The 2013 Albany Word Fest is just a month away and we have some exciting updates to tell you about. Here are a few news updates about this year’s festivities including Open Mic sign up, new event added, new featured poets, teams participating in the Word Fest Invitational Slam, and how you can help make this event great.
Word Fest Open Mic and Sign Up
First things first, today is the start of the sign up for the Word Fest Open Mic. Go to http://albanywordfest.com/signup and claim your spot to be a part of the annual Word Fest tradition. The Open Mic will take place at the UAG Gallery (247 Lark Street, Albany) on Friday, April 19 starting at 7:00pm.
This morning the annual Metroland Readers Poll was released. Congratulations to Mary Panza, Dan Wilcox, and R.M. Engelhardt for taking the title this year. As we do each year, these poets will be featured at the Word Fest Open Mic at the UAG. Albany Poets likes to invite these poets to the event as a way to recognize their work and allow them to share their words to a larger audience, sometimes for the first time.
A “Safe Haven” at The Word Fest
More great events for Word Fest week! Poetyc Visionz‘s fantastic weekly open mic, The Safe Haven, has been added to the schedule for Thursday, April 18. Now there are two opportunities for you to share your poetry on Thursday night. After Dan Wilcox’s Third Thursday Poetry Night head down to The Book Club for more spoken word.
Teams Competing at the Word Fest Invitational Slam
On Saturday, April 20 we will be bringing the 2013 Albany Word Fest to a close at Valentine’s with the first ever Word Fest Invitational Slam. We have invited slam teams from all over the Northeast to participate in this event and we can announce the first four teams that will be competing are Nitty Gritty Slam (Albany, NY), Verbal Slap (Connecticut), Jersey City Slam (New Jersey), and Underground Poetry Spot (Syracuse, NY). Stay tuned as we will be announcing the final teams very soon.
How You Can Help Albany Poets and the Albany Word Fest
Last week we began an IndieGoGo campaign to help raise some funds for the event. Your donation not only helps us put the Word Fest together, but also upcoming projects and events such as Up The River, the Albany Poets website costs, sending Team Nitty Gritty to the National Poetry Slam in Boston this summer, and keeping poetry and spoken word happening and growing in the area year round.
Kevin Peterson, an Albany Poets board member and part of Team Nitty Gritty 2012 says, “It can be pretty humbling to realize that there are people who have been running events like these since I was still in diapers. I’ve only become really active in the community in the last year or two, but they’ve been nothing but welcoming and encouraging. The organization does so much great work to foster a flourishing community of artists, old and young, in the Capital Region. It’s a privilege and a joy to have such an active poetry scene here in Albany, and Word Fest epitomizes that scene with a week full of great events.”
We are also looking for volunteers to help with getting information out on the event (flyering, social media posting) and setting up venues for the individual events. If you are interested, please send us an email at albanypoets@gmail.com and let us know.
A Little Something for You
And to top it all off for this update, we are giving away a prize to a member of the Albany poetry community. Just leave a comment below about what you are looking forward to at the year’s Word Fest and we pick a random commentator and send you a prize from the Albany Poets vault.
This event just keeps getting better every year! Can’t wait to get until Word Fest week starts.