We are very excited to announce changes to our Advisory Committee. Clare Rossini has agreed to stay on the Advisory Committee as member at large for another term. In addition, David Groff and Sandra Yannone have agreed to join Clare on the Advisory Committee. David will focus on fundraising, and Sandy on Connecticut outreach. Both will share their expertise and advice on other subjects as well.
Allison Joseph and Patricia Behrens are joining the Board of Directors as Board Secretary and Board Member respectively.
Laura Salvatore has agreed to continue as Social Media Coordinator.
The mandate of the Advisory Committee is to help us broaden and enrich the reach of the Conference in terms of faculty and attendees while continuing to serve our core group of participants. Advisory Committee members are individuals whose expertise, energy, and dedication to the Conference can help further realize PBTS founder Kim Bridgford’s vision of the Conference as a diverse and inclusive community of poets.
Clare Rossini – Member at Large
Clare Rossini’s third collection, Lingo, was published by University of Akron Press. Her poems and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies such as The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, Crab Orchard Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and the Best American Poetry series. The Poetry of Capital, an anthology Rossini co-edited, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2021. Her poems have been featured on Connecticut Public Radio and the BBC. She has received fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Maxwell Shepherd Foundation, and the Bush Foundation, and has had residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Vermont Studio Center. Rossini taught for many years in the Vermont College low-residency MFA Program. She currently serves as Artist-in-Residence in the English Department at Trinity College in Hartford, teaching creative writing courses and directing an arts outreach program which places college students in a core-city public-school art classroom.
Sandra Yannone – Connecticut Outreach
Sandra Yannone (she/they), Poet Laureate of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, USA, published The Glass Studio (2024) and her debut collection Boats for Women (2019) with Salmon Poetry. She is co-editor of the forthcoming international anthology Unsinkable: Poems Inspired by the Titanic (Salmon, 2026) and editor for the annual A.V. Christie Chapbook Series with Seven Kitchens Press. She currently hosts the international online reading series, Cultivating Voices LIVE Poetry and is co-host of the Olympia Poetry Network’s Last Tuesdays with Sandy and Thomas. Her poetry and book reviews appear internationally in Ploughshares, Poetry Ireland Review,, SWWIM Every Day, Lavender Review, Women’s Review of Books, among numerous other print/online journals and anthologies. She has received an Associated Writing Programs’ INTRO Award and an Academy of American Poets’ Poetry Prize as well as nominations for the Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. She holds undergraduate, master, and doctorate degrees in poetry and recently retired from her career as a faculty writing center director in the Pacific Northwest. Visit her at www.sandrayannone.com.
David Groff – Fundraising
David Groff’s third book of poems, Live in Suspense, was published by Trio House Press. His previous book, Clay, also from Trio House, was chosen by Michael Waters for the Louise Bogan Award. His first collection, Theory of Devolution, was selected by Mark Doty for the National Poetry Series and published by the University of Illinois Press. He is the coeditor of the anthologies Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS (Alyson) and Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners (University of Wisconsin Press). An independent book editor, he teaches poetry, nonfiction, and publishing in the MFA creative writing program at the City College of New York. www.davidgroff.com
Laura Salvatore – Social Media Coordinator
Laura Salvatore is a poet living in Queens, New York. She received her MFA at The City College of New York. In 2022, Laura was a fellow for the Zip Code Memory Project, which sought to find community-based ways to memorialize the devastating losses resulting from the Coronavirus. She participated in the micro-residency Poets Afloat in April 2022 and was a work study scholar for the Poetry By the Sea conference in May 2023. Her poetry can be found in Movable Type, Pith Journal, Angel City Review, and The Marbled Sigh, amongst others.