Thursday Oct 15, 2026 at 7pm

Westbeth Community Rm
155 Bank Street
enter through courtyard and under scaffolding
New York, NY 10014

Miriam Chaikin was an award winning poet and author She was particularly devoted to haiku and tanka. Her books received the Sydney Taylor Award and a National Jewish Book Award. Chaikin remained an active member of the Westbeth literary community until her death in 2015.

Winners are awarded $500 by the Chaikin Foundation as well as public reading at Westbeth. Call for Submissions will be posted in January 2027.

THE WINNERS:

POETRY:
REBECCA G BIBER is a collaborative pianist, music teacher, and Pushcart-nominated poet. Her
writing has appeared in literary magazines including Lilith, The Lyric, Cutleaf, and OfTheBook,
as well as the anthologies Taking Liberties; Building Bridges; and The Bop Book. Biber is the
winner of the 2025 Barbara Stevens Poetry Book Prize. Her first book, Technical Solace, was
published in 2017 by Fifth Avenue Press. Her second book, Escapement, appears in 2026 from
the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Rebecca has contributed her voice to the
Coolidge-Wagner Anthology of Recorded Poetry. She holds BM and MM degrees from the
University of Michigan School of Music and an MFA in creative writing from Queens University
of Charlotte. Her books are available for purchase at rebeccagbiberpoet.com.

PROSE
ROBIN HIRSCH was born in London during the Blitz, the son of German Jews who had
fled Hitler. This complex history informs much of his work both as a writer and as a performer. He is the author of LAST DANCE AT THE HOTEL KEMPINSKI: Creating a Life in the Shadow of History, which Jewish Book News called “one of the best books ever written on the long arm of the Holocaust.” It has a parallel life as MOSAIC: Fragments of a Jewish Life, a seven-part solo performance cycle (doesn’t everybody have one?), with which he has toured both the US and Europe and which the Village Voice called “completely glorious.” He is also the author of FEG: Stupid Poems for Intelligent Children, written with the collaboration and interference of his own children, which the New York Times called “searingly smart and challenging . . . amazing.”
He is a former Oxford, Fulbright and English Speaking Union Scholar, a two- time NYFA Fellow and the recipient of numerous other awards, but the titles of which he proudest were self-bestowed: Minister of Culture/Wine Czar/Dean of Faculty at the Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village, which he founded in 1977 with two other artists and where over its more than 41-year history he presented work by thousands of artists in every conceivable genre (and quite a few inconceivable ones). On her tenth anniversary Mayor Koch of blessed memory proclaimed Cornelia “a culinary as well as a cultural landmark.” “Lutka” is from a collection of Robin’s café stories scheduled to be published(in England!) called The Whole World Passes Through: Stories from the Cornelia Street Café.

THE READERS:

ERICA FAE is a theatre-maker, filmmaker, actor and teacher. Her first feature, “To Keep the Light”, was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize (International Critics’ Prize/Mannheim), Best Director (Berlin Indp FF). It is available on Amazon Prime.
Her play, “Take What Is Yours”, was named a Critics’ Pick in The New York Times and Backstage.
As an actor, she’s worked with Martha Clarke on 3 productions, has had recurring roles on HBO, has worked with scads of downtown theatre artists. Erica has been on the acting culty at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale for 16 years, She’s written for Filmmaker Magazine, is writing a chapter for an upcoming book Grotowski-based training, and was one of the founders of the assembly – a biennial conference in Grotowski-based training. Erica was also a speaker on a Sundance panel on filmmaking and social change, and is in development on her second feature, The Utopians.

DAVID GREENSPAN: Winner of 8 Obie Awards,is an acclaimed American actor, playwright, and director whose career has been a distinctive part of New York’s experimental and downtown theater for more than four decades. As an actor, Greenspan has appeared on Broadway and Off-Broadway in works ranging from classical theater to contemporary experimental plays. His notable performances include “The Boys in the Band”, “Some Men”, “Goethe’s Faust”, “The Royal Family”, “The Patsy”, “Strange Interlude”, and” Four Saints in Three Acts”.
Greenspan is also an accomplished playwright whose works include “She Stoops to Comedy”, “Go Back to Where You Are”, “The Myopia, The Argument, and Dead Mother, or Shirley Not All in Vain”. A singular presence on the American stage, Greenspan is particularly recognized for his solo performances, in which he combines precise physicality, an unmistakable voice, wit, and a highly stylized theatrical vocabulary.Greenspan continues to perform and create new work in New York. His recent projects include “I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan” and the Off-Broadway production “Prince F**t”. He has also recently appeared in Theaterlab’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love”.