Writers Read: Susan Middleton, Patrick Keppel, Jane McPhetres Johnson

Writers Read is a monthly opportunity for an audience to come and listen to local writers in an intimate environment. Each second Wednesday of the month, three writers read from their work, followed by a discussion facilitated by Lindy Whiton. These discussions have been eye opening, touching, and inspiring. Audiences have left the venue ready to write.

Susan Middleton’s poems have been published in The RavensPerch, WordPeace, Silkworm, and Plum, among other publications. She is a co-founder of Slate Roof Press, which in 2007 published her chapbook Seed Case of the Heart. Currently she is completing two full-length poetry collections. She also writes fiction and nonfiction.

Patrick Keppel’s play The Freeing of Mollie Steimer had its premiere in August 2025 with the Rock River Players in Williamsville, VT. His multimedia one-act play Triangle, with puppets and live music, was performed from 2011-2014 at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn, Sandglass Theater in Putney, VT, and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Keppel is also a writer of fiction. Stories from his collection, The Monologist, have appeared in various journals, and “A Vectorial History of Leroy Pippin” was read by Eli Wallach at Symphony Space in New York as part of NPR’s Selected Shorts program.

Jane McPhetres Johnson was born in the Rockies, commuted from WY to VT’s 1980 Goddard MFA. Poems echo a Munch “Scream” in 2017’s Not My President, 2023’s Silkworm Pushcart nomination, and a 2026 sold-out Iron Horse bluegrass crowd. Her book Maven Reaches Mars (Off the Common 2021) boycotts Amazon.

For more information, email [email protected].

$1-5 suggested donation