Our annual West Branch reading features recent contributors and new editorial staff members.Mary Kovaleski Byrnes is the author of the poetry collection So Long the Sky (2018). She teaches writing and literature at Emerson College, and is the co-founder of the EmersonWRITES program, a free creative writing program for Boston Public School students.Ji Hyun Joo is a writer raised in San Diego, California and Gyeongi-Do, South Korea. She completed her M.F.A in Fiction at Columbia University, where she is a recipient of the 2020 Felipe P. De Alba Fellowship and a nominee for the Henfield Prize.Alice Liang is the incoming Associate Poetry Editor of West Branch. A poet based in Brooklyn by way of China and Michigan, she received her MFA in poetry from NYU in 2025.Keri Miller is the incoming Associate Fiction Editor of West Branch. She received her MFA from Florida State University and her PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers where she served as associate editor of Mississippi Review.

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Gina Siepel: To Understand a Tree encapsulates 6 years in communion with a single tree. Bridging art, ecology, and queer experience, the project approaches wood as a living being and explores interconnection, habitat, and environmental responsibility. Organized by the Museum for Art in Wood and curated by Jennifer-Navva Milliken.

Star Gazing: Pennsylvania Quilts RevisitedThis exhibition – featuring quilts from Pennsylvania quilters and collectors – turns the eyes of post-internet contemporary art to look anew at traditional quilts and quilt making.

Directed by Ava Zapulla '26General Admission - $7Continuing the fantastic tradition of first-year students kicking off the season, this student directed comedy presents Almost, Maine, a place that's so far north, it's almost not in the United States. It's almost in Canada. And it's not quite a town, because its residents never got around to getting organized. So it almost doesn't exist. One cold, clear, winter night, as the northern lights hover in the star-filled sky above, the residents of Almost, Maine find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and hilarious ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. But the bruises heal, and the hearts mend - almost - in this delightful midwinter night's dream. Tickets can be purchased from the University Box Office - bucknell.universitytickets.com - 570.577.1000 Tickets are not directly sold via the Dept of Theatre & Dance.

Gina Siepel: To Understand a Tree encapsulates 6 years in communion with a single tree. Bridging art, ecology, and queer experience, the project approaches wood as a living being and explores interconnection, habitat, and environmental responsibility. Organized by the Museum for Art in Wood and curated by Jennifer-Navva Milliken.