Word Girls

Continuing the Spy Nights: A Writers Series is the collective brilliance of the “Word Girls”.

Who are the “Word Girls”? Three gifted poets—Meredith Davies Hadaway, Erin Murphy, and Amanda Newell—with strong local ties to Chestertown, Gunston School, and Washington College. They’re all set to captivate audiences with original verses that span environmental, societal, and deeply personal themes.

Meredith Davies Hadaway is the author of three poetry collections, including “At The Narrows” (winner of the Delmarva Book Prize for Creative Writing). She has received fellowships and awards from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the Maryland State Arts Council. Hadaway was also recently the Sophie Kerr Poet-in-Residence for Spring 2023 at Washington College.

Erin Murphy is the Poet Laureate of Blair County, PA, and the author or editor of thirteen books, most recently “Taxonomies” (2022) and the forthcoming “Human Resources”. She is Professor of English at Penn State Altoona and Poetry Editor of “The Summerset Review”. She is an alumna of Washington College and UMass Amherst and an inductee in the Blair County Arts Hall of Fame.

Amanda Newell’s collection, “I Will Pass Even to Acheron”, won the 2021 Rattle Chapbook Prize, and her first full-length collection, “Postmortem Say”, is forthcoming in 2023. She is Associate Editor for Special Features and Social Media for the contemporary poetry journal “Plume”. Her poem, “A Woman from the Infant Mortality Review Board Calls” won the 2015 Patricia Dobler Poetry Prize.