Examining Weekends (A Collection of Poetry Book 4)
Before they were authors, they were readers-and we all have books that touched our hearts or impacted our lives in profound ways. Maryland Romance Writers discuss their five favorite books and ask the audience to share theirs, too! It will feature the theme: Please register online at Zumbini. This popular feature returns for a sixth straight year with editors from regional and online journals, and seasoned writers who will critique poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and scripts, and provide submission guidelines for their publications. Sign-up sheets available at the Festival opening.
Only 16 minute slots available. Must register in advance at the Festival opening. Laura Ballou , screenwriter, educator: Plenty of authors keep part or full time day jobs, some famously. Find out how these writers' other careers inspire and influence their fiction. David Pedreira, Jonathan P. Let Ron Kipling Williams guide you through an intense workshop that will make your poetry rock!
Participants may even help to create their own creatures! Bring your Pokedex and creativity! Using visual theatre, students create visual adaptations of Shel Silverstein poetry. Fun theatre games using creative movement, mime and gesture are played. Students will learn how to use their bodies as a tool for expression. Guests have the opportunity to sample both items during this segment. An American Musical, Outlander, The Crown, and other pop culture historicals, the past has never been more in style. Award winning and multi-published authors explore the challenges and rewards of finding the right style for writing believable historical romance.
There are many roads to publication in this day and age. Find out which one is right for you, the positives and negatives of each, and the things our authors wish they had known. Flexagons are paper toys that have the magical quality of changing images as they are flexed or folded. In this program we will learn how a simple piece of paper can be transformed to make flexagons, exquisite corpses, and accordion style booklets.
Chibi is a style formed from Japanese anime and manga, the word itself means "small child". This is fitting for a style that exaggerates features like head size and shape, height, and eye size. In this class students will learn to transform a character into a Chibi! We will explore different styles of Chibi as well as pinpointing key features to capture the identity and attitude of a character.
A great character steps off the page and into our lives. You may love her or hate her, but if the author does their job, the character becomes oh-so-real to the reader. Join these award winning and multi-published authors for a discussion on what it takes to bring a character to life. Whether a writer is after something historical, scientific, cultural, or trivial, it's easy to fall down the rabbit holes of research.
Let our authors tell you about the places they've gone for a single reference, as well as tips on how to do effective research. DewMore Baltimore is a Baltimore-based nonprofit dedicated to using art and community organizing as tools to amplify marginalized voices, build safe spaces for the city's Youth, and increase civic engagement in the greater Baltimore Community.
This performance will showcase some of the powerful and inspiring work that DewMore Baltimore generates throughout the year. Children can partner with a therapy dog or cat from Pets on Wheels , then select a favorite book, then sit and read to their furry friend. These gentle canines are amazing listeners.
They do not tease, laugh or judge the child. As a result, even the shyest child or reluctant reader is encouraged to improve their literacy skills. Black Girls Cook is non-profit organization that teaches inner city teen girls of color the importance of healthy eating by operating hands-on cooking classes and teaching the fundamentals of urban gardening. Chef Nichole conducts a very interactive, Autumn Seafood Paella demo and sampling for the audience.
The workshop on wheels travels to schools, community centers, and community event sites to demonstrate basic digital fabrication technology with a desktop 3D printer, CNC machine, and Laser engraver. Join them today for a brief demo and the 3d printing pen activity. Bestselling and award-winning authors share their experiences as diverse authors, and using the page to bring characters of every dimension to life. Worldbuilding is more than just inset maps. It's about economy, culture, politics, food, entertainment, modes of transit, class structures, gender roles.
Panelists talk about creating worlds, and how much they know that doesn't ever make it to the page.
- Favorite Recipes Game Day?
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- Two poems by Angifi Dladla?
- What Is the Value of Poetry?.
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- Dilemma!
Denise Clemons, Vera Brook, L. We may not live in a world where people fly or lift cars, but we can all discover our own super-powers and be a real super-hero! Join a fun workshop and learn about the great heroes and heroines of comics who are more popular today than ever! Learn what it takes to be a real super-hero, and design your own superhero look!
This is an active and artistic workshop for children and youth ages 6 and up. Don't consider yourself a genre reader? Indie authors have upended the traditional publishing model. What's new and hot in this fast-growing trend? Co-owner of Station North Arts Cafe Kevin Brown serves up a scrumptious dish representative of the restaurant, which has been a part of Baltimore for more than 10 years. Join our award winning and multi-published paranormal, fantasy, and sci-fi romance authors for a discussion of what's new and fresh in speculative fiction, how they create those magical men and women, and more.
Enjoy surprise celebrity guests and lots of prizes -- signed books. A book signing follows. No matter how cool your setting, you want people to want to follow your characters, whether out of love or hate or fascination. Our panel talks about what makes a good hero or antihero , why some villains are just delicious, and the joy of centering a story around an everyday person who falls into neither of those categories. With My Head Unbowed is a dual spoken-written, auditory-literary collection of emphatic poetry discussing family, women empowerment and the Black experience by Baltimore spoken word artist and activist Lady Brion.
The book is rhythmic, hard-hitting and soulful in its unapologetic telling of the author's truth. Three contributors of compact tales of intrigue will read and discuss their works, the genre, and what it takes to create mystery on the page. Despite their diminutive size, these tales promise to pack a punch. And about pirate librarians if you're an optimist, or about precariousness human connections in the face of racism and our looming dystopian future, if you're not.
Danni Starr is an empath, national media personality, mental health advocate, activist and author. In her decade-long professional career, she has amassed an impressive amount of experience and used her media platform to help people and advocate for important causes. In , she was recognized as ambassador of the year. She lists her greatest accomplishments as being the best mom possible to her two daughters, surviving postpartum depression, and writing her first book, Empathy and Eyebrows.
From sensual tension to explicit love scenes and language , romance authors excel at writing erotically. Bestselling and award-winning authors share straight talk about writing hot. A stunning new talent in literary fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship.
Her stories are exquisitely rendered, satirical, and captivating in turn, engaging in the ongoing conversations about race and identity politics, as well as the vulnerability of the black body. Do you ever wish you could ask your favorite author about their writing practices? Play it sweet, or make them work for it? Ask what they were thinking when they killed off your favorite character? Perhaps find out what sorts of books they love to get lost in. Robyn Neeley, Andi J. Need we say more? The fictions and realities of space and getting there, from Hidden Figures to space opera, and why we love SF set in space.
Test your knowledge about the state of Maryland in fun presentation led by authors Jean B. Russo and Suzanne Ellery Chapelle. All are welcome to join in; meet at Rash Field dressed as your favorite storybook character, author, or playwright! Who doesn't adore a dastardly villain or a juicy antagonist? Join these popular romance authors as they share ideas for creating the perfect fictional foe. His new book, Thanks a Thousand , Jacobs describes his quest to thank every single person who had a role no matter how small in making his morning cup of coffee.
He lives in New York with his wife and sons. All that's missing is someone to save her from her happy but loveless life. Moll will read from Out of Step , a queer coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of masculinity and secrecy. American Sign Language makes it easy to communicate with your child. We'll celebrate with stories, songs, and more. Appropriate for all ages. David Reichenbaugh's experience and passion for law enforcement and protecting the citizens along with his command attributes is what led him and enabled him to be the on-scene commander during the capture of the beltway sniper.
His book In Pursuit: The Hunt for Beltway Snipers will give you a deeper look into his life and experiences in these roles. The acclaimed feminist-vegan advocate, activist, and independent scholar—author of the groundbreaking The Sexual Politics of Meat —presents her latest book, a handbook for grounding resistance in an ethical diet.
With her co-author Virginia Messina, Adams draws the connections between sexual oppression, climate change, rising authoritarian, and animal suffering to help map a pathway from the personal to the political. People usually equate science fiction with astronomy and physics. We do too, but also biology, chemistry, paleontology, and more. Our authors talk about how much science they include, the science behind the stories, and what it means to "get it right. Give your characters new life with dynamic expressions! In this workshop, you will learn the basics of drawing facial features as well as how to manipulate them.
This is essential for conveying emotions ranging from happiness and joy to anger and pain.
It was the God in you I needed to touch the God in me. And so be it. I met Marion Bethel, a poet from the Bahamas, in Guadeloupe in ; we had both been invited there by the Congress of Caribbean Writers.
Fall 2017 classes
She is widely-accomplished—aside from her career as a poet, she is also an attorney, activist, documentary filmmaker. Although she read her poetry simply, her words entered deep into me, and a brilliant smile followed each poem. I sensed similar feelings in our writing, giving me a feeling of Caribbean proximity. Heartfire, flame in hurricane-lamp Outside, into this storm. Male writers have long been honored for books playing in the same yard—it creates a marvelous, magical realist world in which the dead namely, one Bob Marley summon the living to act.
With this book, Joanne Hillhouse tells a well-known story: Nikki, the main character, was born in Antigua but raised in the USA. Turmoil and chaos ensue. Joanne Hillhouse is a powerful writer, raising questions directly and with great energy. I did not know her as a short story writer, however, until her debut collection Considering Woman was republished in Poetry can spring from us naturally in times of need. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, , poetry sprang up everywhere.
A New York Times article on October 1, , documented the phenomenon: Some catastrophes are so large, they seem to overwhelm ordinary language. Immediately after the recent tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, the Los Angeles Times reported the witnesses were literally dumbstruck. They had lost their voices. In mainstream culture, there are subjects we do not talk about. For example, even though each of us is going to die, we don't talk about dying. Instead, we avoid it. Even physicians are reluctant to talk with terminally ill patients about the patient's experience, however,. My job as a poetry therapist is to use poetry and voice to help people get access to the wisdom they already have but cannot experience because they cannot find the words in ordinary language.
William Carlos Williams was a poet and a physician. He is credited with making voice the basis of modern poetry. He wrote in his poem Asphodel, That Greeny Flower 1. Two years ago, I was asked to pair poets with brain cancer patients at UCLA in the Department of Neuro-Oncology, so that the poets could help the patients find the words to articulate their experiences. One patient reported his dilemma following brain surgery to remove his cancer,. I felt I lost my edge and then I lost my place but the tragedy is I have so much to say.
Although illness is usually discussed in terms of a patient's symptoms, deficit, or impairment, it is also about how people respond when faced with extreme circumstances and what they have to tell and teach us. We can go through amazing changes when we are faced with knowing we have limited time. After one woman got brain cancer she decided what she wanted was to go to Africa to see the gorillas. She and her husband and the guides began the long trek through the jungle up the mountains, but the woman was having trouble. The guides tried to convince her to go back, but she wouldn't.
She struggled and struggled. Eventually she won the guides over and everyone was rooting for her but there came a point when she couldn't go on, so she laid down on the grass and when she did, the gorillas came out of the jungle to her. If you didn't read this poem aloud, do so now. What is your experience of reading this poem? How is it relevant to you? Do you identify with the woman or, perhaps, the husband or the guides or even the gorillas? Can you visualize the images, see the people trekking along, then lying down in the grass?
What sounds can you hear? What is the smell of the jungle? What physical sensations do you feel in your body as the poem unfolds? What happens to your breathing when you read the last lines? How did the transformation that happened at the end of the poem affect you? Did you have any associations to the poem about a situation in your own life?
Whatever your experiences of reading this poem, they are examples of the ways that poetry works. In other words poetry has ways of working that get under our skin, which is to say it has ways to get in. All of my professional life, I have used language embodied in voice as part of my medicine. Whether it was an attempt to talk someone through a traumatic experience or to help them understand the implications of their diagnosis or to aid them in finding the words to write their own stories and poetry, I have encouraged patients to speak and write their truths.
At the same time, I have learned from them. One of the privileges of being clinicians is that we have a place in our patients' lives as they live through experiences that we may have yet to face ourselves. It is becoming more and more common for people dealing with serious illnesses to write and publish their stories and poems as their own healing practice 3 — Many physicians and other health care providers have joined in writing their own personal experiences with illness, death and dying 12 — In my private practice of family psychiatry, I often ask whether my patients do any writing and for what purpose.
In my work with them, I support their writing and encourage its use whether it is through poetry, journals or personal letters. I encourage bringing the writing in as material for discussion, and I may make suggestions. For example, Writing in the third person gives distance to your voice, so try writing in the first person. I also sometimes gives assignments. For example, write what you are having difficulty saying, or bring in a poem which is particularly meaningful to you. This can then become a springboard for discussion and exploration. I can't do it all.
I can't be all things to all people At all times and under all circumstances. I can't be the one to always change my plans to suit another's. I can't be the one to pick up after others all the time. I can't work all day and stop at the grocery and cook dinner And have it ready by 6: I can't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I need some support, too, and a rest. I can't; can't, can't cantaloupe, can't canticle, can't cantilever, Cantina, cantata, cantankerous, cannon, Canape, canard, candelabra, can… can…, Can I? Can I just do it?
Can I do it all? Can I ration my time to allow for my priorities? Can I ask others to share the burdens? Can I refuse this role of superwoman? I can just say no. Did you experience the change that Carlene went through? Poetry therapy is not only used with individuals. It is frequently used in groups. Shahin Sakhi, a psychiatrist who attended a poetry therapy seminar, told me he had never previously written a poem or any other type of expressive writing.
What Is the Value of Poetry? | Does Poetry Even Matter?
The first words he wrote were I have died so many times in so many ways. I am tired of dying, dying again and again…. It was the first time he had shared this experience. Finding the words to express it was a deeply healing experience for Shahin, and his relief was palpable. If the group's focus is on a particular theme, for example, cancer, I might use poems that relate directly to the illness. Eileen has breast cancer. The lump was removed last year. It was chemotherapy and radiation for the next six months.
Finding the Words to Say It: The Healing Power of Poetry
She vomited every day. Her hair fell out— First wisps, then tufts, then clumps. Her daughter couldn't stand it— She was only thirteen— Seeing her mother pull out her hair. So she grabbed another and another then a clump and out it came.
Then they put on music and danced and grabbed hair. They played Chaplin and burlesque. Hitler had a funny moustache. They put sideburns on Jews. Eileen became a billy-goat. They bayed at the moon. When Eileen became bald, they laughed, then they wept. Then the daughter pasted patches in her armpits and a tuft between her legs. I'm a woman now! Up and down the women jumped and screamed until they were exhausted and Eileen's scalp turned red.
Why Am I Saying Any of This?
Then they laughed and hugged and went to bed. Could you see the images and feel the experience of witnessing the transformation? I want to be the stone and tell how she held me in the palm of her hand rolled me between her fingers slipped me into her mouth tasted my salt tumbled me around. The poems need not be about illness specifically, but might otherwise embody themes that confronts the patients.
Twelve years ago, I myself was going through personally difficult times. One of my patients, a 32 year-old woman who was a wife and mother of a 2-year old daughter, died. At the same time my father was beginning his terminal decline from diabetic multisystem failure, and a friend of mine was dying from a cancer that had metastasized to her brain.
In addition, I had recently had reconstructive knee surgery to repair torn ligaments, following which I was disabled for months. I had never written much before except a few poems in earlier times of crisis. I developed ways of writing as my own healing practice, and I listened to the voices of other poets and writers doing the same Our voices are saturated with who we are, embodied in the rhythms, tonal variations, associations, images and other somato-sensory metaphors in addition to the content meaning of the words.
Our voices are embodiments of ourselves, whether written or spoken. It is in times of extremity that we long to find words or hear another human voice letting us know we are not alone. They represent a progression of my experience: I rose in his wake. A dream crossed my eyes— My father lying still in his tub. I throw my arms around him yelling Daddy, wake up! Bubbles are bursting everywhere. We sit on the bench in the hospital corridor next to the cafeteria, and we wait. You know what waiting is. If you know anything, you know what waiting is.
It's not about you. This is about illness and hospitals and life and death. This is about the smell of the disinfectant that hits you in the head. In the bathroom you look in the mirror. What do you see? Your father's sad face? You catch the water cupped in your thickened hands, splash it on your face, and hope against hope you can wash it away— the aging brown spots, the bags, the swelling truth of waiting— So you go back to that bench.
Maybe your mother is there or your wife who is waiting for your father who is waiting for the news from the surgeon or the morphine for the pain or the nurse who cleans bedpans who is waiting for her shift to change while another man's hand clamps white as a claw to a clutch of bed sheets, and you wait. So you hear the news, and you take the long trip back from LA or Detroit— wherever you're from— and you see the faces of the drivers as they approach you out of the fog, and you see this one: Then, out of the corner of your eye, you see your father's face in the driver's seat of a '49 powder blue Pontiac sedan.
The thin sliver of his moonlit profile's smiling, but the nose is too long and it's not really him, and besides he'd never understand anyway— this impatience, this anger, this rage, this love, this fog on the windshield, this never even knowing if it's inside or out— because his whole life was waiting, and what does a fish know of the water or a bird of the air? So you push the leaden accelerator down and act like you're headed to some small emergency, and you don't give a damn about the cop waiting behind the billboard or death over your left shoulder, and you think you might want to pray, and you do pray, but you don't know what for, and, anyway, you're driving, so you go back to the endless lines of headlights and traffic and exit signs until you get home to see the light flash on your answering machine, but you don't pick it up.
Instead, you go to the bathroom, take a shower, take a piss, pull out a carton of leftover food—anything— but you can't swallow it. So you push the button, and it's your sister's voice, but it's choked, and she can't speak. That's how I learned that the waiting was over, that my life changed forever, that this end was a beginning, but I didn't know for what. I used to think it was death I was waiting for, but that's not what this is. So you show up and do the work and love who you love, and you learn to wait, and if you're lucky, you learn what waiting is and what you have to give. I dig the earth with my hands, claw stones with my nails, sift ash through my fingers— bone and tooth fragments burned out by morning spread on the ground.
The rain washes down the smoldering mass below. Our human flesh the caustic ash now together turn to soap. When I was asked by the minister of a local congregation if I would read my poetry on illness, death and dying as part of their Sunday service, I viewed it as an opportunity to facilitate a community's healing.
The congregation had recently sustained a number of deaths, and the minister wanted to facilitate a dialogue among the congregants who were having difficulty talking about the losses. After the reading, twenty stayed. A woman in a navy-blue suit spoke first: It was six months after we first found the lump. Between the breast surgeries and the metastases and the strokes, she was gone.
My Dad was in coma for weeks. He got agitated and made sounds, but he couldn't talk. The doctors said there wasn't much they could do. I sat on the edge of the bed and held his hand. I couldn't do him any good like that. Then, when I was out of the room, his heart stopped, and I wasn't there. Nine years it's been. I don't think I'll ever forgive myself.