Monday, September 2, 2013

Featuring: Sophfronia Scott







Writing is real work and one of the hardest-working writers I know is Festival participant, Sophfronia Scott, a journalist, editor, novelist, essayist and book coach.


Sophfronia is the author of the novel, All I Need To Get By, an engaging portrait of sibling loyalty and the complex challenges and benefits of growing up with brothers and sisters.

She has worked as a writer and editor at TIME Magazine, as an associate editor at PEOPLE Magazine and as senior entertainment editor at TEEN PEOPLE Magazine. She is founder of THE DONE FOR YOU BOOK COMPANY and the author of Doing Business by the Book: How to Craft a Crowd-Pleasing Book and Attract More Clients and Speaking Engagements Than You Ever Thought Possible and How the Fierce Handle Fear - Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times. 

Sophfronia Scott is a writer who shows others by her own stellar example, is knowledgeable about social media and is a respected blogger. Her posts are as no-nonsense as she is and offer practical advice and guidance for the writing professional.

Read her most recent post: WHY WRITERS MUST TRAVEL

http://thebooksistah.com/authorsite/


Sophfronia Scott, a participant at the Festival Of Women Writers in Hobart, NY, will offer the workshop THE BIG FAT WRITING JOURNAL AND OTHER WAYS OF KEEPING YOUR CREATIVE LIFE ORGANIZED: Strategies For Writing on Saturday, September 7 at 9:30 a.m. at The Festival and will read from her novel, All I Need To Get By at 3:45 p.m. on the 7th. DON'T MISS A THING! REGISTER for the Festival at :

http://www.hobartbookvillage.com/festival-of-women-writers.html

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Featuring: Marianela Medrano




"The valley in which I was born is a tiny place. The suffocating embrace of its smallness drew out the need to expand beyond the circle of its mountains. The actual village was no more than 4 miles wide and deep. The constriction or, at least what felt like constriction, grew invisible wings on me. I learned to fly beyond the circle of mountains braided in a perfect hug. In adulthood, I have come to realize that somehow people in the valley understood the metaphor of the hugging mountains and imitated them, by leaning on each other to survive the inhospitable scarcity often brought about by the implacable hands of nature and the ill attention of the government."


I recently asked a couple of questions of Marianela Medrano, a participating writer at The Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, a counselor and a Dominican writer whose work includes poetry, essays, and creative non-fiction. 

BC: Will you discuss what it means to be a self-described "keeper of Taino culture?"  in the 21st century?


M.M.: Yes, indeed. I have found my muse in the Taíno culture, a culture that was kept alive in me through the stories told by my parents, grandparents and other elders in my family. Taíno refers to the indigenous people who inhabited the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico in pre-Columbian times. However, I have equally found my muse in the African traditions that have also strongly influenced the culture of the Dominican Republic. My ancestors understood very well that storytelling has traditionally been a way of preserving history and core elements of cultures. Being a “keeper of Taíno culture in the 21st Century means that I must continue raising the voice of the ancestor to say “we are here; colonization did not wipe us out.”  As all cultures, our culture has been transformed; shifted if you want, but never eradicated. Cultures don’t die, they get transformed.

In the particular case of the Caribbean, a mixture of European, African and indigenous cultures birthed a syncretism that enriches us, and that at the same time retains an essence very particular to each one of the cultures. The big problem resides in the intent by many to ignore the African and the indigenous contribution to the mix so that is why it is so important to be a keeper of these traditions. My work is intended to bring awareness of the two cultures, not to propose them as more prevalent, but to acknowledge how both influence us significantly. For instance, my doctoral dissertation is an inquiry into the elements of Taíno spirituality that can sustain women’s self-perception and enhance self-esteem. Also a great deal of my poetry celebrates our Africaness. The Taíno cosmogony encountered by the Spaniards upon their arrival was strong and thriving; it is only logical to infer that there was great trauma suffered by my people after their subjective world collapsed under the foreign intrusion. A new inquiry that opens after such acknowledgment is whether this trauma still impacts the collective unconscious of Dominicans and, most specifically, of their women. Such inquiry has kept me writing. My book Diosas de la Yuca/Goddesses of the Yuca was written with the intention to celebrate the Taino culture. Many of the poems are also reflections on the interfacing cultures. 

BC: Will you also express your thoughts about writing poetry and prose - is there a difference - in Spanish in an English-speaking country?

M.M.: Poetry is a wild animal that renders me useless, but that frees me, my hand and my imagination, impelling me to explore the unexplored and to speak the unspeakable. Prose too, at least in the way I cultivate it, has the space for the poetic but without the wildness of poetry. Prose calls for borderlines, poetry calls for bringing down all borders.  

Migration, entering a new geographical space means that we have to make complex negotiations of our social identity in the engagement of the self and others; our social identity, for instance, gets shaken when dealing with a second language.The challenge that comes with not being able to express ourselves with the fluidity of our maternal language offers an opportunity, an invitation to be transformed by the experience. The new place confronts us with a double bind of putting aside the potency of our familiar voice, in order to attempt to learn a language and to be accepted in the new context.  

 Learning to navigate a new space with language and social interactions that are different from my culture, has an impact on me and espouses my creativity; I have felt compelled to put the process in writing. Writing in general, reinforces my sense of self and sustains identity through space and place.   

A place becomes part of who we are. A sense of belonging serves to shield the self by stimulating linkages with other kindred spirits.  The key is to overcome the trap of becoming either too integrated or too isolated from the rest of the community. 

I am interested in the politics of identity, that is, the political effects of various accounts of identity in and on popular consciousness, both among Latinos and among other cultures, and that interest is what is guiding me in the writing of my new book La Casa es Humana/The House is Human in which I explore the impact of geographical space on the self.

Don't miss a moment! REGISTER, REGISTER, REGISTER for the Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY, the book village of the Catskills: http://www.hobartbookvillage.com/festival-of-women-writers.html


Sunday, August 18, 2013

Featuring: Garnette Arledge







"I read and ask myself: What does a word actually mean – besides what we think it means? What does a text, such as the Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible, actually mean? Is the Bhagavad Gita myth or actual? Well, my years in Seminary taught me lots of things I never knew as a churchgoer but one of the most important to a writer is that no text is set in stone. Something I can testify to from my years as a publisher and even as a journalist where the news changes in a daily show."


To read more, to share more of this post on Garnette's blog Scripta Divina go to this link:
http://scriptadivina.blogspot.com/2013/08/wild-plums-salon-part-one.html

Garnette Arledge, a participating writer in The Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY, is a published author of novels, plays and self-help books on healing and world religions.


She's the author of the novel, One Hundred Thousand Lights: a love song to India, based on the author's encounters with South India's ancient and sacred teachings and was published in 2012.





















Garnette Arledge's latest novel, Night Of The Mothers, published in June 2013, is a breathtaking intellectual and spiritual journey







 "The New Star outshone everything else in the sky, what if it called a mystical team to a sacred journey with inner-and-outer consequences during King Herod the Great’s tumultuous reign? And they are still working together in the 21st century with the prime directive of generous allowing, diversity, and time-travel. Fantasy? You decide, the author calls it educated imagination."











Garnette Arledge is one of the participating writers in the upcoming Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY.

REGISTER TODAY:  http://www.hobartbookvillage.com/festival-of-women-writers.html


Monday, August 12, 2013

Featuring: Dara Lurie








Dara Lurie, a writer participating in the first Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY on September 6, 7, 8, 2013, is the author of Great Space of Desire: Writing For Personal Evolution

Dara's website: http://www.transformative-writing.com is a jewel for writers. You can flat out get advice, direction and can join a community of writers for support and feedback. There are suggestions for  constructive critique. You can also be guided to creating an ebook written by yourself.  

BUT . . . before you embark on your own writing project, read Dara's work. Though Great Space of Desire includes practical exercises at the chapter ends, I think much is to be learned in reading the author's own lyrical prose.


“I am nothing if not a storyteller. For me, the complex significance of the world and my own place in it makes sense only when seen through story. In my world, there is always a heroine with a burning desire."
       from Great Space of Desire

To read Dara Lurie’s Great Space of Desire is to see the transformation of the achingly painful personal into a narrative that's alive on many levels and speaks to many. You don’t always have “to go there, to know there.” as the sages used to say. You can also read there and go there and know there. 

See for yourself. Read an excerpt of Great Space of Desire - read about the twin sisters and The Facey School of Ballet and begin the journey.

I was asked to guest for Dara Lurie’s blog “How Do I Tell My Story?” I talked about the transformative impact that learning to swim has had on my life and my writing. Read my post on Dara's blog here:  http://www.transformative-writing.com

Dara Lurie will be offering a workshop: Writing for Personal Evolution at the first Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY on Saturday, September 7, 2013.  REGISTER for the Festival at: http://www.hobartbookvillage.com/festival-of-women-writers.html. DON'T MISS A THING! Dara Lurie will also read from her work on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Featuring: Tayari Jones








Tayari Jones has not lived in her hometown for over a decade. However, much of her writing centers on the urban south. 
"Although I now live in the northeast,” she explains, “my imagination lives in Atlanta.”

Tayari Jones’ third novel, Silver Sparrow, set in Atlanta,  is a fast moving fire. It smolders, too. It grabs you at the first compelling sentence. You cannot choose between the daughters -- the sisters --  or between the wives, the friends. You read and you get caught up in it and you care and you care about everybody in it and you don’t want any one of these people even to break a fingernail. I liked this novel especially because I like to feel “all in” and Silver Sparrow pulls you in. 

Listen to Tayari discussing her novel, Silver Sparrow on NPR’s ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
Read an excerpt of this critically acclaimed novel:
Other novels by Tayari Jones:
The Untelling (Warner Books, 2005)
Leaving Atlanta (Warner Books, 2002)

Tayari Jones is one of the featured, participating writers at the Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY September 6, 7, 8, 2013. Register online at:  http://www.hobartbookvillage.com/festival-of-women-writers.html


Saturday, July 6, 2013

Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY


Beautiful words in a beautiful place





Our landscape is panoramic and our lineup of participating writers is outstanding. We're hoping you'll join us on September 6, 7, 8, 2013 in Hobart, NY, the book village of the Catskills.

Please visit our fundraising page and help us if you can: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/festival-of-women-writers/x/616505

Then go to this webpage and register for the Festival: http://www.hobartbookvillage.com/festival-of-women-writers-3.html




Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Featuring: Cheryl Boyce-Taylor and Lynn Domina





Cheryl Boyce Taylor


Convincing The Body

Study your poems
when you think you're going crazy
lay naked on the earth
cover your shame with praise poems

cover the bright bay windows
curved around a cruel day
make curtains of your poetry

cruise the sky
cruise the sky
find that slight patch of sun

stack poems, two three five
at a time on top each other
add your tears
make a bewitching violet poultice
cover those wounds child

gather acacia leaves
a dash of sea salt
two unruly beams of light

two drops of blood
from one left hand wedding finger
a fountain pen
three diamond nibs
seven wads of paper

keep by your bedside
one flask kerouac
nine sprigs lorde
three june jordan candles
two tablets clifton

ten wads neruda
three large jars perdomo juice
five reams bonair-agard

one skillet  two teacups
two steel pans
mountainous garlands of
ai ai ai

your reflection
study your reflection
use as mirror rain water
keep calabash full

trace your mouth
lips deformed and bleeding
praise that mouth and swear
swear to love yourself

study your reflection
watch your eyes
look for crossing buffalo
clear a path  ten quick breaths

your heart
strike your heart
strike it child
let it break  break

strike it
beat spontaneous poems
from wrist hips
lips fingertips

heart beat violent
irreverent basin blue poems
beat poems from legs
chest  eyes  breast

now read  read
damn!  like a poet

by Cheryl Boyce Taylor, from her collection, Convincing The Body, 2005, Vintage Entity Press

find Cheryl's collection online at: http://www.vepress.com













Lynn Domina

First Morning in Heaven

Clover lifts slightly, stills, the breeze a brief
silent whiff. You never knew you’d longed
so for silence. Chipmunks here
scatter quietly; field mice
nibble softened seeds. You remember reading
how giraffes only seem mute to human ears;
one female suddenly nuzzles
the top of your head, tongues
a single strawberry from your plate. You’d waited months,
swimming in Squam Lake, to hear a loon cry
until one did cry off to the north, unmistakable as people said.
Your delight fills you again; one cries here, too,
beyond sight. You recall
leafy sea dragons, the most astonishingly bizarre creatures
you ever beheld, as twigs nudge lily pads across the pond,
tousled leaves dipping beneath ripples. They survive 
in the New England Aquarium
and along Australia’s southern coast,
another place you still plan to visit, if only to listen
for a kookaburra’s raucous laughter,
pocket a dropped tail feather, like this one, 
left by the plump male who springs from your porch swing now.
Once you saw a blue heron lift itself from shallows; 
once you saw a bobcat
amble across your road. Impossible, visions 
out of time. Yet you saw
once and see again. 

From Framed in Silence by Lynn Domina

find more information about Lynn's work and order her books at: http://tupress.org/authors/lynn-domina

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

We've Launched!










The Indiegogo Fundraising Campaign for The Festival of Women Writers in Hobart, NY has officially launched!!! 

I couldn't be more excited. I'm working with my sister Cheryl Clarke, poet, educator and activist. We are working with an enthusiastic committee of Hobart residents and the owners of the six, independently owned bookstores in the Book Village to create an exciting weekend for the celebration of the work of a breathtaking group of authors representing all genre, celebrating all style, supporting commerce and community for women. 




Elda Stifani in Hobart International Bookport 
in front of the cozy, unique Mysteries and More
Blenheim Hill Books has many very special children's titles

The Hobart Book Village Association http://www.hobartbookvillage.com will present the first Festival of Women Writers on September 6, 7, 8, 2013 in Hobart, N.Y. The Festival will attract book lovers, lovers of language, and connoisseurs of both to Hobart, promoting commerce and community. Hobart has been touted as the “Reading Capital of New York State” by Green Door Magazine in 2011. The Hobart Book Village Association supports the rich cultural and civic traditions of the Catskill region and, indeed, contributes to them.

The Festival will be a platform for the work of women writers and artists, including those living and writing in Delaware County. Artistic activities will include public readings, writing workshops, open reading opportunities for local, new, and emerging women writers; reading, writing, and art spaces for young people; dramatic readings; exhibits of visual, graphic, book art by women of all backgrounds.






Listen to our fundraising pitch.





Writers scheduled to participate are: Mariana Boncek, Breena Clarke, Bertha Rogers, Tayari Jones, Dara Lurie, Cheryl Boyce Taylor, Alexis DeVeaux, Garnette Arledge, Jewelle Gomez, Esther Cohen, Elana Bell, Cheryl Clarke, Marianela Medrano, Evie Shockley, Leslie T. Sharpe, and Mary Johnson.

The six Book Village shops: Adams Antiquarian Book Store, Blenheim Hill Books, International Book Port, Liberty Rock Books, Mysteries and More, and Paper Moon Bookbinding, were recently joined by Mt. Utsayantha Regional Arts League (MURAL). Each is poised to be a venue for the many activities scheduled to take place at the Festival.

The Festival of is being made possible, in part, with generous public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant Program administered in Delaware County by the Roxbury Arts Group. The Hobart Community Foundation is also a generous funder of the Festival. Other supporters include: A Room of Her Own Foundation, Greater Stamford Area Trust, the Hobart Historical Society, Frank Lumia Real Estate, Greater Stamford Area Chamber of Commerce, the Stamford Village Library, Hatherleigh Press, and the Dorothy Marshall Book Group. 


Cheryl Clarke and Barbara Balliet in Blenheim Hill Books



the view along Maine St., Hobart, NY