Join Bernardsville Poet for Tea and Talk

Sometimes there's just not enough days to go around, but each week we'll give you an idea of something to do to relax, spend time with family and just take some time for yourself.

This week, those who wish to enjoy a literary experience can attend tea and conversation with award-winning New Jersey poet Anne Marie Macari at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Bernardsville Public Library on Anderson Hill Road in Bernardsville.

Mendham resident Julie Maloney, director of Women Reading Aloud, will conduct an up-close-and-personal interview with the poet, a Lambertville resident. WRA and the library are co-hosting Macari's appearance.

Audience members also will have a rare opportunity to ask the author questions about her work and her writing process, according to information from the library. A short reading as well as a book signing will follow the interview.

More information on Anne Marie Macari is on her Facebook page.

There is no charge to attend the program at the library, but advance sign-up is requested. Members of the public who wish to attend can register online at the Bernardsville Library website, and follow the link from Adult Programs, or call the library at 908-766-0118 to sign up.

The Poetry Center at Smith College, in Massachusetts, calls Macari a "questioner, a truth-seeker and a modern soothsayer." Her most recent book is “She Heads Into the Wilderness” (Autumn House Press, 2008). Her first book, “Ivory Cradle,” won The APR/Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry, according to the library. She is also the author of “Gloryland” (Alice James Books). 

In 2005, Ms. Macari won the James Dickey Prize from Five Points Magazine, and her poems have appeared in numerous other magazines such as The Iowa Review, The American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, and Field, and in anthologies including “From the Fishouse” (Persea Books, 2009) and “Never Before: Poems About First Experiences” (Four Way Books).

A graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, she holds an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence. Macari founded and teaches in the Drew MFA Program for Poetry & Poetry in Translation in Madison. She has also taught on the faculty of the Prague Summer Seminars.

Interviewer Julie Maloney has worked in the arts as a performer and educator her entire life. She is a poet and writer and founder/director of Women Reading Aloud (WRA), a not-for-profit organization that promotes women writers in New Jersey and beyond. WRA holds workshops, special events, writing retreats, conferences and an on-going writing workshop series each spring and fall during which women writers of all genres hone their work in a salon type setting.

The annual Writer’s Weekend Retreat is held each April in Sea Girt. This June,  WRA returns for its third Greece Writer’s Retreat on the island of Alonnisos in the North Sporades.