Award-winning poet and Pushcart Prize nominee, Pat Mottola teaches Creative Writing at Southern Connecticut State University, where she earned both an M.S. in Art Education and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. In addition to working with students at SCSU, she is thrilled to teach both art and poetry to Senior Citizens in person and online throughout Connecticut. Her work is published in journals across the country, including War, Literature & the Arts, Connecticut Review, Main Street Rag, San Pedro River Review, VietNow Magazine, and Paterson Literary Review. She has served as Keynote Speaker for the MPAC-Young Writers Awards as well as judged Connecticut High School Poetry Out Loud competitions. Pat is President of the Connecticut Poetry Society and served as editor of Connecticut River Review from 2012–2017. On a global scale, she mentors Afghan women writers living in Afghanistan and beyond, resulting in a collection of poems in English, Maybe I Should Fly, by two Afghan sisters who lived under the Taliban regime. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Under the Red Dress, After Hours, and A Town Like That. Pat was the recipient of the prestigious CSCU system-wide Board of Regents Outstanding Teacher Award in 2019, as well as the J. Philip Smith Outstanding Teacher Award in 2021. Pat is
the Poet Laureate of Cheshire, CT.

Amy Gray holds a Journalism degree from Northeastern University and began her career as a writer and photojournalist for the Boston Globe. She moved back to Connecticut to take a position as a graphic designer and photo editor at a design agency and from there, went to work in Greenwich as a senior designer for several years before starting her own agency in 1999. Her marketing and graphic design agency, Elements, was nationally recognized and won many awards. She closed it due to the pandemic in 2022. Currently Amy is the Sr. Director – Strategic Advancement Communications for the Yale Law School while pursuing her master’s in Poetry from Southern Connecticut State University.

Amy actively participates as a member of the Connecticut Poetry Society and always looks forward to her New Haven Chapter’s monthly workshops. She is also a member of the Blackstone Memorial Library’s “Poetry Cafe” weekly group, and was responsible for establishing Branford’s first poet laureate position in her hometown. She is the author of the book, “Grids and Page Layouts,” which has been translated into seven languages and is being used as a textbook in university graphic design programs around the world and is currently working on completing her first book of poetry.

When not writing, studying, designing, or gardening, Amy enjoys baking – her specialty is macarons – and she started her own cottage industry baking business called “Oui Patisserie”. Amy loves traveling, volunteering, and spending time with her two children who are a constant source of inspiration and joy

Patti Fusco is well known as the wife of Past President Tony Fusco.  Patti is an educator who taught various grades for over 40 years. She also served as Techology Facilitator for her school district. She served as President of her local union, and was Jurisdictional Vice President for PreK-12 for AFT Connecticut for many years. She served on the Connecticut Commission for Educational Technology which got the Connecticut Education Network up and running. This network connects every school and library in Connecticut with high speed internet access. Patti has a Bachelor’s Degree, and 60+ credits in graduate studies at Southern Connecticut State University. She is on the Board of Directors of the West Haven Community House as well as volunteering at the  Willows Healthcare Center. She served on the Board of Directors of the West Haven Village Association which operates the West Haven Public Library.  She also serves as the Vice President of the West Haven Retired Teacher Association. Her favorite role is as a grandmother to four of the most incredible people. Just ask her.

Violet Scherer is a writer born and raised in Connecticut, who views poetry as a means to connect with and learn about other people; particularly in our current age of isolation. She holds a degree in English with a minor in Creative Writing from Central Connecticut State University, and has worked with the Connecticut Literary Festival, an event which exemplifies human connection through writing. She also possesses a love for performance, coming from a background in improv comedy, and is always interested in combining improv principles with writing, and learning about the flow state that is ever present in writing and improv. Violet was the recipient of the Barry Leeds Essay award in 2024 for her essay: “Narrative, Identity, History. Patriarchy and Technologies of Power in The Handmaid’s Tale”, and is working on research into the intersection of storytelling and disidentification for members of marginalized groups.

Violet is an active member of her local writing community, attending weekly and monthly open mics across the state, and participating in Connecticut Poetry Society events and workshops. She is always looking for new ways to use writing as a means to bring people together, and in particular has found poetry to be an incredibly accessible medium for getting people interested in writing. Violet has worked as a writing tutor and taught writing classes and workshops at CCSU and beyond. When she’s not reading, writing, or talking about writing and literature (which isn’t often) –

Violet enjoys making music, spending time with her beloved dog Maddie, and exploring stories through any medium possible, particularly video games, music, YouTube, and theater.

Jim Finnegan has published poems in Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, as well as in the anthologies: Good Poems: American Places edited by Garrison Keillor; Laureates of Connecticut; Shadows of Unfinished Things; Imagining Vesalius; Waking Up to the Earth; and Of Hartford in Many Lights. For a decade he served as president of the Friends & Enemies of Wallace Stevens (stevenspoetry.org). He posts aphoristic ars poetica on the blog ursprache: https://ursprache.blogspot.com/

River Ripa is a poet from Long Island, New York who sees poetry as a modality to reconnect humans with nature. She has one published poetry collection entitled Of the Earth: planetary poetry and another in the works.

She has been featured in small works by The Walt Whitman Association, Philosopher’s Stone Poetry, The Winged Moon Literary Magazine, Poesia Salvaje (Peru) and more. She holds a Bachelor’s in Communications and is a full time Senior Herbal Copywriter, as well as a certified Meditation Guide, Reiki Practitioner and Herbalist.

She currently serves as Publicity Chair for the Connecticut Poetry Society and resides in Southington, Connecticut. When she’s not sitting by a stream writing poetry, she’s tending to her garden, cooking global vegan dishes and exploring trails of the northeast with her husband.

Tony Fusco is a former President, Secretary, Membership Chair, and publicity person of CPS. He has maintained the CPS website for several years. He is past editor of the Connecticut River Review, Long River Run and Caduceus journals. Tony produced and directed “West Shore Poets” a public access television program at CTV.  He is the Poet Laureate of the City of West Haven. He has a MA in Creative Writing from Southern Connecticut State University and has published six books, Jessie’s Garden, Droplines, Java Scripture, Extinction, Don’t Make Me Laugh and Lost in the Brain Fog, In the Covid Lost Days,  as well as three chapbooks, Songs like Tears, From the Fortress and The Ragman.  He published, and illustrated the children’s book A Penguins Christmas.

As publisher of Flying Horse Press he has published over a dozen books of Connecticut poets . Tony has read at numerous venues, colleges, workshops, conferences, festivals and coffeehouses. He is the winner of many contests and awards including the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize. 

Tony is retired from the Yale Medical Group and as a teaching consultant for Epic Medical Records. He lives in West Haven, Connecticut.

Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent of which is the newly released White Sail at Midnight (The Poetry Box, 2024). Among her awards are the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize, and NFSPS Founders Award. In 2018 she was named the winner of Passager’s annual Poetry Contest. She holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. As publisher of her own press, Grayson Books, Connors has edited several poetry anthologies. A retired English teacher, Connors is co-editor of Connecticut River Review.