Thursday, March 19, 2026, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. ET, on Zoom
Jennifer Militello, Carey Salerno, and Bianca Stone will read on Zoom as part of the Words Like Blades reading series, hosted by Jennifer Franklin, Jane Huffman, Nathan McClain, and Ren Wilding. A Q&A will follow. Admission is free, but registration is required. Registered guests will receive a Zoom link and password prior to the start of the event. Registered guests will have the opportunity to send donations directly to the readers (to be split three ways) before, during, and after the event via Venmo or PayPal.
Jennifer Militello is the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire. She is the author of the hybrid collection Identifying the Pathogen (Tupelo Press, 2026) named a finalist for the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, The Pact (Tupelo Press/Shearsman Books, 2021), and the memoir Knock Wood, winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize (Dzanc Books, 2019), as well as four previous books of poetry. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Poetry, Poetry London, and The Poetry Review (UK). Militello has taught at Brown University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the Rhode Island School of Design, and currently teaches in the MFA program at New England College.
Carey Salerno serves as the executive director and publisher of Alice James Books where she has been dedicated to broadening the spectrum of the American poetic voice since 2008. She is the author of The Hungriest Stars (Persea Books, 2025), Tributary (2021), Shelter (2009), and a co-editor of Lit From Inside: 40 Years of Poetry from Alice James Books (2013). She is the recipient of a 2025 Pushcart Prize and a 2025 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Council. Salerno serves as co-chair for LitNet: The Literary Network and teaches publishing arts and poetry writing for the University of Maine. She is a frequent guest of writing programs, conferences, and festivals where she conducts editorial consultations and delivers talks on publishing arts, editing, poetry, manuscript compilation, and other topics. You may find her essays, poems––and articles and interviews regarding her literary and publishing work––in print and online, including in NPR, Poets & Writers, and American Poetry Review.
Bianca Stone is a Vermont-based poet and scholar currently serving as Vermont’s poet laureate. Stone is the author of the poetry collections, What is Otherwise Infinite (Tin House, 2022) winner of the 2022 Vermont Book Award; The Möbius Strip Club of Grief (Tin House, 2018), Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Octopus Books and Tin House, 2014) and The Near and Distant World (Tin House, 2026). She collaborated with Anne Carson on the illuminated version of Carson’s Sophocles translation, Antigonick (New Directions, 2012), as well as illustrated a children’s book A Little Called Pauline (Penny Candy Books, 2020), using a Gertrude Stein poem. Her poetry and writings have appeared widely in such magazines as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poets and Writers, The Nation and the Best American Poetry series. In 2013 she co-founded the poetry-based nonprofit, Ruth Stone House, with her partner the poet, Ben Pease, in honor her grandmother, the late poet, Ruth Stone, Ruth Stone House, where she organizes events and retreats, teaches classes on poetry and poetic study, hosts the Ode & Psyche Podcast and is editor-at-large for the poetry magazine, ITERANT. More at https://ruthstonehouse.org/