Can you believe it’s already been TEN years since Writers Read was born? Join founder and host Ed McCann with honoree Steven Lewis and special guests, writers Karen Dukess and Annabel Monaghan, for a two-hour program of ten true tales about...ten (as in: years, pounds, percent, innings, and Bo Derek). 

Seating is limited: Get tickets now for an afternoon of friends, food, laughter, and wine. Doors open at noon for lunch; a reception follows the show.

GET TICKETS NOW to join us for a program of memorable personal experiences about wine! Whether a hilarious mishap at a vineyard, a transformative moment making a toast, or a stain on the new sofa, we’ll feature true tales that relate in some way to vino.

“In Vino Veritas” is Latin for “In Wine There is Truth.” No one says In Beer Veritas. Or In Whiskey Veritas. Or for that matter In Cannabis Veritas. Vino. It’s always and forever In Vino Veritas. Isn’t it remarkable that some of our most truthful experiences in life often come paired with a tasty glass (or two) of wine? Mark your calendar for an afternoon of fruitful, full-bodied pairings that led to one life-changing truth or another. 2PM Sunday, September 22, 2024 • City Winery NYC • GET TICKETS NOW

Remember the joy of the last day of school? No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks!  

Did you head off to a pristine lake somewhere—as a camper,  counselor, or waiter—for a season of bugs and bug juice, friends and frenemies, cabins and canoes? Maybe you were the only kid in the neighborhood who didn’t attend camp, or perhaps you were a parent, suddenly free for four weeks.

Writers Read™ and the New York State Writers Institute present personal, 650-word summer camp stories from talented writers throughout New York’s Capital district—from Camp Chingachgook south to Coxsackie, and east of Amsterdam to Hoosick Falls!

Live event at The Linda - WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio, downtown Albany, 2PM Sunday, June 30, 2024 • Get Tickets Now! 

Writers Read is proud to be returning once again to the Bryant Park Reading Room! A cast of talented writers will perform their original, five-minute true stories on the Bryant Park stage for the lunchtime crowd! Plan to join us for this mid-week, mid-town, mid-day FREE event; it’s always a lot of fun!

We live in a rapidly changing world where assumptions about the integrity of our institutions, environment, relationships—even democracy itself—may no longer hold true. Writers Read and City Winery NYC will present a dozen talented writers on stage performing original, thought-provoking, five-minute personal stories of change.

With sponsor support from the New York State Writers Institute, we’re thrilled to partner again with Carnegie Hall for their 2024 spring festival, “Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice.”  Carnegie Hall’s programming will explore the period in Germany between the World Wars—a time of incredible creative expression that was decimated with the rise of Hitler and the near-destruction of democracy.

Live event 2PM Sunday, May 19, 2024 • GET TICKETS NOW!

There are four types of hair: coily, curly, wavy, and straight. But no matter the character of one’s hair—or, let’s be fair, hairlessness—at every age, we spend inordinate amounts of time, energy, money, worry, and pride in front of mirrors styling or removing it. And that’s just the hair on our heads. Join us to hear a dozen funny, sad, poignant, tragic, embarrassing stories your hair that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and applaud. Join us to enjoy a relaxing afternoon; while our talented writers share their moving and hilarious tales from the stage, you can share food and wine at your table with your friends. Doors open at 12:00 for lunch • Event is 2-4 PM • Post-show meet and greet reception (included) follows from 4-5 PM. Come indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality!

Sunday, January 14 at 2:00 PM / 12:00 PM Doors • Tickets on sale now

Beyond pasta and prosciutto, Michelangelo and the Medicis, Leonardo Da Vinci and Leonardo DiCaprio, anything we think of as Italian is the product of a complex millennia-old culture. Join us for an entertaining program of curated five-minute personal stories from talented writers about Italian experiences, whether taking place in Italy or America, at the family dinner table, or in a piazza. Hear about the country, its people, food, history, traditions, family life, language, and art and the way it all affects you—even if you’re not of Italian extraction (reception to follow).

Relax and enjoy the afternoon with us! While our talented writers share their moving and hilarious tales from the stage, you can share food and wine at your table with your friends. Doors open 12:30 for lunch.. Doors open at 12:30 for lunch • Event is 2-4 PM • Post-show meet and greet reception (included) follows from 4-5 PM. Come indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality!

Save the Date • 2PM Sunday, October 8, 2023 • TICKETS ON SALE WEDNESDAY 9/27/23 (General on 9/29)

Whether we’re hiking, going to school, dressing for the prom, the grocery store, the theater, a funeral, a baseball game, or a wedding, the clothing we choose to hide our nakedness sets us apart from everyone else. Or at least we hope it does. Hear writers tell their stories—in 650 words—about the awful, hilarious, or joyful experience of dressing up … or dressing down.

Join us to enjoy a relaxing afternoon; while our talented writers share their moving and hilarious tales from the stage, you can share food and wine at your table with your friends. Doors open at 12:30 for lunch • Event is 2-4 PM • Post-show meet and greet reception (included) follows from 4-5 PM. Come indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality!

Save the Date • 2PM Sunday, September 10, 2023 • Tickets on sale August 27.

Writers Read is proud to return to the Bryant Park Reading Room. Save the date; event details to follow!

We’ve all got one. And so did she. Maybe you’re a mother, or have observed one in action. On Mother’s Day eve, come join us to hear personal stories about mothers, mothering, and various acts of motherhood, from any and all perspectives. Imagine what it might be like to write a letter to your mother, bringing her up to date on the events of your life and the person you’ve become, finally telling her what you’ve always wanted to. Join us to enjoy a relaxing afternoon! While our talented writers share their moving and hilarious tales from the stage, you can share food and wine at your table with your friends. Doors open at 12:30 for lunch • Event is 2-4 PM • Post-show meet and greet reception (included) follows from 4-5 PM. Come indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality! GET TICKETS NOW

City Winery New York and Read650 present, “Women in Music.” This is the theme of Carnegie Hall’s 2023 spring festival, showcasing women's artistry both onstage and off. As a festival partner in this citywide celebration, we’ll showcase personal stories of conductors, composers, prima donnas, ingenues, divas, directors, drummers, backup singers and more! Come hear these musical stories and learn how one female artist can alter the understanding of the song of life.

Join us to enjoy a relaxing afternoon! While our talented writers share their moving and hilarious tales from the stage, you can share food and wine at your table with your friends. Doors open at 12:30 for lunch • Event is 2-4 PM • Post-show meet and greet reception (included) follows from 4-5 PM. Come indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality! BUY TICKETS NOW!

City Winery New York and Read650 present, “Who, ME?” • Who are you anyway? As Maud Newton acknowledges in her candid memoir, Ancestor Trouble, “The stories we tell ourselves about our ancestors have the power to shape us.” Ancestry colors the social, financial, legal, and physical future of nearly everybody’s life. In 650 words, a dozen writers will tell us about their clan’s heritage and their voyage of discovery. They may divulge some secrets along the way – but it’s all in the family.

Join us to enjoy a relaxing afternoon! While our talented writers share their moving and hilarious tales from the stage, you can share food and wine at your table with your friends. Doors open at 12:30 for lunch • Event is 2-4 PM • Post-show meet and greet reception (included) follows from 4-5 PM. Come indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality! BUY TICKETS NOW!

We all take vows to make changes in our lives. We break them, too. Whether at the altar, the 12-step meeting, or counting calories at the kitchen table. • City Winery New York in collaboration with Read650 presents “VOWS,” featuring a dozen writers on making, taking and breaking vows—from telling nothing but the truth, to remaining faithful, to finishing a novel-in-progress. Come hear these writers read their personal stories of the vows they made to themselves and others.

Join us to enjoy a relaxing afternoon! While our talented writers share their moving and hilarious tales from the stage, you can share food and wine at your table with your friends. Doors open at 12:30 for lunch • Event is 2-4 PM • Post-show meet and greet reception (included) follows from 4-5 PM. Come indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality! This is our final live event of 2022. • GET TICKETS NOW!

Join us for “Coming of Age,” a special Read650 Spoken Word Event in celebration of New Rochelle’s annual Artsfest weekend! You’re only as old as you feel. But clichés don’t begin to reflect the complexities, pleasures, or challenges of growing older. Join us as a dozen writers share curated personal stories of laughter, reflection, and perspective on this essential element of life. Suggested donation $20. Doors open 2:30. Wine and cheese reception to follow. Presented with support from the New Rochelle Council on the Arts, the New Rochelle Downtown Business Improvement District, and the Friends of the New Rochelle Library,

City Vineyard New York and Read650 present “Coming of Age” Sunday, October 16 at 2 PM (doors open at 12:30).

For a young black girl, 1959 meant her first encounter with the KKK. For the daughter of a poet, it meant emerging from the shadow of her poet father. There’s a man who's taken marriage one day at a time—for the last 54 years!—and a fourth grader with a first-time Valentine. Eat, drink and be regaled by these gifted writers—with a meet and greet reception to follow. Join us! 

Read650 is a nonprofit literary forum creating memorable experiences for writers and audiences alike. Through curated performances, Read650 celebrates writers' gifts to tell their stories, with popular live events and podcasts that take listeners inside another’s experience to confront fear; express outrage; and share hilarity–five minutes and 650 words at a time. Come see!

These popular live shows and podcasts are a pleasure for writers and audiences alike—events that take you inside a writer’s experience with stories that are sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and always engaging. And of course, it’s a unique mid-Sunday opportunity to indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality! • PURCHASE TICKETS •

City Winery New York in collaboration with Read650 presents a dozen writers reading their own five-minute stories of personal experiences in theater, film, television, and music in a show called—what else?—Show Business.

Read650’s popular live shows and podcasts are a pleasure for writers and audiences alike—events that take you inside a writer’s experience with stories that are sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and always engaging. And of course, it’s a unique mid-Sunday opportunity to indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality!

While writers share moving and hilarious tales, you can share food and wine with friends. Please support our mission by helping spread the word! • BUY TICKETS NOW

Read650 returns to the stage to present a one-hour program of true, five-minute personal stories in the Bryant Park Reading Room, directly behind the New York Public Library. This one-hour performance, just days before Father’s Day, is free and open to the public and will feature a cast of talented writers performing stories about fathers, and fatherhood that we’ve featured on stage and in our print anthologies. Please join us—and bring a friend! MORE HERE

C’mon, you know you want to. So please join us for a day of generative writing and creative community spirit! Using prompts and short exercises designed to nourish voice and discovery, writers will work toward drafting artful and dynamic 650-word personal narratives. Led by writer/instructors Kathy Curto, Steven Lewis, and Rhonda Zangwill, the day will include lunch, a chance to enjoy the great outdoors in pastoral Gardiner, New York, and a closing reception where work can be shared and celebrated by all. MORE INFO

City Winery New York and Read650 present “What’s So Funny?” Sunday May 1 at 2 PM (doors open at 12:30). This special event features a cast of 14 cartoonists whose work has appeared in the pages and covers of The New Yorker — including David Sipress (just out with his memoir, What’s So Funny?), Rick Meyerowitz (of National Lampoon fame) and Liza Donnelly, a New Yorker regular who will be "live cartooning" throughout the program on the big screen! VIEW THE ENTIRE CAST

Read650 creates memorable performance opportunities for writers—5 minutes, 650 words—to bring their wisdom and understanding, their humor and empathy, to everyday experiences. Reading their own work, writers emphasize words that are unexpected and add extra shades of meaning to their stories. Their artful command of language makes a long story short, and these popular live shows and podcasts are a pleasure for writers and audiences alike—events that take you inside a writer’s experience with stories that are sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and always engaging. And of course, it’s a unique mid-Sunday opportunity to indulge your senses with wine-inspired hospitality! SEATING LIMITED / BUY TICKETS NOW!

Ben Franklin first declared “Time is Money” and never is it more true than when you’re talking to a lawyer—or hiring a plumber. 

We received dozens of submissions for our first NYC live event since the pandemic began, and our editors have assembled an eclectic cast of 14 established and emerging writers to present their original true stories on Time or Money.

Good writing has the power to change the world. And while we can’t make up for lost time, we can offer you this: writers reading their own words—sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, always engaging. A good time for just $25 / $30 at the door

DOORS open at 12:30 to indulge your senses from your table. NOTE: Although Covid-19 protocols are changing, for now all City Winery guests must be vaccinated, and masks must be worn indoors except when eating or drinking.

Read 650 returns to the intimate Ossie Davis Theater in the New Rochelle Library, Sunday, October 17 at 3 PM for our first in-person event of 2021.

We’ll present twelve writer/storytellers reading their own true 650 word essays on the seasonally timely theme: HAUNTED. Brace yourself for well-crafted tales of ghosts, unearthly possession, obsession, and souls plagued with doubt. And speaking of plague, for everyone’s safety, you must wear your mask to attend this event and the reception following the performance in Ruby Dee Park. We’re so happy to return to live readings after nearly two years we could just SCREAM. Space Limited; Masks Required; $20 Donation Appreciated. (1 Library Plaza, New Rochelle NY) 

With New York City and the state opening up, Read650 presents a one act, one hour lunchtime show in Bryant Park!

This live show takes place 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 7 in the Bryant Park Reading Room directly behind the main branch of the New York Public Library. The one-hour performance will feature a cast of talented writers performing audience favorites we’ve featured on stage and in our print anthologies. The event is free and open to the public.