"Personal Velocity" organized by Katie Bennett. The series will feature personal stories (creative nonfiction/ memoir) by Philadelphia-based writers who identify as women, nonbinary, and trans.

This night’s readers include:

Shoshana Bockol

Shoshana Bockol is a poet, a lover, and a kvetcher from Philadelphia. In 2022, she obtained her Bachelor's in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies and English from Temple University, where she received the Lucia Beck Weiss and Howard J. Weiss Prize in Women's Studies. Her writing has appeared in Maya Literary Magazine and Honey & Lime, where she was nominated for the Best of the Net Award. In addition to museum and archival work, Shoshana is one of the core staff members of H&H Books, a nonprofit independent bookstore and publisher, where she acts as Assistant Editor and curator.

Nikki Volpicelli

Nikki Volpicelli has zero literary awards but did win “Best Personality” in 8th grade. (Actually, it was a tie.) Her writing has been featured in Nylon, Neutral Spaces, Glamour, X-R-A-Y, Entropy, Expat, and Vice. She lives in Philadelphia with her two chihuahuas, Gene and Bones, and her human, Eric. She is currently earning her MFA in fiction at Bennington College.

Amber Joseph

Amber Joseph is a writer from New York City. She currently lives in Philadelphia, where she is an MFA candidate at Rutgers University-Camden. She has received support from Tin House and Key West Literary Seminar, and her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Kweli Journal, and elsewhere.

Gina Tomaine

Gina Tomaine is a Philadelphia-based writer and editor, and the author of The Philly Tarot Deck Guidebook. Her work has appeared in The Cut, VICE, Cosmopolitan, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Boston Globe, and Philadelphia magazine, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Emerson College, and has lectured as an adjunct professor of writing at Saint Joseph’s University and Rosemont College.