Hudson Valley Writers Guild Newsletter, April 2015

Hudson Valley Writers Guild Newsletter

Important note: Do not submit news items for future newsletters by replying to this email. INSTEAD, please send news items to hvwgnews@gmail.com. Thank you!

IN THIS ISSUE

Guild Announcements:

• HVWG announces winners of Take Back the Night poetry contest

Member Announcements:

• “No excuses: Writing & selling your book” class offered by Pauline Bartel
• Tom Swyer’s novel Saving Babe Ruth is award finalist
• A.P.D. announces publication of Coyote: Poems of Suburban Living
• Alan Catlin shares Misfit Magazine news
• Update on Schenectady County poet laureate from Bill Poppino

Area Announcements:

• Caffè Lena presents Karen Skolfield & Bunkong Tuon April 1
• Rensselaerville Library’s “10 Days/10 Poetry Events/10th Annual Poetry Month Celebration”
• Pine Hollow Open Mic Series announces 2015 featured poets
• Third Thursday to feature poet Michele Battiste April 16
• Roeliff Jansen Community Library announces upcoming literary events
• Bernadette Mayer’s summer poetry workshop almost filled (sign up now)
• “Albany Reads: Books and Bites,” April 25
• Writers in the Mountains presents “Significance of Story” workshop starting April 20
• Writers in the Mountains presents nature writing workshop starting May 9
• A Weekend Writing Retreat with Pat Schneider assisted by Kate Hymes, September 11-13
• Canadian novelist seeks light-hearted, true accounts of senior living

GUILD ANNOUNCEMENTS

HVWG announces winners of Take Back the Night poetry contest
In conjunction with the Take Back the Night program and walk against violence against women, HVWG hosted a poetry contest. Held at The College of St. Rose on April 21 at 4:30 p.m., the program will include a reading of the winning entries.

Faith Green and Andrea Portnick lead the contest and with HVWG announce two winners: the winning poem “For Her, For Love” by H.L. Martin and “Another America Not Seen” by Joseph Phillip De Marco.

For Her, For Love
by H. L. Martin

You have to watch him raise another child,
because at twenty three
you are too old to testify
to what he did to you all of those years,
and what those years do to you now.

I watch you give your children the best
your mother gave to you,
and more. You know what a good investment
a child is. You love them and who they will become.
Once faced with another’s selfishness, you rise valiantly above.

At fourteen you forfeited your chance for justice,
to protect your sister,
and your brothers from being taken
away from your mother. You lost your grandmother,
and I lost my mother, when she took the wrong side.

We have to watch him raise another child,
she is five years old
and alone with him,
in the house where decals hide the numbers
and the law keeps us at bay.

*

Another America Not Seen
By Joseph Phillip De Marco

The dark face of hunger, desperation, and gutter pain are not felt in high places,

the callousness is not seen, legally it exists in our genes, along with sirens, and flashing lights.

Spartan and Trojan beggars fight the masses’ wicked spears on the cold silted streets,

unnoticed when the acid rain falls intentionally, covering guilt and shame;

tithing to God insures no ties nor blame for defeated men.

I walk with you, o’blighted souls. I breathe the same air that you breathe;

finding no peace, no place; I worry someday it would be me, and I say nay, never me!

So it will come; all disappointments following into my grave.

So it will be me, as I hang my hat before my witness,  I learned.

I surrender all reluctantly before I leave.

and if they read; it matters not, as no amount of light can force them to see what they out to see!

MEMBER ANNOUNCEMENTS

“No excuses: Writing & selling your book” class offered by Pauline Bartel
A course for aspiring authors interested in writing and selling books will be held on Thursdays, April 23, 30 and May 7 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at SUNY Adirondack, 640 Bay Road, Queensbury, NY. “No Excuses: Writing and Selling Your Book” is offered through continuing education. Course fee is $59, which includes a coursebook. To register, telephone (518) 743-2238.

Instructor Pauline Bartel will discuss the step-by-step process of transforming an idea into a published book, including creating a book proposal, finding agents and publishers and guiding a book to publishing success. Bartel is an award-winning writer and the author of seven published books. She is a member of the prestigious American Society of Journalists and Authors. Visit her website (www.paulinebartel.com) for further information.

Tom Swyer’s novel Saving Babe Ruth is award finalist
Published in June 2014, Tom Swyers’ novel, Saving Babe Ruth, is a finalist in two categories of the Independent Book Publisher Association’s annual Benjamin Franklin Awards. The two categories are “Popular Fiction” and “Best First Book: Fiction.”

The book is based on a true story. When washed-out lawyer and Civil War buff David Thompson takes charge of the kids’ baseball league in town, he must use all of his legal and survival skills to endure a wild, humor-laced thrill ride through an underworld filled with secrets and double lives that threaten his team, his league, his marriage, his family and his life.

Swyer’s book was in the newspapers and on the television last fall when it caused one local town to have a public hearing over its high school principal. A book trailer for Saving Babe Ruth covers those events.

Tom plans to talk about this and other adventures he’s had with Saving Babe Ruth when he speaks at a book signing at the Albany Institute of History and Art on May 17 at 2 pm. The talk is free with paid admission to the museum.

Tom has set aside a limited number of free Kindle copies of Saving Babe Ruth for HVWG members. You can request one by dropping him a note swyerstom@gmail.com.

A.P.D. announces publication of Coyote: Poems of Suburban Living
A.P.D. (Another Poetic Disaster) announces the publication of Coyote: Poems of suburban living, by Dan Wilcox. This chapbook of six poems is #11 in The Bob Kaufman Series of A.P.D.’s (Aged PoeticDynasty) inexpensive chapbooks of works by Albany poets. The poems were variously inspired by viewing suburban life second-hand from the safety of the city and by random remarks made late at night on Facebook. (No real coyotes were harmed in the writing of these poems.)

Charlie Rossiter (www.poetrypoetry.com), Chicago poet and founding member of the poetry performance group “3 Guys from Albany,” describes Coyote this way: “Dan Wilcox knows coyote and what happens when the trickster comes to town. Like the life force itself, coyote roars through the air-conditioned nightmare of suburbia luring housewives to run naked in the night while their husbands sit clueless in front of TV sports, ravages hapless family pets and lovingly cares for her young. (Shapeshifting coyote takes human form and switches gender at will). Wilcox’s insight into coyote is particularly impressive considering that he is an adamantly urban poet who has been known to wear a sport coat on a weekend camping trip.”

Copies of Coyote may be ordered by sending a check for $4 payable to “A.P.D.” to 280 South Main Ave., Albany, NY  12208, or they may be purchased for $3 from the poet at readings and open mics.

Alan Catlin shares Misfit Magazine news
Alan writes: The Lucky #13 issue of Misfit Magazine is now up and ready for your reading pleasure at misfitmagazine.net. This issue was our theme issue — Deadly Sins — and we received all kinds of terrific work. I hope you will enjoy reading as much as we did putting it together. Lucky 13 is also something of a double issue with over 40 new poems and with dozens of reviews, almost three times as many as any previous issue. Please note that I will be taking a sabbatical from April 15 until June 1, when I will again be reading for the next issue, which will be an open one. There may be one of our interim “half issues” towards the end of May also, so stay tuned for future announcements.

Update on Schenectady County poet laureate from Bill Poppino
Stephen H. Swartz has just been re-appointed poet laureate for Schenectady County by its legislature through July 31, 2018. He was initially appointed for a three year term in 2009 and has been a ‘hold-over’ from 2012 until now. Back in 2008, New York State had 12 county poet laureates, but none in the Capital District. This seemed strange to HVWG member Bill Poppino, so following his presentation to the County Library Board, the Legislature appointed a five-person selection committee, including Philip Morris (CEO of Proctors), Jim McCord (Union College) and representatives from three other county schools. Since appointed in 2009, Steve has been a regular presenter at the “Community of Writers” event held in November at the Schenectady Main Library.

AREA ANNOUNCEMENTS

Caffè Lena presents Karen Skolfield & Bunkong Tuon April 1
On Wednesday, April 1, Caffè Lena will present poetry readings by Karen Skolfield and Bunkong Tuon. An open reading will follow. Doors open for sign-ups at 7 p.m., and the readings will start at 7:30. The host for the event will be Carol Graser, and the cost is $5. Caffè Lena, 47 Phila Street, Saratoga Springs, (518) 583-0022, www.caffelena.org.

Karen Skolfield’s book Frost in the Low Areas (2013) won the 2014 PEN New England Award in poetry and the First Book Award from Zone 3 Press and was a “Must-Read” Massachusetts book for 2014. She is a 2014 winner of the 2014 Split This Rock poetry prize and the 2012 Oboh Prize from Boxcar Poetry Review. Skolfield is the poetry editor forAmherst Live and contributing editor at the literary magazines Tupelo Quarterly and Stirring. She teaches writing to engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Bunkong Tuon teaches in the English department at Union College. His poetry and nonfiction works have appeared or are forthcoming in The Paterson Literary Review, The New York Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, The Más Tequila Review, Numéro Cinq, Misfit Magazine and Nerve Cowboy, among others. Gruel, his first full-length collection of poems, is forthcoming by NYQ Books.

Rensselaerville Library’s “10 Days/10 Poetry Events/10th Annual Poetry Month Celebration”
March 28 – April 26. Sponsored by the Rensselaerville Library. Dedicated to the Memory of Poet Galway Kinnell.

Save these dates, mark your calendars and forward to friends:

• March 28, 10:30 am -12:30 p.m., “Visual Poetry/Words & Images Workshop” (Katrinka Moore).
• April 2, 7-8 p.m., “April Foolishness: Nonsense & Rhymes“ (reading & sharing of favorite silly poems with Maryann Ronconi).
• April 9, 7-9 p.m., “Poems Without Form: Prose Poem“ (reading & sharing of poems, followed by writing of prose poems, with Diane Gallo).
• April 16, 7-9 p.m., “Writing in Form: From Haiku to Sonnet” (discussion & sharing of poems, followed by writing of poems in form from 8-9 with Linda Sonia Miller).
• April 17, 5:30 p.m., “Storytime – Poetry, Pizza & Crafts for Kids.”
• April 18, 4 p.m. at the Way-Out Gallery, “Post-It Poetry” (sharing & writing of short poems – on 3×3 post-its – and music, too with Nancy Dyer & Peter Boudreaux).
• April 19, 3 p.m., Art Opening & Poetry Salon at the Way-Out Gallery. Enjoy a Galway Kinnell tribute (Ginny Carter), art opening & installation, music, wine and readings (by Peter Boudreaux, Alan Casline,Tom Corrado, Cassandra Halleh, Susan Kayne, Howard Kogan, Linda Sonia Miller, Katrinka Moore, Mimi Moriarty & Dan Wilcox).
• April  21, 7-8 p.m., “Robert Frost, A Poet Connected to Nature” (presentation by Huyck Preserve researchers Sue Beatty & Owen Sholes).
• April 26, 2-4 p.m. at Conkling Hall, “10th Annual Favorite Poem Project: Galway Kinnell Dedication and an afternoon of poetry & refreshments” (bring a favorite and/or original poem to read aloud or just come and listen – Claire North, emcee).
• April 30, 5:30-9 p.m., “Western/Cowgirl/Cowboy Poetry at the Palmer House Cafe.“ Reserve a chuck wagon dinner at the cafe at 5:30 and/or enjoy poetry and music inspired by a life “on the range” beginning at 7 p.m. (Janet Botaish)

For complete details and updates, visit www.rensselaervillelibrary.org. All events will be held at the Rensselaerville Library, unless otherwise specified. Any questions? Contact Linda Sonia Miller, poetry events coordinator, at (518) 416-2776.

Pine Hollow Open Mic Series announces 2015 featured poets
Poets of earth, water, tree & sky! Featured poets at Pine Hollow Open Mic Series 2015:

• Friday, April 10: Alifare Skebe
• Friday, May 8: John Roach
• Saturday, May 30: Celebrating 50 Years of Planting (a performance with a 7 p.m. start; Sue Spencer, drums; Michael Czarnecki, voice)
• Friday, June 12: Deborah Poe
• Friday, July 10: Alan Catlin
• Friday, August 14: Celebrating 50 Years of Planting – 7th Annual Poets at the Arboretum (group reading)
• Friday, September 11: Tom Corrado – World Premiere Performance Poetry: Knapp’s Last Tape…Screendumped
• Friday, October 9: Brenda Coultas
• Friday, November 13: Philomena Moriarty & Sam Trumbore

All events are at Pine Hollow Arboretum Visitor Center, 16 Maple Avenue, Slingerlands, NY, at 6:30 PM. Includes open mic for poets and writers. Sponsored by Rootdrinker Institute, Hudson Valley Writers Guild and the Delmar Writers Group.

Third Thursday to feature poet Michele Battiste April 16
Poet Michele Battiste will read from her work at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Avenue, Albany, on Thursday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. Michele Battiste is the author ofUprising (2014) and Ink for an Odd Cartography (2009), both published by Black Lawrence Press.  A Schenectady native raised on the Albany poetry scene, she now lives in Colorado, where she raises funds for organizations undoing corporate evil.

A reading by a local or regional poet is held each Third Thursday at the Social Justice Center. The event includes an open mic for audience members to read. Sign-up starts at 7 p.m., with the reading beginning at 7:30. The host of the readings is Albany poet and photographer Dan Wilcox. The suggested donation is $3, which helps support this and other poetry programs of the Poetry Motel Foundation and the work of the Social Justice Center.  For more information about this event contact Dan Wilcox, (518) 482-0262 ordwlcx@earthlink.net.

Roeliff Jansen Community Library announces upcoming literary events
Everyday in April: Poem-a-Day Challenge and a May 1 Open Mic / Roeliff Jansen Community Library is announcing the annual April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For the fourth consecutive year, Great Barrington poet Janet Hutchinson is sending out daily email poetry writing prompts during the month of April. To receive daily prompts send your email address to: janhutch44@gmail.com. Hutchinson says, “There are now 300 people in 12 states and three foreign countries receiving these prompts. Many people have told me that they did not actually complete 30 poems in April, but said that the five they did write were five more than they might have written otherwise.” Challenge participants are invited to attend an open mic event at the Roe Jan Library to read some of the poems they wrote, on Friday, May 1, 7-8 p.m.

April 25, 4 p.m.: Poet Joan Murray to read at Roe Jan Library as part of Poetry Month Celebration / Prize-winning narrative poet Joan Murray will read from her new collection,Swimming for the Ark: New & Selected Poems 1990-2015, at the Roeliff Jansen Community Library on Saturday, April 25, at 4 p.m. Joan Murray is a poet, writer and playwright, whose books include: Looking for the Parade (W. W. Norton), Dancing on the Edge and Queen of the Mist (both from Beacon Press) and The Same Water (Wesleyan University Press). She is also the editor of The Pushcart Book of Poetry and the Poems to Live By anthologies. This program was made possible in part by a grant from Poets and Writers.

May 3, 1-4 p.m.: Memoir Writing Workshop at Roe Jan Library / A memoir writing workshop, led by writers/teachers Susan Hodara and Joan Potter, will be held at the Roeliff Jansen Community Library. The workshop is free, but pre-registration is required by May 1. In April 2014 the library hosted a panel including Hodara and Potter discussing a memoir they co-authored, Still Here Thinking of You: A Second Chance With Our Mothers. “The enthusiasm for the memoir mini-workshop presented at that event made us want to follow up with a workshop that gives participants more time to write their own stories,” says Cecele Kraus of the Library’s Literature Committee. Hodara and Potter will read selections from their memoirs, answer questions and discuss various aspects of memoir, such as finding a personal voice, conflicting or incomplete memories, and guilt about telling family stories. Participants will write their own stories, and feedback will be offered to as many as time permits. For additional details about the workshop, teachers and registration visit the library website at www.roejanlibrary.org. This workshop is made possible by a grant from The Hudson Valley Writers Guild.

The Roeliff Jansen Community Library, which is chartered to serve Ancram, Copake and Hillsdale, is located at 9091 Rt. 22, approximately one mile south of the light at the intersection of Routes 22 and 23 in Hillsdale. For information on hours and events, call (518) 325-4101 or visit the library’s website at www.roejanlibrary.org.

Bernadette Mayer’s summer poetry workshop almost filled (sign up now)
Bernadette Mayer will lead her continuing workshop series on a summer session beginning in May 2015. She will once again provide participating poets with the opportunity to engage in her language experiments. She will also talk about her mentors and contemporaries and suggest new directions in verse. She will also suggest books you should have to aid in your writing and how to publish your poems. The workshop is not a traditional critique of participant’s previous work but an opportunity to fulfill Bernadette’s creative writing assignments. Completed assignments are then presented to the group and used as springboards for wide ranging discussion. Bernadette will continue to write and distribute new poems for the benefit of workshop participants and subject matter.

Bernadette Mayer’s poetry writing workshop takes place at her home in East Nassau, NY. The workshop will meet on five Saturdays: May 9, June 13, July 11, August 15 and September 12. Each meeting will take place 2-4 p.m. Mayer will facilitate a conducive atmosphere that will bring forth enhanced new poems from each of the participants. Total Cost: $65, including drinks and light refreshments. Workshop limited to eight participants.

Bernadette Mayer (born May 12, 1945, in Brooklyn, NY) is a poet and prose writer. In 1967, she received a BA from New School for Social Research. She has since edited the journal 0 TO 9 with Vito Acconci and the United Artists Press with Lewis Warsh and worked as Director of St. Mark’s Poetry Project. Her new book Helens of Troy is a Spring 2012 release by New Directions. For more than a decade, she and poet Philip Good have lived in East Nassau. From the beginning of this series of workshops in September 2011, she has provided an expansive menu of poetic technique and belief, as well as her careful listening to an appreciative core of workshop participants. New participants are welcome to their lively get togethers.

Contact: email ACASLINE@AOL.COM to reserve your place. The mailing address, if email is not available, is Rootdrinker, P.O. Box 522, Delmar, NY 12054.

“Albany Reads: Books and Bites,” April 25
“Albany Reads” starts in people’s homes. Hosts will invite friends and neighbors to read Gregory Maguire’s Wicked and then come to their homes for a small plates dinner at 6 p.m. to discuss the book. After the dinner parties, there will be a dessert reception for all the participants at the Washington Avenue Branch at 8 p.m. Hosts will collect individual minimum contributions of $40 per person. Participants are responsible for getting a copy of the book. Limited copies will be available at the library’s branches and will be for sale at a discount at The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza. If you would like to host an “Albany Reads” dinner, please click here. Hosts need to sign up by Friday, April 17. If you would like to attend an Albany Reads dinner, please click here. We will do our best to match you with prospective hosts with space at their homes. Attendees need to sign up by Monday, April 20.

Writers in the Mountains presents “Significance of Story” workshop starting April 20
Dare to write! Writers in the Mountains (WIM) announces its popular 6-week workshop, “The Significance of Story: Threads of Revelation” with Carol Little at the Andes Public Library, Mondays, 6 to 8 p.m., from April 20 to May 25. This class is open to anyone interested in writing about their life. No prior writing experience is required. It all starts with a word, an image or a sentence and a willingness to discover.

Every person’s story is unique, no matter what shared experiences we have had.  We are changed and shaped by what we experience—by our choices, our circumstances and by things that simply happen as we maneuver through life. Stories have personal meaning, turning points and markers. As we remember and write, or write and remember, we bring together parts of ourselves that may have been scattered, hidden or distorted. We gain a deeper understanding for the truth of our lives, and often a greater appreciation for our own journey.

Carol Little, a long time member of WIM, has extensive experience working with groups and with the use of writing for personal expression. She is a psychotherapist in private practice.

To register, call (607) 759-6138 or write to writersinthemountains@gmail.com. To register online, visit writersinthemountains.org, go to “Register Online” page and fill in the registration form. Class fee is $85.

Writers in the Mountains presents nature writing workshop starting May 9
Dare to write! Writers in the Mountains (WIM) announces a 6-week nature-writing workshop, “Seeing Nature in Words” with Leslie T. Sharpe, at the Delaware County Historical Association, 46549 State Hwy 10, Delhi, NY, Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., from May 9 to June 13 (skipping Memorial Day weekend).

Whether one is writing to change the world or simply for the pleasure of recording one’s observations in a notebook, when the relationship between the observer and nature is at the core of a work, the writing is almost always personal and intensely felt. It is this passion that makes the genre so dynamic and also so accessible to read and to write. The goal of this class is to encourage writers to explore their special relationship with the natural world—be it in the Catskill High Peaks or a backyard garden, expressed as a description of a single flower or as an essay probing an environmental issue—in their own true voice.

Leslie T. Sharpe is an author, editor and educator. She has a BA (Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude) in Ancient Greek Language and Literature from Wheaton College and received her master’s degree in Ancient Greek from Columbia University, where she was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She began her editing career at Farrar, Straus & Giroux and is currently an editorial consultant specializing in literary nonfiction, literary fiction and poetry. A member of the PEN American Center, she is the author of Editing Fact and Fiction: A Concise Guide to Book Editing (Cambridge University Press), which is regarded as a “modern editing classic.”

Sharpe has taught in the undergraduate and graduate writing programs at Columbia University’s School of the Arts; Introduction to Publishing and Editorial Process at City College of New York’s publishing certificate program; and Manuscript Editing at New York University’s certificate program in book publishing. She teaches online courses for the cutting-edge all-media website mediabistro.com, including The Nonfiction Book and Nonfiction Writing Master Class.

Leslie has also a been a regular contributor to Newsday’s “Urban ‘I’” column, and her essays and articles have appeared in a wide variety of publications including the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Global City Review, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, New York Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle andVillage Voice. She recently finished her memoir, Our Fractured, Perfect Selves, and is currently at work on a new book, The Quarry Fox and Other Tales of a Catskill Summer. Her poems for children have appeared in Ladybug Magazine; Who Knew? Catskill Literary Journal; and From the Catskills.

Leslie’s approach, as an editor as well as a writing teacher, is to find the strengths in the work at hand and build on them. That method is rooted in her respect for every writer and their creations. She believes it is especially important that a workshop environment allow writers to feel safe to express themselves and their thoughts and feelings as well as observations—especially when working in those creative nonfiction forms (journaling, personal essay, memoir) that use the first person “I” voice and that speak directly out of one’s personal experience.

To register, call (607) 759-6138 or e-mail writersinthemountains@gmail.com. To register online, visit writersinthemountains.org. This class is $100 if registered by April 18 or $125 thereafter. Partial scholarships may be available.

A Weekend Writing Retreat with Pat Schneider assisted by Kate Hymes, September 11-13
Registration is  open now! Details:

• Workshop Leader: Pat Schneider
• Register – www.wallkillvalleywriters.com
• Registration fee – $420
• Commuter registration – $420 plus $90 (facilities and meals) = $510. Non-refundable deposit $145 due April 24. Balance $365 due on or before July 17.
• Overnight registration – $420 plus $190 (2 nights lodging) = $615. Non-refundable deposit $195 due April 24. Balance $420 due on or before July 17.

“Everyone is a writer….Those who do not write stories or poems…tell them, sing them, and, in so doing they are writing on the air. Creating with words is our continuing passion. We dream stories, make up stories, poems, songs, and tell them to ourselves.” —Pat Schneider

Pat Schneider says that it isn’t discipline we lack, but belief in our art, our creativity in ourselves. Over a more than 40-year career leading writing workshops, she has helped novice and experienced writers believe in their stories and their ability to write them. She has developed a practice, the Amherst Writers and Artists method, that leads writers to write what they know and what they don’t know they know, to tell their deepest truth and to know that their deepest writing is their best writing. Commit to writing as your art. Experience personally writing with Pat who has been called “the wisest teacher of writing.”

“Pat is a gifted, exceptional teacher, artist and compassionate human being. She led us from the superficial levels of writing deep into the hidden treasures we all contain and showed us that everyone is truly a writer/artist. She helped us become more courageous and honest – a difficult task! I will be able to finally start writing what I’ve always needed to write. Now I have tools to help me.” — Julia P.

Pat is a poet, playwright, librettist and author of ten books of poetry and non-fiction. She was born in the Ozark mountains of Missouri, where she became intimate with fossils, creekbeds, grasshoppers and box turtles. After a search for work took her single mother to St. Louis, from age 10 Pat lived in tenements and in an orphanage until she was given a scholarship to college. Those early experiences have deeply influenced her writing and fueled her passion for those who have been denied voice through poverty and other misfortunes.

Pat’s libretto, “The Lament of Michal,” was performed in Carnegie Hall by Phyllis Bryn Julson and the Atlanta Symphony directed by Robert Shaw. Her poetry has been read by Garrison Keillor on National Public Radio’s Writer’s Almanac sixteen times.  A film about her work with women in low-income housing, titled “Tell Me Something I Can’t Forget” is included in the DVD companion to her book, Writing Alone and With Others.

Amherst Writers & Artists, founded by Pat in 1981 and directed and managed by Pat and Peter for 30 years, is now an international network of workshop leaders who use the writing method described in Writing Alone and With Others, Oxford University Press.

Pat’s newest book, How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice, was released from Oxford University Press in April 2013.

Canadian novelist seeks light-hearted, true accounts of senior living
Judy Stoddart, a novelist affiliated with a writers guild in Manitoba, writes: “I am working on a novel involving the day-to-day antics of an Independent Living facility. My request is for light-hearted, true accounts among seniors, family members or staff, but will review any other unique situations that may apply. All names and facilities will be confidential. Your response can be in dialogue, a few sentences or longer; whereas I’ll piece together a story in my own words with your submissions. I will accept all correspondence viajlstod@mts.net until April 30. Please do not send as an attachment but paste in body of email. Subject line to read: “Independent Living.” When published, your acknowledgment will be granted with your permission.”

Judy’s bio includes several publication credits, and she has been accepted for the 2015 Sheldon Oberman Mentorship Program (January 1st – June 15th, 2015). She has just completed a 60,000 word manuscript titled Thirteen Ways to Meet a Woman and a collection of poems titled Crossing the Tracks. Both have been submitted to publishers, but the waiting game can be long before any written material is accepted. She was formerly the editorial assistant for Style Manitoba magazine, where she now continues as a freelance writer.