There was a nice vibe at Brooklyn Reading Works last night. Twenty or more people filled the cafe at Fou Le Chakra as two talented writers read from a make-shift podium in the candle-lit red room.

It was cozy and atmospheric just the way I hoped it would be and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Pam Katz read two excerpts from her book AND SPEAKING OF LOVE (Aufbau-Verlag), her novel that alternates between the fictional voices of Lotte Lenya, Lenya’s mother, and a an American newspaper reporter. It is the vividly imagined world of 1930’s Berlin, the first performance of "The Threepenny Opera," and the complicated marriage of composer Kurt Weil and Lotte Lenya that jumps off the pages of this beautifully written first novel.

Michele Madigan Somerville, read from her book-length poem, WISEGAL (Ten Pell Books), a language-driven, street-smart piece about teaching Shakespeare at a Brooklyn high school, that was not only hilarious but powerful and poignant too. Other work included "Bodies  of Water," a poem dedicated to her bother, one about motherhood infused with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and a translation of a Sappho poem that she sang in Greek and English. Somervile is a poet with great stories to tell and a passionate way with words.

As the organizer of the event, I was thrilled to pair up these two literary lights and to hear them in action.

Now I am looking forward to next month’s event on Thursday May 26th at 8 p.m. when Marian Fontana reads from her memoir, "WIDOW’S WALK" (Simon and Schuster) about life before and after the death of her firefighter husband on 9/11, and Susan Karzowska debuts an excerpt from her work-in-progress novel, "THE RIVER FROM NOTHING."

– Louise G. Crawford