In April, Personal Velocity will host writers Lucy Ives, Sara Mae, and Nikki Volpicelli.

Organized by Katie Bennett, Personal Velocity is a monthly reading series featuring personal essays by women, nonbinary, and trans writers. The series will run every month from Aug '25 - Aug '26, thanks to a generous grant from Penn Treaty Special Services District.

About this month’s readers:

Lucy Ives is the author of Life Is Everywhere: A Novel and An Image of My Name Enters America: Essays, winner of the 2024 Vermont Book Award in Creative Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, and Vogue, among other publications. In May 2026, Siglio Press will release three six five: prompts, acts, divinations, a year of exercises for writing, philosophy, and creative practice. 

Sara Mae is a genderqueer writer raised on the Chesapeake Bay. A finalist for the Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, their work has been published in the Georgia Review, Fairytale Review, the POETRY, The Offing, and elsewhere. Their second chapbook, Phantasmagossip, was published with YesYes Books in 2025. They write and release music as The Noisy, whose debut album, The Secret Ingredient is More Meat, was released in its deluxe edition with Audio Antihero in 2025. Sara Mae received their MFA from UT Knoxville. They currently live in Philly.

Nikki Volpicelli is a fiction writer and graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has been (or will be) featured in Barrelhouse, Entropy, Vice, Nylon, and The Southampton Review. She’s also a contributing essays editor for Zona Motel.