Wordsmiths Reading Series
Three Bucks County Poet Laureates with New Books
Friday, February 27, 7:30 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
About Joseph Chelius
Joseph Chelius is the author of Playing Fields (2025) and four previous collections of poems: Taking Pitches and Row House Yards (Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2006 and 2011), and The Art of Acquiescence and Crossing State Lines (WordTech Communications, 2014 and 2020). He is a former Bucks County, Pennsylvania Poet Laureate and was the first-place winner of the inaugural Short Fiction Contest at Bucks County Community College. His work appears in Cider Press Review, Commonweal, Poet Lore, Poetry East, Rattle, THINK, and other journals. A semi-retired editor and editorial director in the healthcare communications industry, Joe and his wife have two grown children and have lived in Bucks County for 32 years.
About W.D. Ehrhart
W. D. Ehrhart is a Vietnam War veteran, a dedicated anti-war activist, and the author of the memoir Vietnam-Perkasie, among other books. He’s also a regular contributor of nonfiction articles to Current Affairs, and the first poet to be published in its pages. His new poetry collection, Smart Fish Don’t Bite, is available from Moonstone Press. Ehrhart’s poems present straightforward, candid portrayals of experience; he often allows his narrators’ accounts and observations of events to stand without overt explanation. He has written about the Vietnam War and is known as a Vietnam War poet, but his subjects also include encounters with friends and family, and observations of the world around him—for instance, the death of a friend, memories of his grandmother, and his urban Philadelphia neighborhood. He has cited his wife and daughter as influences on his writing. Ehrhart lives in Philadelphia.
About Jane Edna Mohler
Jane Edna Mohler is the 2020 Bucks County Poet Laureate (PA), and winner of the 2016 Main Street Voices prize. Recent publications include Gargoyle and One Art. Her collections, Broken Umbrellas (2019) and Autumn Clears (2025) were both published by Kelsay Books. She is Poetry Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. She is an American Traditional Rug Hooker and devoted gardener.
Jamie Brenner
Thursday, April 16, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
About Jamie Brenner
Jamie Brenner is the USA TODAY bestselling author of women’s fiction, romance, and soapy drama. Her novels include The Forever Summer, Blush, and the forthcoming trilogy Blue Angel. Jamie grew up reading the scandalous heroines of Jackie Collins, the family dramas of Danielle Steele, and erotic sagas by Judith Krantz. Her dream novel combines all three. After raising two daughters in New York City, Jamie now lives in Bucks County—the inspiration for her recent novel The Weekend Crashers.
A History of Wordsmiths Reading Series
Since the 1960s, Bucks County Community College’s Wordsmiths Reading Series has featured some of the most distinguished and admired poets of our times. The list of poets from the 1960s includes Allen Ginsberg (with cushion and guitars), Galway Kinnell, William Stafford, Richard Hugo, Kenneth Koch, Nikki Giovanni, Carolyn Forché, Derek Walcott, Lucille Clifton, Denise Levertov, David Ignatow, Joseph Brodsky, Philip Levine, James Tate, Wendell Berry, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Robert Bly, John Logan, Carol Muske-Dukes, Tess Gallagher, Maxine Kumin, and James Dickey. The 1970s featured, among others, Etheridge Knight, Gary Snyder, John Logan, Carolyn Kizer, Robert Creeley, Alan Dugan, Judith Sherwin, Adrienne Rich, and W. D. Snodgrass. In recent years, the series has continued to highlight contemporary literary luminaries such as Sharon Olds, Robert Pinsky, Martín Espada, Bob Holman, Mark Doty, Gerald Stern, James Richardson, Evie Shockley, Anne Marie Macari, Dean Rader, Charles Simic, Jericho Brown, Richard Blanco, Li-Young Lee, Chase Twichell, and Brenda Hillman. Additionally, in recent years, the series has featured some of the most notable fiction writers of our time, including Andre Dubus and Ben Marcus. The awards bestowed on our featured writers are too numerous to name, and include the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book award, and the PEN Literary Award.
Cultural Significance
As the founder and leader of the renowned Wordsmiths series, the College has distinguished itself among Philadelphia-area colleges and universities, and has become the home of a vibrant community of writers, poetry lovers, and supporters of the arts. Wordsmiths readings are always widely attended. Guest writers are often paired with inspiring local ones, and the audience is typically made up of a lively mix of students, faculty, and the community at-large. The series gives students the opportunity to connect what they learn in the classroom with the wider world by attending high caliber free readings on their own campus. Simply put, the series places Bucks County Community College at the center of the region’s literary life.
The Wordsmiths Reading Series is funded by BCCC’s Cultural Programming Committee.