Wordsmiths Reading Series
Amy Small-McKinney and Jennifer Tseng
Friday, September 26, 7:30 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
About Amy Small-McKinney
Amy Small-McKinney is the author of six books of poetry. Her newest full-length book, & You Think It Ends, was released March 2025 (Glass Lyre Press). Her second full-length book of poems, Walking Toward Cranes, won the Kithara Book Prize (Glass Lyre Press, 2016). Small-McKinney’s poems also appear in several anthologies, for example, Rumors, Secrets, & Lies: Poems about Pregnancy, Abortion, & Choice (Anhinga Press, 2023) and 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium (Ashland Poetry Press, 2021). In 2019, her poem “Birthplace” received Special Merits recognition by The Comstock Review for their Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry Contest, judged by poet, David Kirby, and again, in 2021 for her poem, “Bench, Ducks, & Inn,” judged by poet, Juan Felipe Herrera. On 10/2/23, her poem "Love/Furious" appeared in Verse Daily. Her poems have also been translated into Korean and Romanian. Her book reviews have appeared in journals, such as Prairie Schooner and Matter. Small-McKinney has a degree in Clinical Neuropsychology from Drexel University and an MFA in Poetry from Drew University. She resides in Philadelphia, where she has taught community poetry workshops, both privately and as part of conferences, as well as independent students.
Jennifer Tseng
Poet and fiction writer Jennifer Tseng was born in Indiana and raised in California by a first generation Chinese immigrant engineer and a third generation German American microbiologist. Her flash fiction collection, The Passion of Woo & Isolde (Rose Metal Press 2017), was a Firecracker Award Finalist and winner of an Eric Hoffer Book Award; her novel, Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness (Europa Editions 2015), was shortlisted for the PEN American Center's Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the New England Book Award. MAYUMI is available in English, Italian, and Danish.
She's also the author of four award-winning books of poetry, The Man With My Face (AAWW 2005); the bilingual Red Flower, White Flower (Marick Press 2013) featuring Chinese translations by Mengying Han and Aaron Crippen; and the chapbook, Not so dear Jenny (Bateau Press 2017), poems made with her father’s English letters. The full-length version of her chapbook, Thanks for Letting Us Know You Are Alive, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2024.
Tseng earned an MA in Asian American Studies at UCLA, an MFA in creative writing at University of Houston, and she was twice a fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She's currently an associate professor of literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz.
Lynn Fanok
Thursday, October 23, 12:30 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
About Lynn Fanok
Lynn Fanok is the author of Bread and Fumes (Kelsay Books), a book of poems that examines her formative years, a childhood imbued with Ukrainian heritage, ethnic food, language, and complexities of being the daughter of a WWII labor camp survivor. Her second collection The Weeds is forthcoming from Kelsay Books in the summer of 2025. Her work appears in Painted Bride Quarterly, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Red Wolf Press, Tiny Seed Journal, Gossamer Arts Literary Journal, and the poetry anthology, Carry Us to the Next Well (Kelsay Books).
Nicole Greaves
Saturday, November 15, 1 – 3 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
Bucks County Poet Laureate Reading and Reception, featuring the new Poet Laureate with preliminary judge, Nicole Greaves
About Nicole Greaves
Nicole Greaves’s poetry has appeared in numerous literary reviews––including SWWIM, Cleaver Magazine, Matter Poetry, American Poetry Review; Philly Edition, Radar Poetry–– and was awarded prizes by The Academy of American Poets and the Leeway Foundation of Philadelphia. She was a finalist for the 2020 Frontier Digital Chapbook Contest and a 2015 finalist for the Coniston Prize of Radar Poetry, who also nominated her for The Best of the Net. She was selected by Gregory Orr as the 2003 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
In 2021, Nicole was the guest judge for the InterBoard Poetry Community (IPBC) competition. She has served as a preliminary judge for the Leeway Foundation and Montgomery County Poetry Laureate Contest and curated poetry at The Painted Bride Art Center. Nicole also facilitates workshops, most recently at the Caesura Poetry Festival.
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.