The Daily Bulletin

The Emanuel Fried Drop Hammer Student Reading Series will hold its next event on Thursday, March 20, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Ketchum Hall 302. Special guest Carol Townsend will read from her work. 

Townsend received her B.S. in art from Nazareth College of Rochester and her M.F.A. in applied design in ceramics from Ohio University. She served as an associate professor of art and design and former chair of the Design Department at Buffalo State University prior to her retirement. As an award-winning ceramicist and mixed media artist, she has works represented in numerous collections. She has been a frequent participant of the Chautauqua Writers’ Center poetry workshops and served on the board of the Friends of the Chautauqua Writers’ Center for a number of years.

Her poems have appeared in the journals Voices de la Luna, Sow’s Ear, The Healing Muse, and The Cafe Review, as well as in the Buffalo News. She has been an invited reader in the Gray Hair, Rooftop, Wordflight, Red Door, Literary Cafe Series, A Musical Feast, and The Buffalo Corner Reading Series. One of her poems was selected for the public art project, BuffLit: On the Move, sponsored by Just Buffalo Literary Center and the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.

Her chapbook, A Cinder In My Knee, was published in 2016; her full-length books, The Color of Shadows, in 2019, and The Songs of Leaves, in 2025, by Buffalo Arts Publishing.

An avid gardener and photographer, she resides with her husband, John, and mini-dachshund, Loki, in Snyder, New York.

Snacks and refreshments will be provided. Free and open to the public.

This series is a tribute to the legacy of our late colleague Emanuel Fried.