Humbled anbd deeply inspired
It was a gathering of such fine writers, I was humbled and deeply inspired.
Attribution:
Portland: Independent Publishing audience member
Lost Edith Wharton Story Discovered, the Birth of the Graphic Novel, and More
Louisiana bookstores challenge age verification law; Oxford University library acquires lost Percy Bysshe Shelley poem; teacher claims Jack the Ripper was a poet; and other news.
A Writer's Space: Make Room to Dream, to Work, to Write
Eric Maisel draws upon his extensive experience as a creativity coach, psychotherapist, and author of over forty books to guide readers through the steps it takes to create the most inspiring and productive space—both physical and mental—for writing. Maisel's practical advice helps writers identify their creative impulses and transform their habits by implementing focus and an organized schedule to their writing lives.
Fictitious Dish
In Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature's Most Memorable Meals (Harper Design, 2014), Dinah Fried’s photographs are inspired by passages from some of her favorite classic and contemporary works of literature. Create a reversal of Fried's project by imagining the fictitious life story behind a meal. Look through some photos of complete meal spreads from different time periods, countries, and types of establishments and choose a photograph that piques your storytelling instincts. Develop a unique character, setting, and situation inspired by the food, tableware, and mood in the photograph.
Bluets
Caption:
Composer Luis Escareño's multimedia performance piece is based on Maggie Nelson's book Bluets (Wave Books, 2009) and was recorded live at the Center for New Music in San Francisco. Written as a series of vignettes, the performance features text and narrated monologue adapted from the book, images, and music performed by the Living Earth Show.
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The Persistence of Poetry Shops, Indie Press Origin Stories, and More
Charlie Hebdo editor’s manifesto to be published posthumously; General Electric’s influence on Kurt Vonnegut; Hemingway’s letters; and other news.
Ta-Nehisi Coates and Poetic Language
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"Within that economy of words, you choose words that have certain angles, that have certain edges, that effect people in a certain way." Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose memoir Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau, 2015) is a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award, speaks with Khalil Gibran Muhammad about what he learned as a poet and how those skills continue to influence his writing.
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Elizabeth McCracken
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"A novel is a historic reenactment and a short story is a diorama." Elizabeth McCracken discusses the different challenges of writing a novel and a short story, and reads from her latest collection of short stories, Thunderstuck (Dial Press, 2014), at the 2014 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. McCracken will deliver the keynote on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.
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Terrance Hayes and Saeed Jones
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"Can we reclaim a word? Can we take a word and drop it and crack it open, or are we always a prisoner to it?" Poets Terrance Hayes and Saeed Jones talk about craft, the evolution of language, and why America needs poetry for HEArt, a journal of contemporary literature and art that challenges discrimination and promotes social justice. Jones will join the Why We Write panel on January 9 at Poets & Writers Live in Austin, Texas.
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Sharing Stories: Memoir and Song in Northern New York
Linda B. Adams is director of the Gouverneur Public Library in New York, where she wears many hats; one of which is running writing programs for teens and tweens. She holds an MA in English and is a member of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the Academy of American Poets, and the Horror Writers Association. In her spare time Adams writes stories and novels that she hopes people will read one day and that will keep them up at night. You can follow her @lindabwriter on Twitter.
Public libraries have become the hubs of their communities. In many small towns in the upper reaches of New York State, they may be the only place where people of all ages can gather. And one thing libraries gather is stories; our shelves are full of books that tell the stories of our humanity, whether they be nonfiction, memoir, or the truths wrapped in the imagination of fiction. So much of the time, we forget that stories are not just in books, that they are within us all, and we are living them every day.
As a writer and library director, my goal is to bring writers and writing programs to the small corner of the universe that is Gouverneur. With a small budget, this is not always an easy task. However, thanks to funding from Poets & Writers, we were able to do just that. Michael Czarnecki provided programs at the Gouverneur Library centered around story and our interconnected humanity. A poet and oral memoirist, Michael has a gift for encouraging and bringing out the stories of others. In his Palm of the Hand workshop, he shared a technique that helped to pull stories out of ourselves: flashes of moments in our lives that serve to illuminate the whole.
Whether those who attended the workshop planned a genealogy project, a journal, a memoir, or just wanted to rediscover themselves, they learned that they could write their own stories. Those of us who are writers know how difficult the work is. But we are willing to do that work; many of us need to. The people who attended this workshop would not have described themselves as writers, however, after the workshop, they all left with a small memoir and the discovery that, to some degree, we are all writers.
Michael, along with Sue Spencer, brought home how important story is and the many forms it takes with their program All One Song, which featured Sue’s percussion as a complement to Michael’s oral memoirs and photography. Audience participation was welcome and encouraged. The performance opened a window through which the audience could sense their own connection to nature and its rhythms.
Michael also shared stories of growing up in the 1960s in his performance piece See, It Was Like This. For some attendees, that period in our history was just that. For others, Michael’s stories brought back their own coming-of-age memories. From tales of hitchhiking and being one with nature to watershed moments, he kept the audience’s interest. But those who attended know it was more than that. I could see the way his stories sparked memories and shared experience; it was a palpable thing. Michael is a master at getting at the common heart of us all. He has a way of speaking that draws people in, makes them feel that his stories are their own. And to some extent, they are. We are the stories we tell; we are the stories we share.
Photo: Sue Spencer and Micheal Czarnecki. Photo Credit: Rachel Hunter, Property of Gouverneur Tribune Press.
Support for the Readings & Workshops Program in New York is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the Friends of Poets & Writers.
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