Writing the Game: Craft, Culture, and Publishing Baseball Poetry

This 90-minute panel explores the intersection of baseball and literature, focusing on craft, publishing trends, and contemporary narratives. Panelists will discuss how the game evolves beyond nostalgia, share short readings, and engage in an active audience Q&A to examine the future of the genre.

Featuring:
Steve Hickoff, poet, editor
Steve Hickoff is a versatile author and poetry editor for Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine. A prolific writer, his work spans both literary and sports genres. A student of Charles Simic, his poetry appears in The Quarterly, Country Journal, Gray’s Sporting Journal, The Penguin Review, Pinchpenny, Pinhole Poetry, Pulsebeat, and Turnstile. He co-wrote “Drivin’ on 9,” recorded by The Breeders, and resides in Maine.

Tiffany Babb, poet, writer, editor
Tiffany Babb writes and edits articles about comics, Baseball, and pop culture. She is the editor of the Comics Criticism journal The Comics Courier and baseball website The Fan Files, and She has previously served as deputy editor at Popverse and as co-editor of the Eisner Award winning PanelxPanel Magazine.

Eric Poulin, professor, author, editor
Eric Poulin is an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science at Simmons University, and is the Director of their West Campus in Greenfield, Massachusetts. His anthology “Here Comes The Pizzer”: The Found Poetry of Baseball Broadcasts” was the winner of the 2025 Twin Bill Book Award as the year’s Best Baseball Poetry Book. His upcoming book “Take Me Out to the Brawlgame: A History of Bench Clearing Brawls in Baseball History” will be released by McFarland and Company in

Robbie Gamble, poet, essayist, editor
Robbie Gamble received an MFA in Poetry from Lesley University. His poems and essays have appeared in Consequence, The Under Review, Red Wheelbarrow, The Sun, and The Worcester Review. His chapbook A Can of Pinto Beans, published by Lily Poetry Review Press, was a finalist for the 2022 Jean Pedrick Award. His essay “Exit Wound” was cited as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2020. Robbie worked for many years as a nurse practitioner caring for people caught in homelessness. Robbie is the poetry editor for Solstice Literary Magazine, and he divides his time between Boston and an apple orchard in Vermont.

Victor Infante, poet, journalist, fiction writer, editor
Victor D. Infante is the features editor for The Worcester Telegram & Gazette and the editor for Worcester Magazine. He has appeared in dozens of
journals, including The Chiron Review, The Collagist, Barrelhouse, Pearl, Spillway and The Banyan Review, as well as in anthologies such as “Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry,” “Spoken Word Revolution Redux,” “The Last American Valentine: Poems to Seduce and Destroy,” “Aim For the Head: AnAnthology of Zombie Poetry,” “The Incredible Sestina Anthology” and all three “Murder Ink: Tales of New England Newsroom Crime” anthologies. His first full length poetry collection, “City of Insomnia,” was published by Write Bloody Publishing. His most recent book is the poetic novella, “Suffer for This: Love, Sex, Marriage & Rock ‘N’ Roll,” from Moon Tide Press. He lives in Worcester with his wife and their army of ferrets.

Panel Moderator: Karen Elizabeth Sharpe
Karen Elizabeth Sharpe is a poet from Rutland, Massachusetts, where she lives with her partner and two pandemic rescue dogs. A multiple-time nominee for both thePushcart Prize and Best of the Net, she is the author of Prayer Can Be Anything and This Late Afternoon. She serves as poetry editor of The Worcester Review and is a member of the National Baseball Poetry Festival executive committee. Her poems have appeared widely, including in SWWIM, Whale Road Review, The MacGuffin, The Comstock Review, Split Rock Review, and On the Seawall.