Poets & Writers Celebrates The Amy Awards at Peconic Landing

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The Amy Award was established in 1995 by Ms. Trachtman and Mr. Butscher, in memory of Ms. Trachtman’s daughter, Amy Elisabeth Rothholz, an aspiring actor and poet who died at age twenty-five. The award in her memory furthers the careers of young women poets, age thirty and under, living in the New York City metropolitan area or on Long Island. Many winners of the Amy Award, which is administered by Poets & Writers, have gone on to impressive careers in poetry and fiction.

 

Ms. Rothholz’s poetry will be read by Mercedes Ruehl, the Academy Award and Tony Award–winning actress who recently appeared on Broadway in the revival of Torch Song Trilogy. Ms. Reuhl is scheduled to appear this summer in Broads for Bay Street, a benefit for Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater.

 

Joining Ms. Ruehl to celebrate the Amy Award will be singer, songwriter, author, and activist Sandy Rapp. Many noteworthy poets have been invited to read, including several who are members of the local community. Readers include:

 

Bill Batcher, the author of the poetry collections Footsteps to the Resurrection, Celebrations, and Imaginings.

 

Edward Butscher, poet and author of eight books including acclaimed biographies of Sylvia Plath and Conrad Aiken. His most recent collection is Local Lexicon.

 

Fran Castan, author of The Widow’s Quilt and Venice: City That Paints Itself. Her many honors include a commendation in 2019 from the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. In 2013, she wasnamed Long Island Poet of the Year by the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.

 

Harvey Feinstein studied with David Ignatow and was part of the Southhampton Library poetry program. He has received a number of awards for his poetry.

 

Kimiko Hahn is the author of nine books of poems, most recentlyBrain Fever; she is a distinguished professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation at Queens College, The City University of New York. She is a resident of Mattituck.

 

Anne Marie Macari is the author of five books of poems, includingRed Deer; a new collection, Heaven Beneath, is due out from Persea Books in 2020. Macari founded and teaches in the MFA Program for Poetry & Poetry in Translation at Drew University. Her family owns Macari Vineyards in Mattituck.

 

Joe McKay is the author of Crazy About Words, a collection of essays and poems on words and language. His poems have appeared in the Key West Citizen and several online outlets.

 

Lindsay Adkins, a recipient of the 2018 Amy Award who recently completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Stony Brook Southampton.

 

Several of the readers are residents of Peconic Landing, as is Galen Williams, who founded Poets & Writers in 1970. Both Ms. Williams and Elliot Figman, executive director of Poets & Writers, will be on hand for the celebration. A reception will follow the program.

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