NJPoets.com - Skylands Writers & Artists Assoc., Inc.

at Centenary College: 400 Jefferson St., Front Parlors, Hackettstown, NJ. Route 80 to Exit 19, Hackettstown, Rt. 517 West to Main Street which is Rt. 46. From Mid-Main, turn down Church St.to 400 Jefferson St., Large building with dome at the T. Information: (908) 852-1400. X.2374.

Made possible by a grant from The New Jersey Council for the Humanitiesa state agency of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Peter Murphy, featured presenter, was born in Wales and grew up in New York City where he operated heavy equipment, managed a night club, and drove a cab. His poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Anglo-Welsh Review, The Atlanta Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, The New York Quarterly, The New York Times, Witness, and Yellow Silk. His essays and reviews have been published in The American Book Review, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Teachers, Digest, The Shakespeare Quarterly, The Teachers & Writers Guide to Frederick Douglass, World Order and elsewhere. He is a consultant to the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation's poetry program and has been an educational advisor to five PBS television series on poetry including "Fooling with Words" with Bill Moyers which was recently broadcast. Murphy has received awards and fellowships for writing and teaching from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Yaddo, The Folger Shakespeare Library, The National Endowment for the Humanities, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars. In addition, he was the first recipient of the Robert Hayden Poetry Fellowship at the Louhelen Bahá'í School in 1986. Murphy lives with his wife and daughter, a mile downwind from Atlantic City where he teaches English and creative writing at the local high school.

Brett Axel, poet and editor, guest writer from Middletown, NY, will also be a featured reader. Axel is editor of the acclaimed anthology containing most of the reknown poets of conscience of our time, titled WILL WORK FOR PEACE, published in 1999 and now in its second printing from Zeropanik Press of Trenton, NJ. Skylands Writers' President, Daniela Gioseffi is the featured, finale poet of the best selling anthology. She will read her featured poem as part of an open mic. session which she will host following the featured readers. All are invited to participate. Brett Axel is also the author, too, of First on Fire, from Fly by Night Press in New York City. He has travelled the country giving readings from his recent books and staged many benefit peace readings in Washinston D.C. as well as New York City.