Third Annual Gray Hair Gala

Charles Bachman earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University in Comparative Literature. He is a Professor of English at Buffalo State College, where his teaching specialties are Native American Literature and Contemporary Drama. His poems have appeared in Carolina Quarterly and Kansas Quarterly. He has three books of poems: If Ariel Danced on the Moon (Trafford, 2006), The Strange Lives of Mr. Shakovo (Trafford, 2008), and A Marked Peculiarity (Trafford, 2009). He took a 20-year hiatus from writing poetry during an active second career as an operatic baritone, singing 26 major roles and many solo appearances with groups including Opera Rochester, Arpark Opera (under Christopher Keene), the Syracuse Symphony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, as well as song recitals of German Lieder and French, Italian, English, and American art songs. A native of Iowa, he made his way to Buffalo by way of Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, Germany, and Indiana, including three years in the U.S. Army.

Kastle Brill is a poet, memoirist, fiction writer, artist, and editor, who has published two chapbooks: One Night Stands & Other Pieces of Time and The Head. Two of her paintings were recently used as the front and back cover art for Earth's Daughters magazine. Her poems have been anthologized in White Pine Journal, Black Mountain II Review, Serendipityarts, Poetry on the Bus, and Earth's Daughters. As a reader, Kastle has shared the stage with such poets as Joanne Kyger, Bobby Louise Hawkins, and Sharon Dubiago, as well as at a NYSCA panel with Allen Ginsberg, Jim Carroll, and Kathleen Betsko Yale. She has done numerous readings in WNY for Just Buffalo, NYSCA, Artists Gallery, Niagara-Erie Writers, and Ujima Theatre Company. Her monologue …And the Beast was performed at TheaterLoft, and she performed First Love with Hag Theatre at Hallwalls. She is also a retired environmental lawyer and an active tai chi teacher.

George Hole is a Distinguished Teaching Professor at Buffalo State College and Chair of the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department. His poems have been published in Cimmaron Review, Rapport, Stone Drum, Earth's Daughters, and Sugar Mule, as well as the Buffalo News. He is the author of Thinking Well about What Matters (out of print) and a member of the Buffalo State Rooftop Poets. Dr. Hole graduated from the University of Rochester with a BA in physics and a Ph.D. in philosophy, and is also in the U. of R.'s Sports Hall of Fame for records in football and track. His courses in Zen Buddhism, Existentialism, the philosophy of love and sex, moral issues, and the history of the Greek philosophers help inform his philosophical practice. He has advanced training from the Ellis Institute in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and runs a small counseling practice. He was the keynote speaker at Critical Thinking, the first conference of the New York State College English Association.

David Lampe is a native Iowan who completed his graduate work at the University of Nebraska, where he was a student of Karl Shapiro. Trained as a medievalist, he taught at Buffalo State College for 37 years, during which time he brought over a 100 poets and writers to read on campus. His collection of poems, The Trees Walked, appeared in March 2006, and Quivers of Anonymous of Elmwood was published in 2009. He has read in the Wordflight Series, at the Screening Room, and at the Rooftop Series at Buffalo State, among other venues.

Kathleen Betsko Yale is an actor, award-winning playwright, and poet, who was born in Coventry, England. She is co-author (with Rachel Koenig) of Interviews With Contemporary Women Playwrights (William Morrow & Co., 1987), and participates in the Women of the Crooked Circle poets' collective (founded by Jimmie Margaret Gilliam). As a playwright, Betsko Yale's work has been performed at the Belgrade Theatre in England and on some of America's most prestigious regional stages, including Yale Repertory, Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and New York Shakespeare Festival. Betsko Yale adapted her play Johnny Bull to an ABC-TV Movie of the Week starring Kathy Bates, Colleen Dewhurst, Jason Robards, and Peter McNicol. Her own screen adaptation of that play won the Luminas Award for Excellence from the Women's Committee of the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles. She has performed on and Off-Broadway, in regional theatre and national road tours, and locally at Irish Classical Theatre. She has earned a living in diverse jobs, including as a generator of ideas for TV series for Paramount in Hollywood and dramatic writing teacher at UB and ECC. She has received numerous awards and grants, including a CAPS grant for her play Beggars Choice, a Foundation for the Arts grant for her play Stitchers & Starlight Talkers, and the ABC Theatre Award for Johnny Bull. She is also a three-time winner of fellowships at the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, where the late Lloyd Richards—legendary theatre director, producer, and Chair of Drama at Yale—was her guide and mentor.

Earth's Daughters magazine, the oldest continuously published feminist literary arts periodical in the U.S., is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Suggested donation is $5 to Hallwalls and/or Earth's Daughters. The Gray Hair Series is curated and hosted for Earth's Daughters by ryki zuckerman.