Monadnock Writers’ Group begins speaker series

On Saturday, Sept. 16, atb9:45 a.m., Monadnock Writers’ Group begins its monthly speaker series at MacDowell’s James Baldwin Library, 100 High St. in Peterborough.

MacDowell Fellows Garrard Conley and Caroline Schmidt will be featured speakers. The free event provides attendees the opportunity to hear two award-winning writers discuss their works in a setting typically not open to visitors.

Conley wrote the bestselling memoir “Boy Erased”, adapted into a movie by the same name, about growing up in a Southern fundamentalist family that enrolled him in gay conversion therapy. His upcoming novel, “All the World Beside,” is due for release in 2024.

Schmidt is an Arizona-based poet and writer. She has received awards and fellowships from the Beinecke Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center and the Bucknell University Stadler Center for Poetry. Her work is published in American Short Fiction, Colorado Review, Palette Poetry and Southern Humanities Review, among others. Her story “Particular Luck” was selected by R.O. Kwon as the winner of the 2021 Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize.

Since 1984, the Monadnock Writers’ Group has supported local writers of all genres and levels of achievement. Monthly meetings, held on the third Saturday of each month, bring a variety of writers to the Monadnock region to offer their experiences.

In addition, MWG publishes periodic anthologies and “Smoky Quartz,” a semiannual online journal of literature and art. Throughout the year, MWG hosts contests, public readings and informal gatherings to raise awareness of the literary talent in the Monadnock region. Learn more at monadnockwriters.org and smokyquartz.org.