IAWA Reads at the NYC Poetry Festival
Governors Island
Saturday July 12, 2025
12:00 PM on the Brinkley Stage
Peter Marra has had over 300 poems published either in print or online in over 25 journals.
His published works include approximate lovers (downtown materialaktion) (Bone Orchard Press), Peep-O-Rama: Sins of the Go-Go Girls (Hammer & Anvil Books),Vanished Faces (a performance of occult infections) (Writing Knights Press), Random Crucifixions: Obsessions, Dolls and Maniac Cameras (Hammer & Anvil Books), and a surrealist neo-giallo novel, A Naked Kiss from a Broken Doll, (Hamer & Anvil Books).
His newest poetry collection A Dirty Diary of Ordinary Days a surrealistic recounting of his time spent haunting Times Square and the East Village of NYC circa 1976-1989 has been published by INCUNABULA MEDIA.
Kathy Curto teaches at Sarah Lawrence College/The Writing Institute and Montclair State University as well as several nonprofit organizations and writing centers in the metropolitan area. She is the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, on NPR, and in the anthologies And There Were Red Geraniums Everywhere (released in both Italian and English) and Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now. She has also published widely in a variety of literary journals and magazines. Kathy’s piece, “Still Cooking Side by Side” considered a “Modern Love in miniature” by The New York Times, was included in The Best of Tiny Love Stories in August 2021.
Barbara Worton is the author of Chatterbox: Stories from a Noisy Life, Bedtime Stories: The Short, Long and Tall Tales of a Sleepwriter and Too Tall Alice. She co-authored If I’m Talking, Why Aren’t You Listening? with Linda Dini Jenkins and The Adventures of The Baker’s Daughter with Rochelle Udell. Her stories have appeared in Memories of John Lennon, The Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Ovunque Siamo, The Paterson Literary Review, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, Platform Review and Italian Americana. She was an Associate Producer on the independent film, Surviving on LES, which won the Chelsea Film Festival Audience Feature Film Award and the Bowery Film Festival’s Feature Film Award. Barbara also writes songs as a member of Laverne + Ralph.
Julia Lisella is the author of four poetry collections. Her latest, Our Lively Kingdom (Bordighera Press), was named a finalist in the 2023 Paterson Book Prize. Her poems appear in Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly, The Common, and elsewhere. She teaches at Regis College and co-curates readings for the Italian American Writers Association.