Adult Learning
Free. Welcoming. No registration required.
Writers & Books hosts two ongoing drop-in gatherings designed to foster creativity and connection. Come once, come weekly, or as the spirit moves.
Community Writing Group
Saturdays | 1–2:30 pm
In person at Writers & Books
Ages 18+ | Free & open to the public
A collaborative, supportive writing community focused on encouragement, generosity, and accountability. Writers at all levels and in all genres are welcome.
Share work, receive thoughtful feedback, try new prompts, or simply write quietly in community.
Facilitated by Jessica L. Pavia and Nina Gaby.
Please check in at Visitor Services / Ampersand Books upon arrival.
Poetry Oasis
Fridays | 12–1 pm
In person at Writers & Books
Free & open to the public
A welcoming weekly gathering to read and respond to contemporary, canonical, and underrepresented poems from a wide range of voices.
Participants read aloud, reflect together, and explore how poetry compresses beauty and meaning into language.
Facilitated by Kitty Jospé.
Please check in at Visitor Services / Ampersand Books upon arrival.
Nina Gaby is a writer, visual artist and psychiatric nurse practitioner. Her essays and articles have been published in numerous anthologies, journals and magazines. She has been on faculty at the University of Rochester, Maine College of Art, St. John Fisher, and Norwich University, as well a lecturer for the Vermont Department of Health. Learn more at ninagaby.wordpress.com.
Rochester native Jessica L. Pavia’s creative nonfiction work has appeared in Electric Literature, Longreads, Catapult!, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, The Columbia Journal, Breadcrumbs Magazine, and elsewhere. She also writes a bi-weekly column for Write or Die Magazine.
Kitty is a retired French teacher and Art Docent who loves the art of drawing out ideas and inspiration in weekly poetry discussion sessions she has moderated since 2008. She appreciates the crafting of poetry to compress beauty and meaning into visual and aural form. Her poems are inspired by different languages and the exploration of “the sound of sense”. Her work appears in various journals, anthologies. She’s the author of five books of poetry published by FootHills Publishing.
