Hudson Valley Writers Guild Newsletter, October 5

Please note: Our next newsletter will be released October 15.

Guild announcements

October 16, 2-4:30 p.m.
Albany’s “Community of Writers” Reading
The Hudson Valley Writers Guild will hold its annual “Community of Writers” reading on Saturday, October 16, 2-4:30 p.m.. The reading will be held in the main auditorium of the Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Avenue and is free and open to the public. The series presents local writers in various genres to highlight the variety of writers living in the Capital District and will include D. Alexander Holiday, Kathe Kokolias and Elizabeth Floyd Mair.

About the readers

D. Alexander Holiday volunteers and moderates a creative writing workshop for inmates at a state maximum security facility in upstate New York. His is also a local liaison for the GBS/CIDP Foundation International. He is the author of the new memoir In the Care of Strangers and three previous books of poetry and prose: Letters to Osama, I Use to Fall Down, and All the Killers Gathered.

Kathe Kokolias is a writer, painter and photographer. Her writing has been published on-line as well as in the Albany Times Union, the Schenectady Gazette and a variety of magazines and anthologies. In August 2009, she published a collection of essays entitled Spandex & Black Boots: Essays from an Abundant Life. Her travel memoir of Mexico, What Time do the Crocodiles Come Out?, will be available in the Fall of 2010. She lives with her husband, Brian, in Colonie, NY, and in Ixtapa, Mexico.

Elizabeth Floyd Mair is a freelance journalist who writes personal essays as well as feature articles on authors, filmmakers and musicians for the Albany Times Union. She spent 15 years in Tokyo, the last nine of it as an editor in the publishing company Kodansha International, before returning in 2002 to her home town of Guilderland. She holds an MA in East Asian Languages and Literature from the University of Iowa (where she also completed the coursework for an MFA in Literary Translation of Poetry) and a BA in Philosophy from SUNY Binghamton.

This “Community of Writers” event is made possible by a grant to the Guild from the City of Albany. For more information about this program, contact Dan Wilcox at (518) 482-0262 or via email.

HVWG website update and call for member profiles
The Hudson Valley Writers Guild is redesigning its website. The new look will be released in just a few days! One of the enhanced features of the site will be member profiles, and we have received a bunch already. If you are a member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, you are invited to submit a current photo and bio, not to exceed 100 words. In addition to the 100-word bio, if you would like, please include up to 50 words about how you participate in “a community of writers” (locally, regionally, online, etc.). Photos and text can be sent via email with the subject line: “Member profile.”

Member announcements

Eric G. Müller is pleased to announce the release of his second novel, Meet Me at the Met (Plain View Press 2010). It is an in-depth account of a man who tries to come to terms with himself and the world at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the words of Gertrude Reif Hughes (Professor Emerita, Wesleyan University): “Having grown up near the Met myself, I particularly enjoyed the passages where various parts of the museum’s immense collection are precisely and appreciatively described. In this absorbing fiction about inspiration, personal growth, and the capacity for mature awareness, Müller has woven an enticing tapestry of pleasure, pain, aspiration, and love.” The book is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Plain View Press or through any bookstore.

Please join BJ Rosenfeld in celebration of the publication of her memoir, The
Chameleon in the Closet: A Conservative Jewish Mother Reaches Out to her Orthodox Sons. Thursday, October 14, 7 p.m. at Congregation Beth Shalom, Clifton Park Center Road, Clifton Park. BJ will present her book and will do select readings. Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public. For information, contact Sheila at (518) 371-7059 or Linda at (518) 379-3641. Hosted by Sisterhood of Congregation Beth Shalom and Hadassah Capital District.

Barbara M. Traynor, author of Second Career Volunteer, a passionate, pennywise approach to retirement, will appear at the IWWG (International Women’s Writing Guild) Big Apple Conference Open House and Author Panel, Sunday, October 17, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at the National Arts Club, Gramercy Park South at East 20th Street near Park Avenue, NYC. Eleven recently-published Guild authors will speak on pleasures and tribulations of publishing. Email Barbara or visit www.iwwg.org for additional information.

Barbara will also present an OASIS workshop “Get up, get out, give back,” a
healthy lifestyle workshop on retirement options on Wednesday, October 20, 10 a.m. to noon, at the Guilderland Public Library. Cost: $15.

Area announcements

Upcoming New York State Writers Institute Events

• Novelist Sigrid Nunez (The Last of Her Kind, For Rouenna, Salvation City). Thursday, October 7, at 8 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center of the UAlbany Uptown Campus.

• Cultural historian and biographer Annie Cohen-Solal (Sartre: A Life, Painting American, Leo and His Circle). Tuesday, October 12, at the University Art Museum in the Fine Arts Building of the UAlbany Uptown Campus.

For more information on both events, consult the Writers Institute website.

Caffé Lena hosts Albert Glover
On the first Wednesday of every month Caffé Lena presents a poetry open mic hosted by Carol Graser. On October 6 the featured poet is Albert Glover reading as part of the Black Mountain North series. An open mic sign-up starts at 7 p.m., and the readings begin at 7:30 p.m. $3 admission. Caffé Lena is located at 47 Phila Street in Saratoga Springs. For info call (518) 583-0022 or visit caffelena.org.

Marni Gillard announces storytelling offerings for October
There are three upcoming opportunities to attend classes and readings with Marni:

Storytelling: Doorway into Forgiveness
Four Wednesday evenings: October 6, 13, 20 & 27, 7-9 p.m.
Pastoral Center, 40 N. Main Avenue, Albany
(between Washington and Western – well-lit parking to left of building)
$40 (after 9/29 $45). Come the nights you can.
Pre-registration requested. Call (518) 489-4431.

We all carry stories that can lead us to forgiveness – of others and of ourselves. Safe, confidential. We’ll tell life stories in partners. Storytelling, like writing, helps us make sense of experience, release blocks, and open to our creative energies.

Story Your Way In, a storytelling weekend retreat
October 22-24, Friday 7 p.m. – Sunday 11:30 a.m.
Dominican Retreat and Conference Center, 1945 Union Street, Schenectady
$185 (seniors 65+ $170) meals, private accommodations, program
$50 non-refundable deposit (transferable for one year)
Register by calling (518) 393-4169 or via email.

Sharing tales from life and literature, we see divine energies at work. We’ll explore memories, scripture (all faith traditions welcome), myths and poems, learning from the past, envisioning the future. Bring a journal, a favorite story, poem or keepsake as inspiration. Silence too will inspire us.

Stories of the Dark: Story Performance for teens and adults with Marni Gillard and Nancy Marie Payne
October 31, 2-4 p.m.
Humorous and spine-tingling tales for Halloween afternoon
Proctors Theater, Fenimore Gallery above the Box Office
$16. Find a discount coupon here.

Out of the Dark and onto the page (memoir writing)
The Adirondack Center for Writing presents “Out of the Dark and onto the Page,” an Intensive Daylong Memoir Writing Workshop Saturday, October 16, at the Northwoods Inn in Lake Placid. The day includes workshops such as

Memoir as Mystery: A Workshop and Discussion with Paul Pines
This approach to memoir writing emphasizes some of the same elements present in the best mystery writing, where there a clear promise of discovery is present from the opening lines and the structure is aligned to its unfolding.

Open the Door and Invite the Reader In with Bibi Wein
Memoir has plot and this is every bit as important in this genre as it is in fiction. We will discuss beginnings, and finding the best starting point to bring the reader into your story.

Life Lines – Writing Memoir with Mary Sanders Shartle
Have your family and friends been saying ‘Write that story down before it’s lost forever’?” In telling our stories we are creating a written legacy of a family, community, culture or landscape that may well not exist 50-100 years from now. We will also discuss simple ways to get started and keep going, how not to get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task.

The cost is $59 for ACW members and $69 for nonmembers (lunch is included). For the full schedule, workshop descriptions and author bios, go to adirondackcenterforwriting.org or call the office at 518-327-6278.

“Little d” National Literary Award Events
Prominent children’s author Jarrett J. Krosoczka will receive the “Little d” national literary award in Albany on November 10. He will read and sign his award-winning book, Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute, at The Little Bookhouse at 11 a.m., and will be presented with the award at a reception from 6-8 p.m. at the Fort Orange Club in Albany. Everyone in Hudson Valley Writers Guild is invited to attend. Ticket information is available at ashea@ahns.org.

The “Little d” award was created six years ago to honor the late Denise McCoy,
a children’s literacy advocate and owner of the Bookmark in Latham. Krosoczka
is the author and illustrator of numerous children’s books for 8 to 12-year-olds,
including Good Night, Monkey Boy; Max for President; My Buddy; Baghead,
and the popular Lunch Ladies series. He lives in Northampton, MA, has won
dozens of prestigious awards and been reviewed by the New York Times,
Newsweek, and other publications.

Last year’s “Little d” award was given to Lois Lowry, a two-time Newbery Medal
recipient. The award is national and puts the Capital Region on the map in
recognizing children’s literature. The author is chosen by a local committee, which includes librarians.

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About our newsletter / The Hudson Valley Writers Guild offers space in its newsletter for submission and program opportunities but does not endorse any programs or publications that are not offered through the Guild.

Within each section, announcements/events are arranged, when possible, by relevant dates. Send news items to Bob Sharkey. Thank you!

Editors Bob Sharkey & Carolee Sherwood