5 Minutes. 650 Words.
WRITERSREAD is a 501(c)3 nonprofit literary forum creating and promoting performance opportunities for writers through curated live and digital programs. We offer a high-quality platform for true, personal stories—650 words, five minutes long—read aloud before an audience by the writer in our highly popular live shows at City Winery New York.
The best of our live shows can be heard in the WRITERSREAD Podcast, streaming on every major Podcast outlet.
In the digital era, people are drawn to spoken word programming more than ever before. In a publishing world with shrinking opportunities for new voices, WRITERSREAD is a welcomed channel for aspiring and established writers alike.
We place a strong emphasis on the craft of writing—word choices, sentence structures, the arc of the narrative. If you love language and craft and enjoy a good story, you’ve come to the right place.
ADVISORY BOARD
In addition to conceiving, leading and producing WRITERSREAD, Ed is the host and the voice of the WRITERSREAD Live Shows and Podcast. He is an award-winning television writer/producer and longtime contributing editor at Country Living. As a writer, Ed's features and essays have been published in national magazines and literary journals and his essay, “Pregnant Again,” was selected for the anthology, Listen To Your Mother, published by Putnam. Ed lives, writes and leads WRITERSREAD from his home in New York’s Hudson River Valley.
ED McCANN
Founder and Executive Editor
RICHARD KOLLATH
Co-Founder and Executive Producer
Richard is an artist and designer who created design features for national magazines including Better Homes & Gardens, House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping and others. He is a longtime contributing editor at Country Living and the author of several published books. Richard appeared frequently on network television as well as Lifetime, Discovery, and QVC. For over twenty years, Richard and Ed have produced books, magazine features, TV segments, and events from their studio and office in New York’s Hudson River Valley.
STEVEN LEWIS
Senior Editor and Literary Ombudsman
Steven Lewis is a columnist at Talking Writing, a member of the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute faculty, and a longtime freelancer whose work has been published widely, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Ploughshares, Spirituality & Health and many others. The author of several fiction and nonfiction books, he lives, writes, and kayaks in New York’s Hudson River Valley and North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
JIM RUSSEK
Podcast Producer
Jim Russek created advertising and built memorable entertainment brands that have played to generations of audiences. He helped launch A Chorus Line on Broadway; led the ad campaign for Francis Ford Coppola's national tour of Napoleon; launched the Big Apple Circus at Lincoln Center and a phenomenon called Stomp, and created decades of award-winning work for Lincoln Center Theater. He conceived and produced the critically acclaimed musical revues Bush Wars and Me The People: The Trump America Musical.
SARA CALDWELL
Chief Technology Officer
Sara specializes in repurposing and formatting content across mediums to diverse audiences. President and operator of digital technology company Convey Media, Inc, Sara incorporates online digital platforms and graphic assets to deliver targeted, effective branding. When not working on websites, audio /video productions or social media content, she's outside taking in the wonderment of all that nature has to offer.
RHONDA ZAGWILL
Editor
Rhonda is a longtime resident of New York City who has been teaching, mentoring, and coaching and cheering on creative writers and story-tellers since the turn of the century. Among her past and present word-wrangling partners are: Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Girls Write Now, PEN’s Prison Program, The Moth, the New York Writers Coalition and the Sirovich Senior Center. A quick Google might reveal her published work. Or not. (Some places still value paper over pixels.)
ANN LEVIN
Advisory Team
Ann is a writer, editor and journalist. Her articles, essays and book reviews have been published by The Associated Press, USA Today, and dozens of other newspapers and magazines. She served as national news editor at the AP. Before that, she was a reporter for newspapers in Texas and California, After leaving her job as a full-time journalist, Ann worked as a freelance editor for various institutions, including Columbia University and the UN Population Fund, and began to write personal essays and memoir.
KATHY CURTO
Advisory Team
Kathy teaches at Sarah Lawrence College Writing Institute, Montclair State University, The Writers Circle and elsewhere. She has also brought her work overseas to Italy, where she helped organize and facilitate creative workshops for writers and studio artists. The author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood, Kathy's work has been featured in many literary journals as well as the New York Times, on NPR, and in the anthology Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now.