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Open Mic featuring poet Betsy Lynch
November 19, 2025 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Join us at ACW for an open mic featuring Betsy Lynch. Betsy will read from her debut book of poems, Ground Effect After Spin Recovery.
“If you think that you have to be a pilot to read and understand Ground Effect After Spin Recovery: Poems by Betsy Lynch, you would be missing her luminous vision of the world, and of the heart. Though these poems do indeed take flight, they are not only from a small plane over the Tampa Bay skies, but also from a fishing boat on Lake Champlain, and from the keen perspective of a woman who has experienced much sorrow as well as hard-won redemption.” – Rachel R. Baum, Best of the Net nominated poet
Betsy’s reading will be followed by an open mic where anyone is welcome to share up to 5min of their own writing.
Betsy Lynch holds a BA in literature (Binghamton University) and M.S. (SUNY Albany) with extensive additional graduate credit in literature and linguistics from SUNY Plattsburgh, McGill, Indiana University, and the former St. Michael’s College. Additional education in workshops such as Bread Loaf, Palm Beach Poetry, San Miguel de Allende Writers Festival, AWP, Florida Writers Association, recent “Kick Ass ADK Writers Festival” sponsored by the Adirondack Writing Center in Saranac Lake, numerous online and face-to-face conferences, readings, performances have fueled the creative fire.Â
After retiring from teaching English and ESL in New York State, she continued to teach English and ESL in overseas assignments and in Florida, retiring from the College of Central Florida in 2021. She has taught in Shanghai, China, Cusco, Peru, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and dual enrollment at several high schools.
While living on Anna Maria Island, her partner encouraged her to get her pilot’s license, and she has been flying several small planes since 2012. She has found great joy in discovering the abundance of space, a new dimension, along with the challenges, uphill learning curves, and fear. Moving inland to an airpark community in central Florida was a choice that brought further challenge and great opportunity.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Long Island, and upstate New York, she considers the Adirondacks home, where she raised her children and taught. She divides her time between the Lake Champlain Region and Florida, where she and her best friend, Ed, fly a Piper Tomahawk named “Shadowfax” whenever they can.