CHESTERTOWN — Three award-winning poets, including a Washington College faculty member and an alumna will be reading from their works on Wednesday, April 30 at the Bookplate, 112 Cross Street, downtown Chestertown. The free event will begin at 5:30 p.m.

Meredith Davies Hadaway and Erin Murphy — who packed the back room at their previous appearance at the Bookplate — will be returning to the venue, while Anne Colwell will be reading for the first time in Chestertown. All three are published by WordTech and are committed to bringing lively readings to poetry audiences as the “Word Girls.” 

Hadaway is the author of Fishing Secrets of the Dead and The River is a Reason.  Her third book, At the Narrows, is scheduled for publication this summer.  She has read her work at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C., as well as at Clifden Community Arts Week in Ireland. Currently the Rose O’Neill Writer-in-Residence at Washington College, she will participate this summer in the first Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference. 

Murphy is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Distant Glitter and Ancilla. Her works have been published in numerous journals and anthologies and featured on Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac.” A former student and faculty member at Washington College, she is now an associate professor of English at Penn State Altoona. 

Colwell is the author of two collections of poetry from WordTech: Believing Their Shadows and Mother’s Maiden Name. Her chapbook, Father’s Occupation, Mother’s Maiden Name won the National Association of Press Women’s Award for Best Book of Verse. She is an associate professor of English and creative writing at the University of Delaware.