Lisken Van Pelt Dus was raised in England, the US, and Mexico, but has lived in the Berkshires ever since landing at Williams for college, where she earned a BA in Religion before later earning a Masters in Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is an award-winning teacher of writing and languages; most recently, she taught for 14 years at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington. Currently she is an adjunct professor at Berkshire Community College. She is also an eighth-degree black belt in karate and a third-degree black belt in kobudo (traditional weapons) and is co-owner and co-chief instructor at Elm Street Martial Arts in Pittsfield. Her poetry can be found in many US and UK journals, including Conduit, The South Carolina Review, and upstreet, and has earned awards from Cider Press Review, Atlanta Review, and others, as well as several Pushcart prize nominations. Her chapbook, Everywhere at Once, was published by Pudding House Press in 2009, and a full-length book, What We’re Made Of, was released by Cherry Grove Collections in 2016.

This event is presented by Barkham Exmoor CIC, a community interest company, no. 14887154