BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – Village Square Booksellers in Bellows Falls, Vt., welcomes Vermont author Elayne Clift in a virtual event Saturday, Oct. 9 at 1 p.m. Clift will read from and discuss “A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic,” the poetry anthology on the pandemic that she has edited.
It is more than a year since Covid-19 invaded our countries and our bodies, causing us to long for the touch of loved ones, to fight anxiety and despair, and to adjust to the stunning effects of prolonged isolation. We watched as the numbers of deaths mounted and agreed that it was the worst health crisis we’d experienced in a hundred years. We saw pictures of those we’d lost and resisted having them treated as mere statistics. What we longed for were stories about people lost to the insidious virus, and those left behind. We wanted stories of survival, coping, finding our way to the future. We wanted stories that made us laugh, weep, empathize, share sadness, and become better people ourselves.
Elayne Clift, a Vermont Humanities Council scholar, is an award-winning writer and journalist whose work appears in numerous publications internationally. She has published two poetry collections, two memoirs, and three short story collections, the third book of which, “Children of the Chalet,” won First Prize in Fiction, Greyden Press, 2014. Her latest book is “Around the World in 50 Years: Travel Tales of a Not So Innocent Abroad” (Braughler Books). This is her fourth anthology.
Other readers include Michael Bosworth, Rai d’Honore, and Lali Sri.
Bosworth is retired and recently returned to writing poetry and creative nonfiction after a 45-year hiatus. He serves on the board of the Brattleboro Commons newspaper and belongs to the writer’s group, Write Action, both in Brattleboro, Vt.
Rai d’Honore holds a Ph.D. in modern languages and has taught English, French, and Spanish languages, literature, film, history, and politics at universities in the U.S. and abroad. Her second CD and book on Esclarmonde de Foix, spiritual head of the resistance against the Albigensian Crusade, are forthcoming.
Lali Sri is the author of “Atma Bodha” (O Books, 2012), a collection of Indian poetry in English translation. She teaches literature and creative writing at CUNY’s Borough of Manhattan Community College.
For more information and to join the Zoom meeting, go to www.villagesquarebooks.com/event.
Village Square Booksellers next event will be Archer Mayor, Friday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.