Poetry

Samantha Kolber has received a Ruth Stone Poetry Prize and a Vermont Poetry Society prize. Her poems have appeared in Mom Egg Review, Poems2Go, Tiny Seed Journal, Rise Up Review, Hummingbird, Hunger Mountain, Minerva Rising, The Meadow, and other journals and anthologies. She received her MFA from Goddard College and completed post-grad studies at Pine Manor College’s Solstice MFA Program. Originally from New Jersey, she lives in Montpelier, Vermont, where she coordinates author events and marketing for Bear Pond Books and is the Poetry Series Editor at Rootstock Publishing. Listen to her poems, including "Birth of a Daughter," at samanthakolber.com.

Vermont authors are invited to join the Vermont Authors Fest Facebook group.

Scudder Parker and his family moved to North Danville, Vermont when he was nine years old. We worked hard on the farm we moved to, first as dairy farmers; then as Christmas tree farmers. When my father went into the ministry we moved to Hardwick and I graduated from Hardwick Academy in 1961. I was a Protestant minister for over 20 years, and a Vermont State Senator from Caledonia County for four terms. In 2006, I ran (unsuccessfully) for Governor of Vermont. I am a longtime activist and organizer (anti-Vietnam War; housing; food security, recycling.) After working in state government on energy issues for 13 years I was a policy consultant in energy efficiency, renewable energy and utility policy the decade prior to my retirement.

Creating (or discovering) poems has been a response to the invitation life keeps offering. I am astonished by how much stays unsaid. Most of it doesn't need to; some of it absolutely shouldn't. Of course I don't presume to say for other people what only they can say, but poetry does feel like a way I get to share what I hope others will find familiar, or at least in some measure, recognizable, experience.

Since retirement in 2017 have been settling into my ongoing work as a poet and essay writer. I am a passionate gardener and proud grandfather of four. I live with my wife, Susan Sussman, in Middlesex VT. I have been published in Sun Magazine, Vermont Life, Northern Woodlands, Wordrunner, Passager, Eclectica, Twyckenham Notes, Crosswinds, Ponder Review, La Presa, Aquifer, and Sky Island Journal. My first volume of poetry “Safe as Lightning” was released in June, 2020, by Rootstock Publishing.

Vermont authors are invited to join the Vermont Authors Fest Facebook group.

Sharon Darrow is the award-winning author of Picture Books (Old Thunder and Miss Raney; Yafi’s Family; Through the Tempests Dark and Wild: A Story of Mary Shelley, Creator of Frankenstein) and Young Adult novels (The Painters of Lexieville and TRASH). Her poetry for young people and her poems, short stories, interviews, and personal essays for adults have appeared in literary journals and anthologies. Her most recent works are Worlds within Words: Writing and the Writing Life and her first poetry collection for adults, Now in a Far Sky.

Vermont authors are invited to join the Vermont Authors Fest Facebook group.