Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Mark Hillringhouse and Laura Boss in Montclair December 7

Danforth Public Library, Paterson - Photo by Mark Hillringhouse

On Thursday, December 7, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Mark Hillringhouse and Laura Boss will be the featured poets at a Publications Celebration as part of the Montclair Monthly Poetry Series.

The series is held at the Montclair Public Library (Auditorium), 50 South Fullerton Avenue, Montclair, NJ. These readings are free and open to the public and begin at 7 pm.

Maria Gillan and Mark Hillringhouse are celebrating the publication of their collection Paterson Light and Shadow (Serving House Books, 2017) tells stories in poetry and photography about Paterson, New Jersey, with poems by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, and fine art photos by Mark Hillringhouse, who together have spent a lifetime growing up, living and working in and around one of America’s most important historic industrial cities.

Laura Boss is celebrating her new poetry collection, The Best Lover, New York Quarterly Books, 2017, which continues her signature style of audacious, irreverent, ironic narrative poems. These poems fuse heartbreak, humor and intensity in unflinchingly honest words that explore relationships: both family relationships and lovers. This book examines the grief that follows a long-term relationship, 9/11, internet dating, the randomness of fate and the way choices made or not made affect the course of our lives. Baudelaire said, “the worst sin of poetry is to be boring” - Laura Boss’ poems are never boring.

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is the founder/executive director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, NJ, and editor of the Paterson Literary Review. She is also director of the Binghamton Center for Writers and the creative writing program, and professor of English at Binghamton University-SUNY. She has published 22 books. Her most recent books are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow  and the poetry collection, What Blooms in Winter . Her collection of poems along with some of her paintings is The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets . Maria's official website is MariaGillan.com..     Maria's website is mariagillan.com

Mark Hillringhouse is a published poet, essayist, and photographer whose works have been widely exhibited in area galleries. His photography and writing have been published in The American Poetry Review, The Literary Review, The New York Times, The New Jersey Monthly, The Paris Review, and in many other journals, books, anthologies and magazines. He was the founding editor of The American Book Review, and a contributing editor for The New York Arts Journal. Thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a three-time recipient of a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship. He has also published Between Frames, a collection of black and white photos and a collection of urban photos, Paterson, that also documents the city. His photography website is mhillringhouse.zenfolio.com

Laura Boss is an award-winning poet. She was a first prize winner in Poetry Society of America’s Gordon Barber Poetry Contest. Laura was the sole representative of the United States at the XXVI Annual International Struga Poetry Readings in Yugoslavia. Awards for her writing also include an American Literary Translators Award and three Fellowships in Creative Writing from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She received the first International Poetry Award at the International Poetry Festival at Swansea, Wales (sponsored by Cross-Cultural Communications and Seventh Quarry Magazine of Wales). Her collections of poetry include Stripping, the award-winning On the Edge of the Hudson, Reports from the Front, which was nominated for an American Book Award, Arms: New and Selected Work and Flashlight. Laura is the founder and Editor of Lips poetry magazine. Laura's website is laurabosspoet.wordpress.com