the writers: Daniel Donaghy is the author of the poetry collections “Somerset” (NYQ Books, 2018), “Start with the Trouble” (University of Arkansas Press, 2009), and “Streetfighting” (BkMk Press, 2005).
Raised in Philadelphia, he is now professor of English at Eastern Connecticut State University, where he has received the Board of Regents Teaching Award and the CSU Norton Mezvinsky Trustees Research Award.
He is currently the poet laureate of Windham County.
Margot Schilpp’s fourth book of poems, “Afterswarm,” is forthcoming in early 2019. She is also the author of “Civil Twilight” (2012), “Laws of My Nature” (2005), and “The World’s Last Night” (2001), all from Carnegie Mellon University Press.
Her poems have appeared widely in literary magazines.
Schilpp earned an MFA at the University of Utah. She teaches at Southern Connecticut State University and at Quinnipiac University and lives in New Haven with her husband, poet Jeff Mock, and their daughters, Paula and Leah.
In addition to teaching English at NCCC, Kateri Kosek mentors in the MFA program at Western Connecticut State University, where she received an MFA in creative writing.
Her poetry and essays have appeared in Orion, Creative Nonfiction, Catamaran, Terrain, Northern Woodlands magazine, and she has written for the Berkshire Edge, Winsted Journal and Poughkeepsie Journal.
She has been a resident writer at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska, and lives in the Berkshires. She is working on a book of essays about birds.
Jim Kelleher has published three books of poetry: “Quarry” (2008), “Mick” (2011), and “Selected Poems” (2017). His individual poems have appeared in Yankee, Christian Science Monitor, The Country and Abroad, am,ong others.
Kelleher teaches tech ed at Torrington Middle School, and literature and composition at NCCC.
Jacqueline Welsh was a poet first, next a teacher, then a mother. Today, she teaches at the University of Hartford and Northwestern Connecticut Community College.
The Mad River Literary Festival is sponsored by the Center for Teaching, the English Department, the Student Senate, the Cultural Planning Committee, and funded by the Northwestern Community College Foundation and the Peggy Andl Fund.
The festival is free and open to the public.
For further information about the Mad River Literary Festival and the annual Mad River Anthology, contact professor Jessica Treat at JTreat@nwcc.edu.