Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop – National Poetry Month Celebration

Join Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshop online (Zoom) on April 22nd to celebrate National Poetry Month with readings from these celebrated PVWW poets: Gail Thomas, Fungai Tichawangana (aka Iz Mazano), Mary Warren Foulk, Carolyn Zaikowski, Naila Moreira, Adam Grabowski, & Tzynya Pinchback! After the reading, the event will open up to Q&A and discussion with the authors. Moderated by Joy Baglio.

About the Poets

GAIL THOMAS is the author of four books of poetry: Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness: An Elegy for Swift River Valley, and Finding the Bear. Odd Mercy, chosen by Ellen Bass, won the Charlotte Mew Prize of Headmistress Press, and Waving Back was named a Must Read by the Massachusetts Center for the Book and Honorable Mention by the New England Book Festival. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including The Beloit Poetry Journal, Calyx, The North American Review, Italian Americana, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Individual poems have won national prizes, and she has been a fellow at The McDowell Colony and Ucross. Gail offers frequent poetry workshops at PVWW. Read more about her work at www.gailthomaspoet.com.

MARY WARREN FOULK has been published in VoiceCatcher, Cathexis Northwest Press, Yes Poetry, Arlington Literary Journal (Gival Press), Los Angeles Poet Society, Pine Hills Review, Palette Poetry, Visitant, Silkworm, and Steam Ticket among other publications. Her chapbook, If I Could Write You a Happier Ending, was selected by dancing girl press (2021) as part of their annual series featuring women poets. Her manuscript Erasures of My Coming Out (Letter) won first place in The Poetry Box’s 2021 chapbook contest. Her poem “portrait of a queer as a young boy” has been nominated for the 2021 Best of the Net Anthology. Mary has been a frequent attendee of many PVWW workshops.

FUNGAI TICHAWANGANA is a writer, journalist, and web developer who has lived in Western MA since 2018. He writes poetry using the open pen name Iz Mazano and is currently working on a collection about how technology affects romantic relationships. In June 2020 he launched Valley of Writers, a project aimed at sharing tools, ideas and success stories with writers in the Pioneer Valley and beyond. He is passionate about teaching artists and creatives how to use online tools to expose their work to new audiences.  Fungai has offered workshops for PVWW on marketing your work. You can see his poetry at www.izmazano.com.

CAROLYN ZAIKOWSKI is is the author of the hybrid novels In Dream, I Dance by Myself, and I Collapse (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016) and A Child Is Being Killed (Aqueous Books, 2013). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, PANK, West Branch, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and is currently an English professor and volunteer death doula. Carolyn teaches frequently at PVWW across all genres and leads the Year-Long Poetry/Hybrid Workshop in PVWW’s Year-Long Manuscript Program. Find her online at www.carolynzaikowski.com.

TZYNYA PINCHBACK writes the Black woman body in nature, in illness, and in joy as a deliberate act. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, The Best of the Net, and appears in Deaf Poets Society, Lily Poetry Review, Mom Egg Review, the 2021 Naugatuck River Review narrative poetry contest issue and others. She was a finalist for 2020 Plymouth Poet Laureate and served as 2020 Cordial Eye Gallery & Artist Space writer-in-residence. Tzynya is currently participating in the 2022 Writing the Land project that connects writers to conserved landscapes across the Northeast. Her blog happens at www.tzynyapinchback.com.

NAILA MOREIRA‘s middle-grade novel THE MONARCHS OF WINGHAVEN, about two children who bond over their love of nature-watching as they try to save a plot of land in their town, is forthcoming from Walker Books US in 2023. Moreira teaches at Smith College and has been writer-in-residence at the Shoals Marine Laboratory and Forbes Library in Northampton MA. Her second chapbook, Water Street, won the New England Poetry Club Jean Pedrick Prize. She’s also worked as a journalist, environmental consultant, and Seattle Aquarium docent, and holds a doctorate in geology.

ADAM GRABOWSKI is the author of the chapbook Go On Bewilderment (Attack Bear Press, 2020). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Ninth Letter, New Ohio Review, Plume, Sixth Finch, jubilat, Off the Coast, DMQ Review, Hobart, Rust + Moth, Exit 7, Bullets into Bells (online), past-ten, Night Coffee, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, The Naugatuck River Review, Radius, and elsewhere. A multiple Pushcart nominee and the recipient of a 2021 Parent-Writer Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Adam holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He lives in Western Massachusetts where he is the associate managing editor of The Maine Review.

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