Words in the Garden featuring Philip Cioffari and Joanie Roberts

“Words from the Garden” is a weekly, outdoor literary salon from the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) and the Eureka Springs Carnegie Library.  Every Wednesday through the summer at 4:30 pm, local writers and/or visiting WCDH writers-in-residence will present a reading and Q&A under the tent in the Eureka Springs Carnegie Library Garden at 188 Spring Street (south of the Carnegie Library Gardens Building). The readings are free and open to all. Wednesday, August 18, will feature New Jersey writer, director, and educator Philip Cioffari and Bella Vista poet Joan Barrett Roberts.

Philip Cioffari is the author of the novels: “IF ANYONE ASKS, SAY I DIED FROM THE HEARTBREAKING BLUES;” “THE BRONX KILL;” “DARK ROAD, DEAD END;” “JESUSVILLE;” “CATHOLIC BOYS;” and the short story collection, “A HISTORY OF THINGS LOST OR BROKEN,” which won the Tartt Fiction Prize, and the D. H. Lawrence award for fiction. His short stories have been published widely in commercial and literary magazines and anthologies, including North American Review, Playboy, Michigan Quarterly Review, Northwest Review, Florida Fiction, and Southern Humanities Review. He is a playwright member of the Actors Studio. He has written and directed for Off and Off-Off Broadway. His Indie feature film, which he wrote and directed, “LOVE IN THE AGE OF DION,” has won numerous awards, including Best Feature Film at the Long Island International Film Expo, and Best Director at the NY Independent Film & Video Festival. He is Professor of English, a member of the MFA faculty, and director of the Performing and Literary Arts Honors Program, at William Paterson University.

Joanie Roberts is a teacher, author, and poet exploring the worlds of poetry, nature, and photography. Roberts loves to capture ordinary moments and reflect on our natural world and its intersection with daily life. She co-founded the Shadowleaves Company, started the blog, “Shadowleaves on Lake Ann,” and a local writers group, Village on the Lake Writers & Poets. Currently, Joanie is writing a three-book series of poetry, I Walk These Ozark Hills.

Since opening its doors to writers in 2000, the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow has made a lasting impact on the arts and literary communities providing uninterrupted residency time for writers of all genres, including culinary, composers, and artists, without discrimination. The WCDH has hosted over 1,700 writers from 48 states and 13 countries. For more information, please visit www.writerscolony.org or call Michelle Hannon at (479)253-7444.