Suzi Banks Baum (photo Christina Rahr Lane)

(THE BERKSHIRES) – Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others, hosted by Suzi Banks Baum and Gina Hyams and focusing on the complex relationship between mothering and creativity, and featuring readings by Baum and Hyams as well as Michelle Gillett, Janet Elsbach, Nichole Dupont, Jenny Laird and Alana Chernila, kicks off the monthlong Berkshire Festival of Women Writers on Friday, March 1, 2013, at 7pm, at Dewey Hall in Sheffield, Mass.

The Festival, sponsored by Simon’s Rock with the collaboration of many other organizations, includes the participation of more than 150 women writers at 55 separate events, including writing guru Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and many other books, at Kripalu in Lenox on March 7, and First Lady of Massachusetts Diane Patrick, who will be speak about women’s empowerment at Simon’s Rock College on March 16. Also up this weekend is novelist Sonia Pilcer, returning with her popular panel of older women writers, “Women of a Certain Age,” on March 2 at the Mason Library in Great Barrington.