Rhode Island is made up of 1,000 square miles of land, 500 square miles of water, and all kinds of material for local writers Tina Cane, Betty Cotter, Diane Josefowicz, and Carla Panciera. Join us for an evening of storytelling, reflection, and celebration in poetry and prose as these women discuss the places, histories, and moments that have sparked their imaginations and shaped their work. A Q and A will follow and most authors will offer books for sale. Please see author bios below for payment methods accepted.

Free and open to the public. Registration is not required, but those who register at least three days prior to the event will receive an email reminder. Register below or contact the library for assistance.

If you require an accommodation or service to fully participate, please contact access@cranstonlibrary.org at least 7 days prior to the event.

Tina Cane is the founder/director of Writers-in-the-Schools, RI, and, from 2016-2024, served as the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island, where she lives with her family. Cane is the author of The Fifth Thought, Dear Elena: Letters for Elena Ferrante (with art by Esther Solondz), Once More With Feeling, and Body of Work. She was a 2020 Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and the creator/curator of the distance reading series, Poetry is Bread, as well as editor of Poetry is Bread: The Anthology. Her most recent poetry collection is Year of the Murder Hornet, and she has written two novels-in-verse for young adults. Tina is also the curator of Sound and Vision, a weekly poetry feature in The Providence Eye. Tina Cane will be selling books and can accept Venmo, PayPal, and Zelle.

Betty J. Cotter is the author of the novels Roberta's Woods and The Winters, as well as four history books for Arcadia Publishing. Her fiction has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and her short story “The Last of its Kind” received honorable mention in the Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. Her work also has appeared in Saranac Review, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, Writer's Foundry Review, and Chautauqua, among others. She is a lifelong Rhode Islander who traces her roots here to the 1630s. She holds an MFA in fiction from Vermont College and teaches journalism at the University of Rhode Island.

A novelist and historian, Diane Josefowicz is the author of six books of fiction and nonfiction. Her latest is a novel, The Great Houses of Pill Hill, about an interior designer who uses a miniature model of a renovation to investigate a murder that took place in the home; the novel is just out from Soho Press. She writes a monthly column for The Providence Eye, covering books with a Providence angle. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD in the history of science from MIT. She grew up in Cranston and lives in Providence with her family. Diane Josefowicz will be selling books and can accept cash, credit/debit, Venmo, and PayPal.

Carla Panciera's award-winning poetry collections include One of the Cimalores, No Day, No Dusk, No Love and most recently, One Trail of Longing, Another of String. Her short story collection, Bewildered, received AWP’s Grace Paley Award. She is also the author of Barnflower: A Rhode Island Farm Memoir. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including the New England Review, Poetry, Spillway, Water~Stone Review, and Iron Horse Literary Review. Carla is the Assistant Poetry Editor for MomEgg Review. A retired high school English teacher, Panciera lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts.  Carla Panciera will be selling books and can accept cash, Venmo, and PayPal.