Next Up to The Mic is a Hudson Valley Writers Guild podcast featuring readings and performances from the poets, writers, and spoken word artists that have appeared on stages all across the region.
Thom Francis welcomes Toledo, Ohio poet John Dorsey to the stage for a reading at The Linda, WAMC's Performing Arts Studio, hosted by the Hudson Valley Writers Guild and literary journals Hobo Camp Review and Trailer Park Quarterly.
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John Dorsey has written many poetry collections, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw's Prayer, Tombstone Factory, Appalachian Frankenstein, Being the Fire, Shoot the Messenger, Your Daughter's Country, and Sundown at the Redneck Carnival (Spartan Press, 2022). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize. He won the 2019 Terri Award at the Poetry Rendezvous.
On July 27, 2022, John was one of the poets who shared their work at The Linda as part of a two-night event series presented by the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, Hobo Camp Review, and Trailer Park Quarterly.
13 Oct 2026
Dan Wilcox, James H Duncan, & Melissa Anderson at Art Associates Gallery
This week, Thom Francis welcomes poets Dan Wilcox, James H Duncan, & Melissa Anderson to the stage for a special “Ghost Poems” event at the Art Associates Gallery in Albany on October 27, 2022.
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On October 27, 2022, local poets, writers. and artists gathered at the Art Associates Gallery on Railroad Ave. in Albany to celebrate Fall and Halloween with a special reading event called "Ghost Poems."
This week, in the spirit of the season, we are going to hear from three of the poets who shared their work.
First up is Dan Wilcox, whose poem, Witches in the Attic,” was only a week or so old.
Next up to the mic is James H Duncan with a “true story about the ghost in the guest room closet," and another Halloween tale titled “October 31.”
And finally, Melissa Anderson read a piece titled “The Snake, or the Dream of the Werewolf,” a meditation on tragedy.
29 Sept 2026
Carol Graser at Restaurant Navona
This week, Thom Francis welcomes poet Carol Graser to the stage. Carol shared her poems at Albany Poets Presents that took place on February 21, 2018 at Restaurant Navona in Albany.
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In the late-2010s I hosted a series at Restaurant Navona on New Scotland Ave in Albany. At these readings a poet would share their work and then they would answers questions from me and the audience. On February 21, 2018, the great Carol Graser was the featured poet.
Carol Graser is the author of the poetry collections Prayer for the Sorrowful Brain (Kelsay Books, 2025) and The Wild Twist of Their Stems (Foothills Publishing, 2007). She hosts the fourth Tuesday of the month open mic poetry reading at Caffe Lena, a series that she initiated in 2003.
For the reading part of the evening, Carol began with “Poem Read in a Dream,” then on to a wedding poem for her son “Dissolving the Distance Between You.” A couple poems from when she worked at a bookstore, the first in the “persona” of a haiku, and then a poem about eating lunch in Congress Park. Ending with “Ghost of Ambitions.”
Carol will be reading this Sunday afternoon st Saratoga Arts as part of the weekend-long Saratoga Book Festival.
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