Join the Gloucester Writers Center for an evening of poetry with Dick Lourie and Mark Pawlak, two longtime poets, editors, and influential voices in independent literary publishing.

Both poets are closely connected to Hanging Loose Press, which celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2026. Lourie is a co-founder and senior editor of the press, while Pawlak serves as managing editor.

Dick Lourie is the author of Jam Session and Other Poems, a collection alive with the rhythms of jazz and blues, American history, politics, friendship, love, and memory. Music runs throughout the collection, including a title poem that imagines a conversation between Blues and Jazz as two old friends reflecting on their intertwined histories.

A poet and saxophone player, Lourie performed for fifteen years with internationally renowned blues singer Big Jack Johnson. His poetry has appeared widely for more than fifty years, and his poem “Forgiving Our Fathers” was featured in the film Smoke Signals.

Mark Pawlak is the author of Special Operation, his eleventh poetry collection, a powerful exploration of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the human lives caught within it. Through compressed, vivid poems, Pawlak bears witness to violence, endurance, resistance, and the struggle to “remain human” amid war.

His previous books include Away Away and the memoir My Deniversity: Knowing Denise Levertov. His poetry has appeared in The Best American Poetry and has been translated into Chinese, German, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish.

Pawlak is retired from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he taught mathematics and received the Chancellor’s Achievement Award.

Come hear two accomplished poets whose work asks us to listen closely—to music, history, conflict, memory, and one another.

FIRST MONDAY OPEN MIC AT GLOUCESTER WRITERS CENTER

Bring your words. Bring your stories. Or simply come listen.

Join us the first Monday of every month from 7–9 PM for Open Mic at Gloucester Writers Center, hosted by Bob Whelan and featuring a different guest poet or writer each month.

This month’s featured writer: Elizabeth Wolf

Elizabeth S. Wolf has published 6 books, most recently Parenting in the Age of Columbine (2025). Her memoir Did You Know? was a 2018 Rattle Chapbook Prize winner. Rattle Summer 2022 featured her project with Prisoner Express. In 2023 Elizabeth taped readings at the White House, Supreme Court, and US Capitol with The Scheherazade Project. She was featured in Boston Literary Magazine in April 2026. Her work is on the moon with the Lunar Codex.

Want to read? No advance registration is needed. Just sign in when you arrive and bring a poem, short piece of prose, essay, story, or other work you’d like to share. Writers will be called in order, followed by a short intermission and a reading from our featured writer.

Prefer to listen? Come on in! There’s no need to sign in or participate.

All genres. All levels. Writers, readers, listeners and the simply curious are welcome.

📍 Gloucester Writers Center
🗓 First Monday of every month
⏰ 7–9 PM
🎤 Hosted by Bob Whelan

Come to read. Come to listen. Come be part of Gloucester’s writing community.

This Veterans Day, Fish Tales takes the stage with an evening of true, personal stories by and about veterans, stories that go beyond the uniform to explore the people who wore it.

Through moments that are thoughtful, surprising, moving, and even humorous, storytellers will share the human experiences behind military service. How did serving affect them at the time? How do they view those experiences years later? And how did those moments help shape the people they are today?

Rather than a traditional Veterans Day tribute, VETERANS — What It Means, What It Meant offers an intimate look at military life through the voices and experiences of those who lived it, honest stories of change, connection, challenge, humor, and perspective.

Join us for an evening of storytelling that reminds us there is always more to the story.

Tickets available now! $25 at Gloucesterstage.com. Click to purchase and support GWC programs. See you there!

FIRST MONDAY OPEN MIC AT GLOUCESTER WRITERS CENTER

Bring your words. Bring your stories. Or simply come listen.

Join us the first Monday of every month from 7–9 PM for Open Mic at Gloucester Writers Center, hosted by Bob Whelan and featuring a different guest poet or writer each month.

This month’s featured writer: Lisa J. Sullivan

Lisa J. Sullivan is a Massachusetts native who holds an MFA in Poetry from the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing Program, where she was a Kurt Brown Memorial Fellow. Her poems and book reviews have appeared in The Comstock Review, Evening Street Review, The Arts Fuse, Third Wednesday, Common Ground Review, and elsewhere. She was the United States winner of The Poetry Project–Ireland in collaboration with the Academy of American Poets and was an Adrian Tinsley Program Creative Grant recipient. Lisa is the Art Editor for Lily Poetry Review and a Poetry Editor for Pink Panther Magazine. Her debut poetry collection, Theory of Impact, was published in 2026 by Lily Poetry Review Books.

Want to read? No advance registration is needed. Just sign in when you arrive and bring a poem, short piece of prose, essay, story, or other work you’d like to share. Writers will be called in order, followed by a short intermission and a reading from our featured writer.

Prefer to listen? Come on in! There’s no need to sign in or participate.

All genres. All levels. Writers, readers, listeners and the simply curious are welcome.

📍 Gloucester Writers Center
🗓 First Monday of every month
⏰ 7–9 PM
🎤 Hosted by Bob Whelan

Come to read. Come to listen. Come be part of Gloucester’s writing community.

Stay tuned for registration

Love takes many forms: romantic love, certainly, but also the love we feel for family, friends, places, pets, and the lives we’ve built. In this reading and generative workshop, four Massachusetts poets will share poems exploring devotion, desire, affection, longing, and connection. We’ll use those poems and a series of writing prompts as springboards for participants’ own work, with an opportunity to share what you’ve written in a warm and welcoming setting. Writers of all experience levels are welcome. Bring a notebook and a pen or a laptop, and leave with the beginnings of some new poems.

Presenters K. T. Landon, Kali Lightfoot, Rebecca Hart Olander, and Carla Panciera

K. T. Landon’s Abide (Ashland Poetry Press, 2026) was selected by Kim Addonizio as the winner of the 2025 Richard Snyder Memorial Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Southern Review, The Sun, New Ohio Review, and Best New Poets, and have been featured on The Slowdown and Verse Daily. She is a reader for Lily Poetry Review.

Kali Lightfoot’s books include Pelted by Flowers, published by CavanKerry Press, which was named a Massachusetts Center for the Book “Must Read,” and Big Band Night at the Good Life Bar, published by Moon Pie Press in 2025. Her poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies and was nominated for Pushcart prizes by Lavender Review and Poetry South and for Best of the Net by Star 82 Review. She lives in Salem.

Rebecca Hart Olander is the editor and director of Perugia Press. Her poetry collections include two full-length collections published by CavanKerry Press: Uncertain Acrobats, which was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and longlisted for the Massachusetts Book Award, and Singing from the Deep End, which was longlisted for the Last Syllable Book Award. She grew up in Gloucester and lives in western Massachusetts.

Carla Panciera’s poetry collections include One of the Cimalores, won one the Cider Press Award; No Day, No Dusk, No Love, which won the Bordighera Press Award; and One Trail of Longing, Another of String, published by Bordighera in 2025.  She was the James E. Kilgore scholar in Nonfiction at Bread Loaf Writers Conference and is the recipient of an Individual Artist Grant in Creative Nonfiction from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She is the Assistant Poetry Editor of Mom Egg Review and lives on Boston’s North Shore.

Stay tuned for registration