Camille Newsom & Katherine Leiner

Generations collide at Pierson Library in Shelburne, where West Michigan educator, land steward and writer Camille Newsom settles in to share excerpts from her first full-length poem collection, Purgatory Junkie, in conversation with local author Katherine Leiner. More than just poetry unites the pair: Leiner also happens to be the childhood friend of Newsom’s late great-aunt, Mary Lee Gowland (another poet!). Listeners hear the incredible story of how the two women connected at a cross-generational conversation on verse, creativity, curiosity and — to quote Newsom’s exquisite work — the “many shapes of reality in / this suffering scrumptious world.”