Two sister-poets from Chicago and California will take turns sharing poems from their upcoming collections.

Red Thread Through A Rusty Needle by Gay Guard-Chamberlin (pictured top) is a collection exploring the natural world and the collapse of ecosystems, mothers and daughters, aging, the inner life of words and the secret lives of ordinary objects.

In Hand On My Heart, Anara Guard (pictured bottom) performs word ballet, pirouetting her way through regrets, childbirth and parenting, floods and heat waves, and love, both uncertain and certain. Both books, published by New Wind Publishing, will be available for sale and signing at the end of the readings. Light refreshments will be served.

Gay Guard-Chamberlin is a writer, performance and multi-media visual artist. A graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a Masters in Interdisciplinary Arts, Gay is a member of Poets 7 Patrons, Ilinois State Poets Society, Budlong Writers’ Group, and many other writing organizations. Red Thread Through A Rusty Needle is her first book.

Anara Guard, author of Hand On My Heart, grew up in the Midwest, lived in New England, and now resides in California. She has attended writing workshops at Urban gateways, Columbia College, Bread Loaf Writers Workshop and Squaw Valley Community of Writers. In addition to poetry, Anara write fiction with two published collections of short stories, four picture books, and a novel in progress.

This program is presented through a partnership between Friends of the Edgewater Library and the Edgewater Branch Library.