Writers Guild Spoken Word Series
featuring from Five Women Poets, a writing workshop formed in 1974: Tonia Matthew, Peggy Squires, Anya Peterson Royce, Leah Helen May
+ an open mic
$5 suggested donation

TONIA MATTHEW, originally from England, has lived in Bloomington since 1968 She is a member of Five Women Poets and with them has published three chapbooks and put out a cd. She grew up during WWII and this informs much of her work. Her play “Home Front,” which is built around the letters that she received from her father, who was fighting in Burma in WWII, was presented as a radio drama on August 10th in the auditorium of the Monroe County Library.

MARGARET FISHER SQUIRES grew up in or near the capital cities of the United States, India, and Turkey. The third time she and her husband moved to Bloomington, they put down roots, and raised their daughter here. Margaret is a psychotherapist. She finds that Nature sustains her, and she would like to return the favor. Her current amusements include playing the Ticket to Ride board game and not finding time to write fantasy stories. She is grateful for the continuing support of friends, the Writers Guild, and Five Women Poets. She would like you to know that people are more creative when working at a messy desk.

ANYA PETERSON ROYCE has spent the better part of her life listening and observing, hearing people and landscapes into speech. Then she spends even more time finding the right words to capture the sense of their stories.Poetry and ethnography require the same honesty and beauty in the telling. It is based, she thinks, on the discipline of the craft and the courage to go beyond it to where the meaning lives.

LEAH HELEN MAY is a native of Monroe County, attended a county grade school and University High School In Bloomington. Her interest in gardening eventually led to a lifetime of work in her family’s greenhouse business. She loves poetry and began to attempt writing it while in high school. A poetry seminar taught by Sandra Gilbert at Indiana University led to participation in the local writing group Five Women Poets. Her work has been published in several chap books published by that group.