BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018
FEBRUARY 22, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – SPECIAL BLACK HISTORY MONTH READING
Open mic reading celebrating Black History month, hosted by Sierra Sangetti-Daniels. Sierra Sangetti Daniels is a Grant Writer-Administration Assistant Intern for Bright Hill Press and Literary Center of the Catskills. She is currently a senior at the State University of New York at Oneonta where she is studying Communications with a focus in Journalism. Sierra is a freelance writer for The Daily Star regional newspaper where she covers various events and channels her millennial enthusiasm into a personal column. She additionally writes profiles, features, and thrifty finds pieces for Upstate Life magazine. In her free time, she is an advocate for equality and overall kindness. Sierra is originally from Brooklyn, NY, and plans to return to the big city upon graduation next Spring.
MARCH 22, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – SPECIAL WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH READING
Open mic attendees invited to bring 5-7 minutes of writing about and for women. Hosted by Sierra Sangetti-Daniels. Sierra Sangetti-Daniels is a Grant Writer-Administration Assistant Intern for Bright Hill Press and Literary Center of the Catskills.
MARCH 24, 3-5 PM ARIAH MITCHELL FUNDRAISER
Bright Hill is proud to host a Book Swap Fundraiser for one of our long-time students, Ariah Mitchell, as she prepares for her upcoming trip to Spain with the Edmeston Central School Spanish Club. We are asking for the support of book-lovers and community members to help fund this life changing, educational excursion for this exceptional young woman. At the book swap, you are invited to share your favorite book, in support of Ariah. 1. A small entry fee donation is suggested. 2. Bring a favorite book to share. We will provide you with a note card to put inside the cover explaining why you love the book you brought. 3. Chat and enjoy refreshments, while you look through the books. 4. Each person chooses a book to bring home.
For more information on the itinerary visit: https://www2.educationaltravel.com/My-Account/My- Tours/TourCenter/Fundraiser.aspx?ref=DJ4248
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018
MARCH 26-30, 9 AM - 2:30 PM BHLC SPRING YOUTH WORKSHOP – BEOWULF AND OTHER ANGLO-SAXON TALES & RIDDLES FOR TODAY
Taught by Master Teaching Artist, Bertha Rogers: we will watch a Beowulf video based on Bertha Rogers' translation and production of Beowulf (the only epic poem in Anglo-Saxon), then choose characters (Beowulf, Grendel, the dragon, etc.) and objects (swords, shields) to study and create in words, papier mache, and pop-ups. We will learn to recite excerpts from the Beowulf epic in Anglo- Saxon and present our projects and recitations to parents and friends. Cost: $120, which includes morning & afternoon snacks (students bring a bag lunch) (Delaware Academy students, full scholarships; full and partial scholarships for Delaware and Otsego County students).
APRIL 15, 3 - 5 PM WORD AND IMAGE GALLERY EXHIBIT OPENING – APRIL 15-27 DANIELLE THOMAS & BRANDON BELASKI, AND JANE HIGGINS
Danielle Thomas (Long Island, NY) is a student at The State University of New York (SUNY), College at Oneonta. She is finishing up her BS in Computer Art and will be graduating in May 2018. Danielle was recently awarded the Jean Parish Scholarship for Art Award. This competitive scholarship was only awarded to a small number of applicants that were carefully reviewed and selected by a jury of Art professors. The committee noted her excellent progress as a student, artist, and as a vibrant member of our creative and academic community. Danielle has also been featured in the Annual Student Art Show multiple times and has qualified for the Dean's and Provost List. Danielle is originally from Long Island and looks forward to pursuing a career in the design industry back home or in NYC.
Brandon Belaski (Oneonta, NY) is a student at The State University of New York (SUNY), College at Oneonta. He is pursuing a BS degree in Computer Art. Brandon's commencement is in early May 2018. Focusing mainly on User Interface design, Brandon creates mobile app designs as well as websites. He and his partner, Danielle Thomas, were awarded the Martin-Mullen Art Gallery exhibition in Fall 2017, where he showcased his work by way of hands-on interaction with the viewer. Users were able to scan QR codes to view mobile websites as well as mobile mockup apps.
Danielle and Brandon are former advanced web design interns at Bright Hill. They most recently exhibited their work in a group show titled Designing for User in the Martin-Mullen Gallery.
Jane Higgins (Gilbertsville, NY): Jane was born and raised in Sidney, in Upstate NY. She began drawing at an early age due to the influence of her mother, portrait artist Louise Higgins. She majored in fine art at SUNY Oneonta, studying drawing, watercolor painting, oil painting, and printmaking. She also studied art history, sculpture, and fresco painting at the University of Siena, Italy. After receiving
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 her BA in 1980, she relocated to Southern California, where she pursued a career in graphic art and typography. In 1994, she and her late husband, Albert Caranci, moved back to upstate NY, eventually settling in Gilbertsville. From 1998 through 2010, she operated an art gallery out of the studio in her carriage barn. In 1993, during a bout of unemployment, she began to experiment with collage. She began by piecing together items from packages her mother had sent over the years: autumn leaves, pressed flowers, bird feathers, photographs, and newspaper clippings. Then she began to incorporate images she had cut out of magazines and calendars. She found this previously unexplored medium completely absorbing and intensely therapeutic. Collage allows her to express her unique artistic vision in a way that no other medium ever has. She is fascinated with finding new meanings through the unexpected juxtaposition of images into new compositions. She experiences self-discovery by sorting through levels of meaning in images through free association. Jane believes that art should be fun, so humor is an important aspect. Part of the joy of collage occurs when one compositional idea will “morph” into an entirely new direction. Inspiration for her work draws on Greek myths, the Bible, fairy tales, Shakespearean plays, modern life, and autobiographical elements. She has shown her award- winning collages in galleries throughout the region, including three solo exhibits at the Art Mission in Binghamton; Bright Hill, Treadwell; and the Chenango County Council of the Arts. Her work has also been shown at the Cooperstown Art Association, the Smithy-Pioneer Gallery, The Roxbury Arts Group, the Kirkland Art Center, Clinton; and at the Kubiak Gallery, UCCCA, in Oneonta; and is in private collections in NY, Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis, Las Vegas, and Paris, France.
APRIL 12, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – HOSTED BY SIERRA SANGETTI-DANIELS, FEATURING BRUCE BENNETT NATIONAL POETRY MONTH
Bruce Bennett (Aurora, NY) is the author of ten full-length collections of poetry and more than 30 poetry chapbooks. His most recent book is Just Another Day in Just Our Town / Poems: New And Selected, 2000-2016 (Orchises Press, 2017). His first New And Selected, Navigating The Distances, also from Orchises, was chosen by Booklist as “One Of The Top Ten Poetry Books Of 1999.” His most recent chapbooks are Our Rough Beast / The Year of Trump (FootHills Publishing, 2017), and First Reader (Wells College Press, 2017). After receiving his PhD from Harvard in 1967, he taught at Oberlin College from 1967-70, where he co-founded and served as an editor of Field: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. In 1970, he co-founded and served as an editor of Ploughshares. In 1973, he began teaching at Wells College in Aurora, NY, where he served as Chair of the English Department, directed the Visiting Writers Series, and helped found and was Director of the Wells College Book Arts Center and Wells College Press. He received a Pushcart Prize in 2012. In 2014, he retired from teaching, and is now Professor Emeritus of English. In 2015, he was the recipient of the first annual Writing the Rockies Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Creative Writing. The website for his latest full-length book, Just Another Day in Just Our Town is www.justanotherdayinjustourtown.com.
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018
APRIL 26, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING WILLIAM A. GREENFIELD – NATIONAL POETRY MONTH William A. Greenfield (Sullivan County, NY) grew up some 40 miles north of NYC in the small hamlet of Montrose, NY, where he learned how to play baseball, climb trees, and make change at the local supermarket. He first began to write poetry while attending the SUNY Plattsburgh. For years after that, his writing became only an occasional dabbling. At the urging of his daughter, he once again delved into the world of poetry in more recent years to the point where it became a regular part of his existence. His poems can be found in dozens of journals including The Westchester Review, Carve Magazine, Tar River Poetry, and many others. In 2012, he won Storyteller Magazine’s People’s Choice Award. His chapbook, Momma’s Boy Gone Bad, was published in February 2017 by Finishing Line Press. He resides in Sullivan County, NY, in the middle of the woods and he likes it there.
MAY 6, 3 - 5 PM WORD AND IMAGE GALLERY EXHIBIT OPENING – MAY 6 - 25 CLAIRE OWEN AND MICHELLE CASTLEBERRY
Michelle Castleberry’s (Philadelphia, PA) work has appeared in publications including Umbrella, Poemeleon, The Anthology of Southern Poetry: Vol. V – Georgia, The Chattahoochee Review, Freezeray, Flycatcher, and Philadelphia Stories. Her first book Dissecting the Angel and Other Poems was selected as a finalist in poetry for the 50th annual Georgia Author of the Year award. She has completed a chapbook of poems based on the Hyrtl Skulls in Philadelphia's Mütter Museum. In January 2018, she was awarded a two-year Fellowship with The Makery of the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky. Michelle is also a clinical social worker in northeast Georgia. www.michellecastleberry.com.
Claire Owen (Philadelphia, PA): After earning a graduate degree in printmaking from Rochester Institute of Technology, Claire moved to Philadelphia and established Turtle Island Press for the production of limited edition visual artist books. These editions are represented by library and museum collections throughout the country, including the Library of Congress, The National Gallery, Princeton University, Yale University, Harvard University, and The Victoria and Albert Museum. Although her academic training was in the Fine Arts, she has pursued a professional career in studio art, and has been writing short stories and poems for most of her adult life. All of her work has been in the development of strong narrative, and a love of language. Claire began studying poetry with the late AV Christie almost ten years ago, and for the last year has continued working with a group of poets “The Tenth Sky Poets,” who were also her students. In May, she received a Merit Award from the Atlanta Review in the International Poetry Competition. Website: www.cotip.net.
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018
MAY 10, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING WENDELL MAYO
Wendell Mayo (Haskins, OH) is a native of Corpus Christi, TX. His story collection, Survival House, is forthcoming in spring 2018 with SFASU Press. He is author of four more story collections: The Cucumber King of Kedainiai, winner of the Subito Press Award for Innovative Fiction; Centaur of the North (Arte Público Press), winner of the Aztlán Prize and finalist in the Associated Writing Programs Award Series in Short Fiction; B. Horror and Other Stories (Livingston Press); and a novel-in-stories, In Lithuanian Wood (White Pine Press), which appeared in Lithuanian translation with Mintis Press in Vilnius. His chapbook of four stories, When the Moon Was Ours for the Taking, appeared with CutBank Books in 2017. More than 100 of his short stories have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies, including Yale Review, Harvard Review, Missouri Review, Boulevard, New Letters, Threepenny Review, and others. He is recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, a Fulbright to Lithuania (Vilnius University), two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, and a Master Fellowship from the Indiana Arts Commission. He teaches in the MFA and BFA programs at Bowling Green State University. Website: https://wmayo2.wixsite.com/wmayo.
MAY 24, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING TOM CLAUSEN AND CHRISTINA RAU
Tom Clausen (Ithaca, NY) is a life-long Ithacan living in the same house he grew up in. He became interested in haiku and related short forms of poetry in the late 1980s after reading an article about naturalist Ruth Yarrow, profiling her haiku. There was instant recognition that haiku was a form that might help with his tendency with wordiness, repetition, and overstatement. He has been reading and trying to write haiku, senryu, tanka, and haibun since then. Tom is the curator of a daily haiku feature, online, at Mann Library, Cornell University where he worked for more than 35 years before retiring in 2013. In 2003, Tom was invited to join the Route 9 Haiku group that formed in 2001. The group publishes a twice-yearly journal, Dim Sum, featuring selected work by members John Stevenson, Hilary Tann, Yu Chang, Tom Clausen and a guest poet as well as a couple of haiga by Romanian artist and poet Ion Codrescu. Tom has several books published including Growing Late and Homework from Snap Shot Press in UK and most recently Laughing To Myself from Free Food Press. Tom enjoys walking, biking, photography and simply going about observing and documenting moments, beauty and wabi sabi all around us. Website: www.tomclausen.com.
Christina M. Rau (Nassau County, NY) is the author of the sci-fi fem poetry collection, Liberating The Astronauts (Aqueduct Press, 2017) and the chapbooks WakeBreatheMove (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and For The Girls, I (Dancing Girl Press, 2014). Her poetry has also appeared on gallery walls in The Ekphrastic Poster Show, on car magnets for The Living Poetry Project, and in various literary journals both online and in print. She is the founder of the Long Island reading circuit, Poets In Nassau,
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 and runs workshops and has read for various community groups nationwide. Additionally, she has conducted poetry workshops and has been a feature in reading series across the USA. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Nassau Community College where she also serves as Poetry Editor for The Nassau Review and as a member of the Creative Writing Program. She tweets on Twitter, pins on Pinterest, reposts on Tumblr, reviews on Goodreads, updates on Facebook, regrams on Instagram, and does whatever one does on Snapchat. In her non-writing life, she teaches yoga occasionally and line dances on other occasions. Find her links on http://www.christinamrau.com.
JUNE 3, 3 - 5 PM WORD AND IMAGE GALLERY EXHIBIT OPENING - JUNE 3 - 22 ELISSA GORE
Elissa Gore (New York, NY): Air, earth, water, and light mix together to form our living world. Elissa Gore captures these elements as she sees them in landscape paintings. Formerly a scientific illustrator and college professor of fine art living in NYC and the Catskills, she paints and sketches outdoors in the city and the country. She makes larger works from her studies in the studio. Her work is in more than 60 public collections including the US Art in Embassies program. A Philadelphia native, she has a BFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MA from the University of Texas. She exhibits frequently, and has had more than 15 solo exhibitions. She’s a prize winner in plein air painting events. She has taught watercolor workshops for the NY Botanical Garden for 20 years. In NYC, she is represented by Markel Fine Arts. Her website is: www.elissagore.net. Elissa keeps a log of her sketching adventures «Paint Trails» at elissagore.blogspot.com.
JUNE 14, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING GARY FINCKE AND HELANE LEVINE-KEATING
Gary Fincke's (Selinsgrove, PA) latest collection of personal essays, The Darkness Call, won the 2017 Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prose, and will be published by Louisiana State University in 2018. The Out-of-Sorts: New and Selected Stories was published by West Virginia University in 2017. A new collection of poetry, The Infinity Room, has just been named the 2018 winner of the Wheelbarrow Books (Michigan State University) Prize for Established Poets. Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Prize for Short Fiction and The Ohio State/The Journal Prize for Poetry, he has published more than 30 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and has just retired as Charles Degenstein Professor of English and Creative Writing Emeritus at Susquehanna University. Some of his work can be found at: http://wvupressonline.com/node/477 and http://pleiadespress.org/books/the-darkness-call-essays/.
Helane Levine-Keating (Long Island, NY): Since receiving a BA in Comparative Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Rochester, an MA in French Literature from NYU, and a PhD in Comparative Literature from NYU and the University of Paris in 1980 and studying creative writing
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 with Anthony Hecht, Sharon Olds, Galway Kinnell, Edward Field, and M.L. Rosenthal, Helane has been a professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing at Pace University since 1983. Her poetry has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including The NY Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Women and Stepfamilies (Temple U Press), Heresies, Facere, Graham House Review, Pudding, Central Park, and Like Light. She has co-edited three editions of Lives Through Literature: A Thematic Anthology (Prentice-Hall/Pearson), and Finishing Line Press published her poetry chapbook, Lunar Eclipse, in January 2018. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in American Book Review, The Woolf Studies Annual, 3 Quarks Daily, and other journals, and her fine art photography has appeared in recent solo and group exhibitions at the Longyear Gallery, The Roxbury Arts Group, The Erpf Center of the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, The Catskill Watershed Corporation, The Other Half Gallery, and the Blue Mountain Gallery. Website: www.helanelevine-keating.com.
JUNE 28, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING V. P. LOGGINS
V. P. Loggins (Annapolis, MD) is the author of The Green Cup (2017), winner of the Cider Press Review Editors’ Prize, The Fourth Paradise (Main Street Rag 2010) and Heaven Changes (Pudding House Chapbook Series 2007). He has also published one critical book on Shakespeare, The Life of Our Design, and is co-author of another, Shakespeare’s Deliberate Art. His poems have appeared in The Baltimore Review, Bryant Literary Review, Cæsura, The Cape Rock, Crannog (Ireland), The Dalhousie Review, The Healing Muse, Memoir, Modern Age, Poet Lore, Poetry East, Poetry Ireland Review, The Southern Review, and Tampa Review. He has been a finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Word Works Washington Prize, and the May Swenson Award. Talking Drums, an art exhibition and installation by sculptor and ceramicist Andrew Cooke, music by Paddy Craig, based on his poems in The Fourth Paradise, appeared in Portaferry, Northern Ireland. His work has been featured in “A Universe of Dreams,” poetry, and music performed nationally by Neal Conan of National Public Radio and Ensemble Galilei. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Illinois, he holds a PhD in English Renaissance literature. He has taught at several institutions, most recently the United States Naval Academy.Website: www.pw.org/content/v_p_loggins.
JUNE 25-29, 9 AM - 2:30 PM SUMMER LITERARY WORKSHOPS FOR KIDS I – SLAVERY AND ABOLITION IN NEW YORK
Taught by Master Teaching Artist Bertha Rogers: includes a bus trip to the National Abolition Hall of Fame & Museum in Peterboro, NY) (Also includes walks around Treadwell to find and visit stops on the Treadwell Underground Railroad, with information and assistance from Debbie Tuthill, Treadwell History Center.) We will visit the Abolition Hall of Fame & Museum on the first day, then select people from history to study, make dioramas of their lives and travels, and write about. They will also make time-tunnel books of the Underground Railroad and pop-ups of their characters. On the last day, we will
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 present our projects to parents and friends. Cost: $120, which includes morning and afternoon snacks (students bring bag lunch). (Delaware Academy students, full scholarships; full and partial scholarships for Delaware and Otsego County students).
JULY 7-8, 10 AM - 5 PM STAGECOACH RUN ART FESTIVAL
The Word and Image Gallery Stagecoach Spotlight Exhibit featuring one piece from each artist participating by opening his/her studio for the 23rd annual Stagecoach Art Run Festival. From realist to conceptual, and conventional to experiential, 2017’s roster included artists working in virtually every conceivable media. The exhibition of participating artists’ works will allow visitors to experience the totality of the gallery exhibitions, and to plan their tour routes. All work will be available for sale, and will be accompanied by the artist’s bio and studio location. Begun in 1995 by fifteen Treadwell artists, the Festival has grown over its more than two decade history. Its original mission remains unchanged: 1) to spotlight artists and creatives living and working locally, 2) to forge new relationships between those artists and their (perhaps unsuspecting) neighbors, and 3) to further prove the theory that artists provide an indefinable yet undeniable financial and cultural value to a community. As always, the Festival is completely free to attend and maps will be widely available across the region leading up to the event, available at all of the venues during the event, and downloadable via the festival’s website (StagecoachRun.com) at any time. Ommegang beer will be available by donation. This is a once-in-a- lifetime show, celebrating the richness of our artist community, not to be missed.
JULY 12, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS - FEATURING CHARLIE ROSSITER
Charlie Rossiter (Oak Park, IL) writes, performs, and promotes poetry every chance he gets. Projects have included creating and hosting the Poetry Motel, a cable television program, with grants from the NY State Council on the Arts, and organizing all-day poetry readings at the Washington Monument in Washington, DC. He has received an NEA Fellowship for poetry and has been nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize. Recent poetry collections include: The Night We Danced With the Raelettes; All Over America: Road Poems; Winter Poems; Lakeside Poems; and Cold Mountain 2000: Han Shan in the City; all from FootHills Publishing. His earlier work, What Men Talk About, won the Pudding Press' 1999 Red Wheel Barrow Award. As Director of Special Projects for the National Association for Poetry Therapy, he co-edited the anthology, Giving Sorrow Words: Poems of Strength and Solace, (Wash. DC, NAPT Foundation, 2002). He has given readings nationwide at such diverse venues as the Detroit Opera House; Albany Oregon Historical Society, Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in NJ and the Chicago Blues Festival. He currently hosts the twice-monthly podcast series at http://www.poetryspokenhere.com/www.poetryspokenhere.com as well as the Second Tuesday Poetry/Spoken Word Open Mic at the Tap House in Bennington, VT.
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018
JULY 13-15, 9 AM - 2:30 PM FEAST OF CRISPIAN WORKSHOP: WAR, WORDS, DANCE: A COLLABORATION
Bright Hill, in collaboration with national not-for-profit organizations Feast of Crispian and Lake Arts Project, will co-direct a three-day acting and storytelling Shakespeare intensive with New York State veterans, and our local area high-school students. Feast uses simple acting exercises to build an ensemble feeling, and to give the veterans an experience of risk free stress–the dangerous "thrill" they might have encountered in the military without the danger. Special techniques developed by the directors allow collaborators to then work scenes from Shakespeare, without the need for reading the difficult language or even any prior familiarity with the plays. The goal is to facilitate the interaction of students and veterans, in order to generate ideas for creating visual art, poetry and dance. Storytelling circles with enough social interaction to encourage trust and bonding are anticipated in phase one of War, Words, Dance: A Collaboration.
Veterans will impart their stories to area high-school students which will, in phase two, be used to create narratives, poetry, and visual art. This project is funded, in part, by NYSCA and the Regional Economic Development Council of New York State.
JULY 26, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS - FEATURING SUSAN RICHMOND
Susan Edwards Richmond (Acton, MA) is the author of five poetry collections: Before We Were Birds, Purgatory Chasm, and Boto (all by Adastra Press); Increase (FootHills Publishing); and Birding in Winter (Finishing Line Press). Fred Marchant writes of Before We Were Birds (2017), “With stunning imagery and gentle, meditative music, Richmond conjures a sense of sacred wildness in all things.” Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Appalachia, Blueline, The Iowa Review, Poetry East, Runes, and Sanctuary: the Journal of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. She earned an MA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, and a BA with Honors in English from Williams College. She has taught at UC Davis, Clark University, Boston University, Emerson College, and the Shirley Medium Correctional Facility. She is poet-in-residence at Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio in Harvard, MA, where she curates a Poem of the Month and organizes an annual plein air poetry walk and chapbook. She is past president of the Robert Creeley Foundation, and teaches in Mass Audubon’s Drumlin Farm Community Preschool. A member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Susan’s first picture book is forthcoming soon from Peachtree Publishers. Her website is www.susanedwardsrichmond.com.
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 JULY 30-AUGUST 3, 9 AM - 2:30 PM WAR, WORDS, DANCE: A COLLABORATION ADVANCED WRITING AND VISUAL ART WORKSHOP– AGES 14 – 18
Taught by Master Writing Artist, Bertha Rogers: high-school writers and visual artists will create works based on stories told to them by NYS Veterans of war. These works will be brought to life by a national not for profit dance and arts organization, Lake Arts Project, directed by Milwaukee Ballet Master Teaching Artists. A poet and visual artist, Bertha Rogers has published more than 600 poems and translations in anthologies, including the recent (which she also edited) Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Writers and in other literary journals. Her published collections include Heart Turned Back (Salmon, Ireland); Even the Hemlock: Poems, Illuminations, Reliquaries; the forthcoming Wild; and several chapbooks. Her translation of Beowulf was published in 2000, and her translation with illuminations of the Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Poems from the Exeter Book, Uncommon Creatures, Singing Things, is out in 2018. She has won writing and visual arts awards and residency fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden International Writers Retreat, and others. Rogers’s paintings, illuminations, and artist’s books have been shown in more than 250 juried and solo shows throughout the US and abroad, and she has received several NYSCA Decentralization and NYFA grants for her interdisciplinary work, including a 2016 award for the second in her Natural Catskills series, “The Wild Ones: Creatures of the Catskills.” Rogers is a Master Teaching Artist; in 2007, the ATA conferred on her the Distinguished Service to the Arts in Education Field Award. She has edited more than 100 poetry and visual arts anthologies, and her writings on teaching and cultural diversity in arts education have been published in Open the Door, Education Week, the Poetry Foundation, and others.
AUGUST 5, 3 - 5 PM WORD AND IMAGE GALLERY EXHIBIT OPENING – AUGUST 5 - 24 ROY PURCELL
Roy Purcell (b. 1-1-1946, Baltimore, MD; d. 12-10-2008, Treadwell, NY), earned a BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art (’68), working at steel mills to put himself through college. He was an avid horseman, trick riding and vaulting barrels with his beloved Appaloosa. And you could always count on his droll humor; those who knew him would agree he was a character, always the life of the party. Intaglio and lithograph editions were commissioned by Associated American Artists, John Szoke Graphics, and Circle Graphics, executed at Bob Blackburn’s ‘Printmaking Workshop’ in NYC. His major pieces were oil on canvas, large landscapes, abstracts, and figurative work, as well as large pencil drawings. Later in life, his canvases incorporated pieces that he found in the woods at the contemporary home he designed and personally built in Treadwell. Together with Barbara Scheck, Charlie Winters, Mila Macek, Bill Rodwell, and Joe Kurhajec, in 1985 he founded Treadwell Artists Associates, the forerunner to the current Stagecoach Run Art Festival. When asked for a statement for his one-man show ('84) at Hartwick College’s Foreman Gallery, he stated that he strives to ‘paint the light.’
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 AUG 6-10, 9 AM - 2:30 PM SUMMER LITERARY WORKSHOP FOR KIDS - TALES OF GLASS & OTHER BREAKING THINGS
Taught by Master Teaching Artist, Bertha Rogers: includes a bus trip to the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, on Aug. 6. There are many fairy tales that include glass and mirrors, among them, for instance: Snow White, Cinderella, The Glass Mountain, and The Glass Mermaid. We will travel to the Corning Museum on the first day to learn about glass and how it’s used; then we will listen to fairy tales that include glass and mirrors, and write our own as accordion or carousel books with glass insets. We will also make glass pendants/amulets with help from Debbie Tuthill, and the Treadwell History Center’s glass kiln. On the last day, we will present our projects to parents and friends. Cost: $120, which includes morning and afternoon snacks (students bring bag lunch). (Delaware Academy students, full scholarships; full and partial scholarships for Delaware and Otsego County students).
AUGUST 9, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING NAOMI GUTTMAN
Naomi Guttman (Clinton, NY) was born in Montreal, where she attended Concordia University. Her book Reasons for Winter won the A.M. Klein Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for The League of Canadian Poets Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, the Artist's Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts; and has been a resident at Yaddo and the Chateau de Lavigny. Wet Apples, White Blood, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, was co-winner of the Adirondack Center for Writers Best Book of Poems for 2007. Her novella-in-verse, The Banquet of Donny & Ari: Scenes from the Opera, was published by Brick Books in 2015 and received the 2015 Central New York Book Award in Poetry. Guttman teaches English and creative writing at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Website: http://people.hamilton.edu/nguttman/home.
AUGUST 13 – 17 VIDEOGRAPHY WORKSHOP FOR TEENS - WAR, WORDS, DANCE: A COLLABORATION Videography
This workshop taught by award-winning videographer, Jessica Vecchione. For ages 14 – 18 for Five consecutive days, students will learn to professionally film rehearsal the process and final performances of a project funded by the Regional Economic Development Council of New York State and NYSCA. Final performance will be held at the Walton Theatre in Walton, NY.
Jessica Vecchione is the owner of Vecc Videography, a full service video production and marketing company based in Hamden, NY. With 20 years’ experience in advertising and marketing, Jessica has carved out a niche for herself in the Catskills, helping individuals, businesses, and organizations connect to others and define their brand by telling their stories on film. In 2009, she made a film called, Bienvenidos a Fleischmanns, about the growing Hispanic population in a mostly rural mountainous region. The film went on to screen in several film festivals, including the Black Earth Film Festival, where it won first prize in documentary, the Orlando Hispanic Film Festival, where it won second prize in documentary, the Boston Latino Film Festival and the Buffalo Niagra Film Festival. In 2011, she made Robert, Portrait of an Art-er, a film about an infamous local hermit and stone artist, which also went on to win awards on the film festival circuit.
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018
AUGUST 19, 7 PM FINAL PERFORMANCE: WAR, WORDS, DANCE
Bright Hill’s 26th anniversary brings veterans of war, professional dance choreographers, high school student artists, writers & Shakespeare together for exploration, collaboration, & ultimately, a performance held for the general public of upstate NY at The Walton Theatre, in Walton, NY. Collaborators include the not-for-profit organizations Lake Arts Project & Feast of Crispian. Post- deployment combat veterans, high school student writers, and visual artists will collaborate in a series of acting, writing and creative workshops; the goal is to facilitate the interaction of students and veterans in order to generate ideas for creating visual art, poetry, and dance. Results of those workshops will be choreographed into dance works by professional choreographers, and taught to student dancers who will perform the final pieces at the Walton Theatre. This collaboration will result in high-impact works that will carry the messages of the veterans stories, transmuted through young students voices and art.
AUGUST 23, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – LIKE LIGHT: 25 YEARS OF POETRY AND PROSE REGIONAL ANTHOLOGY READING Details to be shared at a later date.
SEPTEMBER 16, 3 - 5 PM WORD AND IMAGE GALLERY EXHIBIT OPENING – SEPT 16 - OCT 4 BREMER FAMILY SHOW
Charles Bremer (Otego, NY) has explored a wide breadth of creative media in his career, ranging from photography and drawing, experimental sound sculpture, to theater stage sets and architectural memorials. His work has been exhibited in art centers, galleries, and private collections both in the United States and internationally. Much of Bremer’s graphic work explores the image of objects and art supplies as unique allegories of human emotion, creativity, beauty, playfulness, and aging. His studio technique combines photography with paint and stain, ink, beeswax, pigments and resin in an encaustic wax surface. His recent figurative work explores cloth and clay with the human body and books. Beginning in the mid-1980s, in collaboration with his wife Martha, they conceived and hosted a series of regional exhibitions at his upstate farm exploring the natural elements in art. These large exhibitions; Art on the Wind, Waterways, Earthworks, and Art on Fire brought together many artists to share themes related to environmental concern and issues important to the upstate New York region. Much of Bremer’s early outdoor sound work has aimed to educate and celebrate the importance of protected natural spaces both urban and rural. He created the memorial to September 11th on the SUNY, Oneonta campus and more recently an outdoor Aeolian Harp memorial sculpture for The Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam.
Martha Bremer (Otego, NY) has been exploring the craft of weaving for the last 30 years. She studied at the Brookfield Craft Institute in Connecticut with many well-known contemporary basket weavers in the late eighties. Mostly self-taught since then, her work has been exhibited in galleries, exhibitions, and stores in upstate New York. She has also been teaching basket weaving in schools and community classes for the past 25 years. Since 1996, she has added the craft of furniture restoration to her business, Briar Creek Basketry. Her emphasis has been on seat weaving specializing in cane and rush work. Her home and studio are in Otego.
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018
Karin Bremer (Oneonta, NY) is a metalsmith and artisan jewelry designer living and working in Oneonta. She has a degree in Studio Art from Drew University in Madison, NJ but her love of metals developed after taking an introduction to metals class at Portland, Maine's College of Art in 2006. Since then she has been primarily teaching herself and developing her style and craftsmanship along the way. Her designs are often informed by the process itself though she finds inspiration everywhere: from concrete floors to fallen leaves to her frequent travels overseas. Her primary medium has been sterling silver, but will often incorporate elements of copper, brass, stone, beads, verdigris patina, and colorful enamel into her designs. Her most current work focuses on weaving small glass beads into colorful patterns alongside her metalwork.
Lara Bremer (Oneonta, NY) runs a small illustrated paper goods company, Paper Wolf Design, in upstate NY. She learned to draw and create as a child growing up on a family-run artist farm in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. Before starting Paper Wolf, she lived in Brooklyn, NY, where she studied Graphic Design at the Art Institute of NY. After eight years in the city, she returned to her country roots to start her company. Lara is motivated by both the urban cultures she has experienced and the natural landscape of her home. . . her work includes elements of both worlds. Her colorful designs feature animals, food and everyday objects with sassy twists and witty puns. Each design is hand drawn by Lara in to her home-studio computer using digital paintbrushes to create a watercolor effect.
SEPTEMBER 13, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING DAN PAYNE AND PHILIP MOSLEY
Philip Mosley (Dunmore, PA) is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Penn State. In 2008, he was awarded the Prix de la Traduction by the French Community of Belgium, and in 2011 his translation of François Jacqmin’s The Book of the Snow was shortlisted for the international Griffin Poetry Prize. His version of The Blacktip Ragwort, a suite of poems by Guy Vaes, recently appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation. Currently, he is writing a series of personal essays on greater- and lesser-known writers whose lives and careers have sparked some of his own literary and historical interests.
Daniel G. Payne (Oneonta, NY) received his JD from Albany Law School and his PhD in English from the University at Buffalo. He is the author of Voices in the Wilderness: American Nature Writing and Environmental Politics (1996), and editor of The Palgrave Environmental Reader (2005) and Writing the Land: John Burroughs and his Legacy (2007). He is a professor of English and creative writing at SUNY College at Oneonta, and received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2012. He recently completed a biography of the American writer Henry Beston entitled Orion on the Dunes: A Biography of Henry Beston. Website: www.oriononthedunes.com.
SEPTEMBER 27, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING PAUL PINES
Paul Pines (Glens Falls, NY) grew up in Brooklyn and passed the early 60s on the Lower East Side of New York, then shipped out as a Merchant Seaman, spending part of 65/66 in Vietnam. His Bowery jazz club, The Tin Palace, in the 70s served as the setting for his novel, The Tin Angel (Morrow, 1983).
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 Redemption, a second novel, explores the genocide of Guatemalan Mayans. Memoirs, My Brother’s Madness (Curbstone Press, 2007), and the just released Trolling with the Fisher King, (Chiron Publications) explore themes of wounding and healing. He has published 14 poetry collections, most recently Gathering Sparks (Marsh Hawk Press). The selected, A Furnace in the Shadows, is forthcoming from Dos Madres Press. Poems set by composer Daniel Asia appear on the Summit label. Pines is the editor of Juan Gelman’s selected poems Dark Times/ Filled with Light (Open Letters Press, 2012). He has conducted workshops for the National Writers Voice and lectured for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Paul Pines lives in Glens Falls, NY, where he is a psychotherapist in private practice, and hosts the Lake George Jazz Weekend. Website: paulpines.com
OCTOBER 7, 3 - 5 PM WORD AND IMAGE GALLERY EXHIBIT OPENING – OCT 7 – 26 STEVE BURNETT - STRANGE LOVE THINKING
Steve Burnett (Bovina, NY) was born in Guthrie Center, IA in 1951. He attended Grinnell, University of Iowa, Art Institute of Kansas City, and earned a graduate degree from Pratt in Manhattan. Burnett owned and operated a Marketing/Design company, The Burnett Group, from 1979-2015, with offices in Manhattan, New York; Zürich, Switzerland; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Bangkok, Thailand. Currently, he is an organic Farmer in Bovina, raising meat, vegetables, and fruit organically. Burnett is an artist, hunter, gatherer, father, husband, misfit Member of The Explorers Club, Campfire Club of America, Elder at the United Presbyterian Church of Bovina, Director at Livestock Foundation, Director at Farming Bovina, Director at Delaware County Electric Cooperative, and Cartoonist for the Catskill Mountain News.
OCTOBER 11, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING KELLIE BEAN AND LISA WUJNOVICH
Kellie Bean (Oneonta, NY) is a life-long lover of books and theater. In published works, on a wide array of subjects (from The Daily Show, to feminist theory, from Disney films to the works of Samuel Beckett) she wrestles with how we arrive at our conclusions about literature, the world around us, and what we consider knowledge. An English professor for many years, Kellie has taught playwriting, drama, and of course literature. In her spare time, she writes poetry and plays. Her plays tend to be populated by cranky and dysfunctional academics, middle-aged women, and (sometimes) tormented Shakespearean actors. A short, entitled How OK Cupid Made Me a Better Feminist, enjoyed a public reading at The Tank in New York City in 2016. Kellie has been Dean of Academic Affairs at Hartwick College since Fall of 2015.
Lisa Wujnovich (Hancock, NY) is a poet/farmer who lives and works at Mountain Dell Farm in Hancock. She is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Fieldwork (Finishing Line Press, 2012), and This Place Called Us (Stockport Flats Press, 2008); a collaborative chapbook with poet, Nancy Dymond and sculptor Naomi Teppich, Dirty Work Carved Earth Complete Breath (Stockport Flats 2007). Her poems can be read in various publications including the anthologies, Ghost Fishing, an eco-justice poetry anthology (forthcoming), Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry and Prose by Bright Hill Poets and Writers; Creation: an anthology of ekphrastic myth poems, By the Crown of Their Heads, Poems for Haiti and Syracuse Cultural Workers’ Women Artists Datebook; her anti-fracking poems are featured in the
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 anthology, Vigil for the Marcellus Shale. Her anti-fracking poetry toured in the traveling art show, Earth Stewards: Artists Respond to Drilling in the Marcellus Shale and in businesses across Delaware, Chenango, and Sullivan Counties with 1,000 Poets for Change. She is co-editor with Brandi Katherine Herrera of The Lake Rises, a Stockport Flats Witness Post poetry anthology on water. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Drew University, and a BA in drama from Antioch College. Website: www.mountaindellfarmny.com.
OCTOBER 25, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING ANDY FOGEL AND ANDREA FRY
Andy Fogle (Saratoga Springs, NY) is the author of five previous chapbooks of poetry, most recently The Last Apprenticeship (White Knuckle Press) and The Neighborhood We Left (Finishing Line Press). Other poems, including co-translations with Walid Abdallah of Egyptian poet Farouk Goweda, have appeared in Image, Mid-American Review, Blackbird, South Dakota Review, Natural Bridge, RHINO, Still: The Journal, and elsewhere. His nonfiction including memoir, interviews, criticism, and educational research has been published in The Writer’s Chronicle, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, English Journal, Gargoyle, Popmatters, and elsewhere. He was born in Norfolk, VA, raised in Virginia Beach, spent 13 years in the DC area, and now lives in Saratoga Springs with his wife and two children. He earned an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University, is working on a PhD in Curriculum & Instruction at SUNY Albany, and after 20 years educating in a variety of settings with a wide range of students, currently teaches full-time in the English Department at Bethlehem Central High School and intermittently at Skidmore College.
Andrea Fry (Manhattan, NY) was born in Dallas, raised mainly in NYC and the Catskill Mountains, and educated at Union College and Columbia University. She published her first collection of poems, The Bottle Diggers, in May 2017 (Turning Point Press). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her poem, “Murder” which was published by J Journal. She was a finalist in Georgia College’s Arts & Letters Prize 2010 contest, a semi-finalist in the 2010 Gulf Coast Prize in Poetry, and a semi-finalist in River Styx 2010 International Poetry Contest. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Ars Medica (University of Toronto Press), Barrow Street, Cimarron Review, The Comstock Review, Graham House Review, Reed Magazine, Stanford Literary Review, St. Petersburg Review, and the chapbook Still Against War, Poems for Marie Ponsot. Andrea is also a nurse practitioner at NYU Langone Medical Center. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two formerly feral felines. Website: www.andrealfry.com.
NOVEMBER 4, 3 - 5 PM WORD AND IMAGE GALLERY EXHIBIT OPENING – NOVEMBER 4 - 23 JANE CARR
Jane Carr (Treadwell, NY) is a painter of landscapes in egg tempera on panel. She paints the area where she lives, the northwestern edge of the Catskill Mountains in Treadwell. Carr uses the jewel-like quality of egg tempera color to catch the effects of light and atmosphere in the long hollows of the western Catskills, and is particularly interested in how landscapes are altered by farming, animals, buildings, and weather. She often includes antique farm machinery, local buildings, and animals in her paintings. She works from sketches, photographic reference, and quick watercolor studies. Carr has been
BRIGHT HILL PRESS & LITERARY CENTER SCHEDULE OF EVENTS 2018 painting for more than 50 years, and her first invitational show was in 1966 at the John Slade Ely House in New Haven, CT. Jane Carr is a member of the Society of Tempera Painters, The Hamilton Street Club in Baltimore, The GNAF Society, The Cooperstown Art Association, and the Upper Catskill Community Council of the Arts, and is an artist member of The Smithy Pioneer Gallery in Cooperstown. Website: www.janecarrstudio.com.
NOVEMBER 8, 7 PM WORD THURSDAYS – FEATURING GEORGE DREW
George Drew (Poestenkill, NY) is the author of The View from Jackass Hill, 2010 winner of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, Texas Review Press; which also published Down & Dirty (2015), and his New & Selected, Pastoral Habits (2016), winner of the Adirondack Literary Award for Best Poetry Book; and a Finalist for The Lascaux Review’s Poetry Book Prize. Fancy’s Orphan, his eighth book, appeared in Fall, 2017 from Tiger Bark Press. He is the winner of the 2014 St. Petersburg Review poetry contest, the 2016 The New Guard’s Knightville Poetry Contest, is First Runner Up for the 2017 Chautauqua Literary Journal’s Editors Choice Award, and is an Honorable Mention for the 2018 San Diego Poetry Annual’s Steve Kowit Poetry Prize. Drew was a recipient of the Bucks County Muse Award in 2016 for contributions to the Bucks County, PA literary community. Website: www.georgedrew.com.
NOVEMBER 11, 12-5 PM VETERANS AND COMMUNITY DAY– ARTIST SALON
Of Abenaki/Huron decent, Suzanne S. Rancourt (Hadley, NY) is a veteran of both the USMC and US Army and continues to serve through the Saratoga County (NY) Veterans Peer to Peer Mentoring program. Her first book, Billboard in the Clouds, Curbstone Press, was the 2001 recipient of the Native Writers First Book Award. Her book, murmurs at the gate, has been selected by Unsolicited Press for publication in late 2018. Ms. Rancourt's writing has been published, anthologized, and translated extensively: Like Light, Bright Hill Press 25th Anniversary Anthology; Dawnland Voices 2.0 #4; Northern New England Review; Bear Review; Three Drops Press; Snapdragon Journal; Sirsee; Slipstream; Muddy River Poetry Review; Ginosko; Journal of Military Experience; Cimarron Review; Callaloo; and Combat Stress Magazine. As a presenter and workshop facilitator, Ms. Rancourt’s unique skills have taken her to Lesley University, Cambridge, MA; Songwriting with Soldiers, Princeton University’s Moral Injury and Collective Healing Advanced Training; and to the International Expressive Arts Therapy Annual Conference: Indigenous Roots of Expressive Arts Therapy. Using all of her tools to inform, educate, and alleviate the experiences of trauma, Ms. Rancourt is a multi-model artist.