{"id":931,"date":"2026-03-06T19:43:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T19:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/?page_id=931"},"modified":"2026-08-24T14:48:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T14:48:57","slug":"voices-reading-series","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/voices-reading-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices Reading Series"},"content":{"rendered":"
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VOICES<\/strong> History<\/h2><\/div><\/div>
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The VOICES Reading Series has been dedicated for nearly forty years to bringing emerging and established writers from across the nation to read for the St. Mary\u2019s community. These readings typically take place on a monthly basis in the Daugherty-Palmer Commons (DPC) on Thursday nights at 7:30\u00a0and are free and open to the public. Each evening has a simple format: the invited poet or prose writer is introduced by a St. Mary\u2019s faculty member and reads for about 30 minutes. At the receptions that follow each reading, audience members have a chance to mingle with the visiting writer who has just read aloud from his or her work. Over the years, St. Mary\u2019s has been honored to hear the voices of poets and prose writers such as Mark Doty, Sharon Olds, Toni Morrison, and Lucille Clifton\u2014and many more.<\/p>\n

When VOICES series founder Michael Glaser arrived in 1970, his personal and professional mission was to expand the role of poetry on campus and to provide students with exposure to living, breathing poetry. By 1976, Glaser and Judith Hall began bringing poets to St. Mary\u2019s for an intensive two-week summer program run on a shoestring budget called \u201cThe Festival of Poets and Poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early eighties, Michael Glaser asked poet Lucille Clifton, Maryland\u2019s Poet Laureate from 1979-1985, to visit St. Mary\u2019s for the first time. Knowing that she loved Maryland, Michael Glaser suggested that Clifton become a repeat visitor to the College\u2014and she did. For close to two decades, Clifton taught at St. Mary\u2019s and mentored student poets here.<\/p>\n

Clifton\u2019s presence also became the inspiration for the newly emerging VOICES program. While the summertime Festival of Poets and Poetry had been gaining reputation and momentum, the organizers wanted fall and spring semester students to have exposure to the world of contemporary literature that the summer festival brought to campus. The reading series was called \u201cVOICES\u201d because of Clifton\u2019s insistence that the emphasis of the series should be on hearing voices of justice, fairness, and human compassion. After all, the VOICES series began, in the words of Michael Glaser, \u201cnot because poetry matters, but because what poetry is about matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

This effort to bring the world of contemporary writing to the St. Mary\u2019s community has been very successful. In the Summer 2005 edition of The Mulberry Tree, Wrenn Heisler \u201999 writes, \u201cI knew I wanted to be an English major when I heard Robert Hass read. I knew I wanted to be passionate and precise about life and my family when I heard Lucille Clifton read. I knew I was doing the right thing in being an environmentalist when I heard W.S. Merwin read. I knew I wanted to teach when I took my first class with Michael Glaser. I knew I had never looked into eyes as intense as those of Adrienne Rich when I met her at St. Mary\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI met her,\u201d Heisler continues. \u201cThere I was\u2014a measly little English major at St. Mary\u2019s, and I was taking dinner with Adrienne Rich, one of the most illuminating poets of our time.\u201d In fact, all of the writers Heisler mentions are luminaries. Over the past thirty years, the collection of individuals who have come to read at St. Mary\u2019s is astonishing.<\/p>\n

Poets such as Robert Bly, Mary Oliver, Amiri Baraka, Toi Derricotte, and Li-Young Lee have been just a few of the many inspirational voices heard by the St. Mary\u2019s community through the VOICES series. In 2008, Glaser turned the directorship over to Karen Leona Anderson, who has maintained its focus on bringing quality writing and writers to campus along with an emphasis on diversity, collaboration, and aesthetic breadth.<\/p>\n

In addition to individual readings, the VOICES Reading Series has also broadened to include a variety of reading formats linking readers to writers. St. Mary\u2019s alumni, such as Tony Quick and Michelle Johnson, have read from their work; seniors have participated in Senior Invitational Readings; a Women Writers Reading group of female voices has been a regular feature of the Series; and in recent years, the Writer\u2019s Harvest\u2014a group reading led by English faculty member Jennifer Cognard-Black\u2014has raised money to fight hunger. The VOICES series also works each year with the Environmental Studies department, International Languages and Cultures, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies to host cross-disciplinary readings.<\/p>\n

Those who have attended the readings frequently cite them as formative events in their lives as poets and writers. \u201cThat one reading changed my life,\u201d is a common refrain from alumni such as Randy Bridgeman, who has continued to write and publish poetry since graduation. Many others have also gone on to become poets, or have found themselves teaching subjects such as art, poetry, and creative writing. Others remember the ideas behind the work, and have found their passions piqued by the subject matter of an evening gathering. For many of those who attended St. Mary\u2019s, VOICES serves to inspire a lifelong passion for reading and writing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>

VOICES<\/strong> Fall Schedule 2026<\/h2><\/div><\/div>
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Thursday, September 17: Poet and SMCM Alumn\u00a0Joe Hall, 7:30 PM, Daugherty Palmer Commons; introduced by Professor Jeff Coleman<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe Hall<\/strong> is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently <\/span>Buffalo Free Rapid Transit <\/span>(2026) and <\/span>Fugue and Strike<\/span> (2023). With Chad Hardy, he co-authored <\/span>The Container Store<\/span> Vols I & II (2012). With Cheryl Quimba, he co-authored the chapbook <\/span>May I Softly Walk<\/span> (2014). Hall has performed and delivered talks nationally at universities, living rooms, squats, and\/or rivers in most of the 50 states as well as Canada and Washington, DC. He participates in Hostile Books, a publishing collective dedicated to radical materiality, with Ryan Kaveh Sheldon and Angela Veronica Wong, Hall is currently an Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University. He has taught community based creative writing workshops through the Worker Center in Buffalo and Just Buffalo Literary Center.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div>

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Thursday October 15: Novelist and SMCM Professor Jerry Gabriel and Memoirist Molly McCloy, 7:30 PM, Daugherty Palmer Commons<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jerry Gabriel (SMCM faculty)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jerry Gabriel\u2019s<\/strong> first novel, <\/span>Deserter<\/span>s, was published in May 2026 (Acre Books). He is the author of two collections of stories, <\/span>The Let Go<\/span> (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2015) and <\/span>Drowned Boy <\/span>(Sarabande, 2010), which won the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, was a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” pick, and was awarded the 2011 Towson Prize for Literature. His stories have appeared in <\/span>One Story<\/span>,<\/span> Epoch<\/span>,<\/span> Fiction, The Missouri Review<\/span>, and <\/span>Alaska Quarterly Review<\/span>, among other publications. He\u00a0 has received grants and fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts (2004), the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (2011), and the National Endowment for the Arts (2016). He lives in Maryland with his family and teaches writing at St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Molly McCloy<\/b> is a four-time Moth StorySLAM winner whose memoir <\/span>Nine Grudges: The Spiteful Origins of the Happiest Dyke on Earth<\/span> won the 2023 Quill Prose Award from Red Hen Press as well as the Book Pipeline Nonfiction Prize.\u00a0 She holds an M.F.A. in Nonfiction from The New School, and she has facilitated storytelling workshops for Pima Community College, Quest Storytelling, the University of Arizona\u2019s The Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environmental and Social Justice, and Auto Entry and CPA Academy.<\/span><\/p>\n

She has performed stories for Bawdy and RADAR in San Francisco, and at Dixon Place in New York City, The Scottsdale Center for the Arts, and The Arizona Biltmore. Her work has been featured in <\/span>O magazine<\/span>, excerpted in the <\/span>Blue Mesa Review<\/span> and <\/span>Foglifter,<\/span> and broadcast on <\/span>The Best of Risk!<\/span> podcast. She currently lives in Tucson with her wife Rebecca and teaches writing for the awesome students of Pima Community College.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div>

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Thursday, November 12: Performance Poet and Organizer CJ Suitt (in collaboration with ENST), 7:30 PM, Daugherty Palmer Commons; introduced by Professor Parisa Rinaldi\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

CJ Suitt<\/strong> (he\/him or they\/them) is a performance poet, arts educator, community organizer, and Restorative Justice practitioner from Chapel Hill, NC. His work lives at the intersection of art, healing, and justice, rooted in a deep belief that storytelling can connect people across difference and create pathways toward collective liberation. <\/span>As the Inaugural Poet Laureate of Chapel Hill, CJ uses poetry as a tool for reflection, resistance, and community-building. He has co-directed and performed in theatrical productions, shared stages at national music festivals, and brought his voice to classrooms, prisons, and public forums alike. <\/span>His practice as a restorative justice advocate has led him to work with youth awaiting trial, incarcerated elders, and young men redefining masculinity in their schools and communities. Through collaborations with organizations like Transplanting Traditions, Benevolence Farm, and Growing Change, he explores how food, land, and story intertwine in the work of justice.<\/span>CJ is committed to speaking truth to power and to build bridges where others see barriers. His values\u2014truth, care, and connection\u2014guide every space he enters.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Thursday, December 3: Storyteller Adrian Gaston Garcia (in collaboration with ILC), 7:30 PM, Daugherty Palmer Commons; introduced by Professor Jos\u00e9 Ballesteros<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adrian Gaston Garcia <\/strong>(aka AGG) is a queer Latine storyteller whose mission is to share narratives that build community. He hails from the Windy City and has been in the district for the past 15 years. Adrian fuels his creativity via the performing arts, specifically theater and spoken word poetry. His work is primarily based on his experiences and the intersectionality of his identities. Adrian\u2019s poetry has been featured at a variety of venues and shows, including the American Poetry Museum, the DC Latino Book Festival, DC Pride Poems, World Poetry Festival, and the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Adrian is the co-host and producer of Los Bookis Podcast, a podcast for queer Latine bookworms who love queer Latine stories. He is also the founder and organizer of Tintas DC – a Latine writers group in the DC Metro Area. Adrian was part of the 2025 year\u2019s Pride Poet in Residence at the Arts Club of Washington.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div><\/div>

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About<\/strong><\/h2><\/div><\/div>
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The VOICES Reading Series, established by poets Lucille Clifton and Michael Glaser over 30 years ago, features poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers and is intended to bring accomplished writers to the campus to interact with students and faculty. Invited writers read their works throughout the semester on Thursday evenings at 8:15 P.M at Daugherty-Palmer Commons, and all readings are free and open to the public. Once or twice a month, authors give a short reading and then respond during a brief question and answer period. Each reading is followed by a reception, where students and faculty can mingle with the author and other interested writers and readers. The author\u2019s book(s) are also sold during the reception and can be signed by the author. Luminaries such as Mark Doty, Elizabeth Alexander, Toni Morrison, and Naomi Shihab Nye have read in the series.<\/p>\n

Information on events are posted throughout campus, and emails are sent out near the date of the readings; please contact the director, Karen Leona Anderson (klanderson@smcm.edu<\/a>) if you would like to be added to these notifications. In addition, all the events and information on the authors can be found at our Facebook page: Creative Writing Resources at St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

LATEST<\/strong> NEWS<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland Presents An Evening to Honor the Legacy of Lucille Clifton (Virtual)<\/h3><\/a><\/div>
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St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland Presents An Evening to Honor the Legacy of Lucille Clifton<\/h3><\/a><\/div>
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Revised - An Evening to Honor the Legacy of Lucille Clifton at St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland<\/h3><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
More VOICES News<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Additional <\/strong>Links<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
VOICES Archive<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Department of English<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The VOICES Reading Series has been dedicated for nearly forty years to bringing emerging and established writers from across the nation to read for the St. Mary\u2019s community. These readings typically take place on a monthly basis in the Daugherty-Palmer Commons (DPC) on Thursday nights at 7:30\u00a0and are free and open to the public. Each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"full-width-content","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-931","page","type-page","status-publish","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1196,"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/931\/revisions\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smcm.edu\/signature-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}