Writers Gail Thomas and Darlene Elias will read and discuss their work as part of the Readers and Writers Live series. 

Gail Thomas will read from new work and selected poems from her six books. Darlene Elias will read her poetry book and memoir, both in progress. 

About the writers:

• Gail Thomas is the author of Trail of Roots, Leaving Paradise, Odd Mercy, Waving Back, No Simple Wilderness, and Finding the Bear. Her poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies including CALYX, Beloit Poetry Journal, North American Review, Cumberland River Review, and South Florida Poetry Journal. Among her awards are the Seven Kitchens Press A.V. Christie Award for Trail of Roots, the Charlotte Mew Prize from Headmistress Press for Odd Mercy, the Narrative Poetry Prize from Naugatuck River Review, the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s “Must Read” for Waving Back, and the Quartet Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize. She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and Ucross, and several poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She teaches poetry with Pioneer Valley Writers’ Workshops, visits schools and libraries with her therapy dog Sunny, and supports immigrant and refugee families in Western Massachusetts.
• Darlene Elias is a writer and poet who grew up in the barrios of the Bronx and Holyoke, rich experiences that she mines for her literary art. As a product of the diaspora of Puerto Rico, her passion is to elevate and confirm the experience of her people and culture in a way that does not obscure hard truths. She especially enjoys sharing her stories with others in a way that affirms the ability of women to embrace challenges, empower themselves and build their own identity. She is a founder of the group the Writing Sisters and is the 2025 Straw Dog Writers Guild Emerging Writing Fellow. She is currently working on a poetry book and her memoir.

This event will also be livestreamed on the Forbes Library YouTube channel. Click here to view.

Readers and Writers Live is a revival of an author reading series that was produced by the (now closed) Globe Bookshop on Pleasant Street in the 1980s and 1990s. The new edition here at Forbes Library will take place in the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum on the second Wednesday of each month.