Spoken Word Platform 650 Comes to Westchester

650, the popular live reading series, comes to the New Rochelle Public Library on Sunday, October 22nd at 3 pm with "The Kids Are Alright," true tales of driving tests, fishing vests, and empty nests. Come for the stories and stay for the wine and cheese reception to follow. Free and open to the public, thanks to the support of the New Rochelle Council on the Arts and the New Rochelle Public Library.

650 showcases writers and celebrates the spoken word with live, professionally-produced events developed around a single theme. Readings are recorded for podcast, for broadcast, and for a growing digital archive of writers reading their work aloud. 650 takes its name from the maximum word count allowed for featured stories – two pages that can be read aloud in five minutes – and the series selects broad themes for 650 events to allow for a wide range of expression. “The breadth and quality of the work we receive is remarkable,” says founder and editor Edward McCann. “It doesn’t matter whether the pieces come from first-timers or bestsellers—or from graduate students or grandmothers. In a publishing environment that offers a shrinking number of opportunities to showcase new work, we’ve created a solid platform we’re really proud of. We simply feature good writing at a well-produced event.”

Theresa Kump Leghorn, President of the New Rochelle Council on the Arts, says “We’re delighted to be partnering with 650 and the New Rochelle Public Library to bring this popular program to New Rochelle and provide a Westchester County platform for this respected spoken word group.”

The complete show roster can be viewed at Read650.com. Seating for the event is limited, but the readings will also be live-streamed at Facebook.com/read650. For information on submitting work or attending events, visit Read650.com or call 914-799-1997.

Featured writers for “The Kids Are Alright” • October 22, 2017

Deborah Batterman (Katonah, NY) is the author of Shoes Hair Nails, a short story collection framed around everyday symbols in our world and their resonance in our lives. A native New Yorker, she has worked over the years as a writer, editor, and teaching artist. She is a Pushcart nominee and took 3rd place in the Women’s National Book Association 2012 Short Fiction Contest. Her stories and essays have appeared in anthologies as well as various print and online journals, most recently Every Mother Has a Story, Vol. 2 (Shebooks/Good Housekeeping) and Open to Interpretation: Fading Light (Taylor & O’Neill). In 2012 she published a digital chapbook of essays, Because my name is mother. Her blog recently took a new turn—a collaboration with her daughter in which a ‘dialogue’ takes place via alternating posts connected thematically. She can’t say she invented the word, but a ‘diablog’ it is.

Mary Catherine Bolster (New York City) grew up in Iowa but not on a farm. She has been writing in one form or another since her first feature column in The Compass, her high school paper. She holds advanced degrees in nursing and medical ethics and began her career on the clinical faculty of the University of Iowa. Mary Catherine has published articles in Linacre Quarterly and other medical/ethical journals. She began writing consumer-oriented articles for regional consumer magazines and national trade publications on a freelance basis in 1980. Ms. Bolster’s position as the national director of marketing and education for a health care organization led to her founding MCB Communications in 1986. The company served health care and not-for-profit clients, specializing in capital campaigns, consumer and medical writing, and public relations. She currently lives in Manhattan and from time to time yearns for her beloved prairie.

Joseph Burgo (Grand Lake, CO) is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the author of both self-help books and novels. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and other major publications; a recognized expert on narcissism, he is frequently quoted in USA Today, Glamour, the Huffington Post and other major news outlets. He writes a blog on the topic of “Shame” for and discusses personality development issues on his website After Psychotherapy.

Karen Dukess (Pelham, NY) has been a tour guide in the former Soviet Union, a newspaper reporter at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, and the founding features editor of The Moscow Times in Russia. She has written book reviews for USA Today and blogged about raising teen-aged boys at theblunderyears.com and the Huffington Post. Her narrative nonfiction has appeared in Intima (Columbia University) and her short story, Fancy Hat, will appear in the 2017 issue of the Westchester Review. She is a speechwriter at UN Development Programme and is a member of the Terzo Piano writer’s group. She lives in Pelham, New York.

Honor Finnegan (New York City) has been singing and performing since she was a child. She was in the first national tour of Annie, she performed the Improv Olympic, Chicago’s premiere venue for improvisational comedy, and she’s won accolades for songwriting and performing folk music. On May 29th, 2016, Honor had a near-death experience when she was swept away in her car during a flash flood in Texas while at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Weeks later, she wrote and performed a story about that experience at The Moth and has been writing more stories ever since.

Paula Fung (Rye, NY) lives in a charming neighborhood just north of New York City, along with her husband, three daughters, and their dog, Boomer. She produces a show on public access television, Rye Views and writes personal essays on the things she knows, which are, in no particular order, cooking, sailing, and family life. Her work has been published on the blog, Sailing Anarchy and she wishes to continue taking classes The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College in perpetuity.

John Gredler (Tuckahoe, NY) poet and memoirist, has been writing prodigiously in notebooks and journals for most of his adult life. He honed his craft at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, Bella Villa Writers, 125, and the Terzo Piano Workshops. Published in Fictionique, Narratively, Dan's Papers, and Talking Writing, John's essay, “Glistening Scar,” won top prize in the Talking Writing Nature Writing contest, and he was awarded the 2014 Gurfein Fellowship from The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. His story ‘Begin Then’ will be in the forthcoming edition of Westchester Review, and he received an Honorable Mention in the Westchester Review’s recent 2016 Flash Fiction contest. John lives and writes 3 in Tuckahoe, NY.

Marilyn Ogus Katz (Clinton Corners, NY) taught in an educational opportunity program at the State University of New York, College at Purchase, and then served for many years as dean of studies at Sarah Lawrence College. She left academia to write, primarily fiction, and what had for Marilyn always been an exciting illicit activity became a committed relationship with all of its joys and frustrations. She completed a novel, The Old City, about a family of Latvian Jews caught between Hitler and Stalin in 1940 and 1941, and a collection of linked short stories, A Few Small Stones, about coming of age in an extended immigrant family in New York City during the 1940s. Her agent has submitted both novel and short story collection to publishers this spring. Essays on Wordsworth, the teaching of writing, issues in higher education and the concerns of older women, appeared in journals and anthologies. Five of the short stories were accepted for publication, two as prizewinners (Writer’s Digest, Best Short Shorts 2015, Tupelo Quarterly Winter Prose Contest, 2016,). Marilyn says, “As a late bloomer, I have to believe, along with Grace Paley, in ‘Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.’”

Steven Lewis (New Paltz, NY) is Literary Ombudsman for 650, a columnist at Talking Writing, and a member of the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute faculty. He’s also a longtime freelancer whose work has been published widely, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, LA Times, Ploughshares, Spirituality & Health and many others. His most recent novel, Take This, was published by Codhill Press, and Codhill is releasing his next novel, Loving Violet, this spring. Also this year, Finishing Line Press is publishing Steve’s poetry chapbook, If I Die Before You Wake, and his extensive backlist includes Zen and the Art of Fatherhood, The ABCs of Real Family Values, The Complete Guide for the Anxious Groom, and Fear and Loathing of Boca Raton (a Hippie’s Guide to the New Sixties). Steve writes, “During much of the Sixties I was writing self-indulgent poetry in Madison, Wisconsin—mostly to meet girls—but somewhere along the way I met the poet James Hazard who gave me a flashlight to navigate my way through the self-reflective shadows and into what I now understand is the illuminating voice. I carry it daily up to my writing space in the Shawangunk Mountains and into workshops in New York’s Hudson Valley and the windy beaches of Hatteras Island, NC.”

Jennifer Manocherian (Scarsdale) has been theatre producer for over twenty five years with 4 many Broadway and off Broadway credits. She moonlights as a writer in various mediums. She wrote the book for the musical MARRY HARRY, which was produced at the New York Musical Festival in 2013 and American Theatre Group in 2014. She has also written several screenplays, one of which she produced as a feature film titled “Hudson River Blues” in the 1990’s. Prior to that she was a family therapist and divorce mediator. Several of her articles were published in professional journals. She also wrote a book chapter on divorce in the family therapy textbook ‘The Family Life Cycle.’

Katherine Mayer (Newtown, CT) is a potty-mouthed, sometimes cynical storyteller, humorist, and activist sharing life as she lives it in Newtown, Connecticut. She is a recent, reluctant inductee to AARP, the co-creator of two quasi-adults and two wannabees, and an aspiring writer with the rejections to prove it. She is sometimes funny on Instagram and Twitter as @KLMcopy, has invisible friends on Facebook, and writes about teenagers, midlife, social issues, feminism, and gun violence prevention at www.kathrynmayer.com.

Cari Pattison (Bronxville, NY) has served nine years as the Associate Minister at The Reformed Church of Bronxville, NY, and is currently their Acting Head of Staff. In addition to ministry, Cari trained as a Jazzercise, yoga, barre, and Pilates instructor, seeking to inspire people in body and spirit. Originally from Kansas City, Cari studied English and Art at Kalamazoo College (MI) and earned her Masters of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary (NJ). She previously taught eighth-grade English in Missouri, and served a variety of churches and hospitals in Kansas, Kenya, and New Jersey. Cari has blogged for The Huffington Post, illustrated the children’s book ABC: Sing with Me, and is a 2015 recipient of the Kathryn Gurfein Fellowship at The Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College. She has written for the faith phone app d365.org, and contributed a chapter to Women in Ministry, a book by Shannon Smythe.

Natasha Williams (Cottekill, NY) is an adjunct biology professor at SUNY Ulster in Stone ridge, NY and works as a consultant for the International Public School Network coaching science teachers. She has recently completed her memoir titled, The Parts of Him I Kept; Excerpts of this writing was selected by the NY writers institute for their memoir writers seminar taught by James Lasdun of Columbia University. She is also a member of Wallkill Valley Writers.