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Writers in the mountains’ literary retreat
Tag: books
THE ZADOCK PRATT MUSEUM COLORING BOOK
The Zadock Pratt Museum has just released a coloring book for adults, essentially a collection of historical quilts accompanied by text and drawings that provide a unique perspective of the region’s settlement history. Inspired by the 2018 exhibition titled “Undercover Stories,” the book was partly funded by The A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation and The Nicholas J. Juried Family Foundation. All text and drawings are by Suzanne M. Walsh, who curated the exhibition.
© Zadock Pratt Museum
Coloring books for adults have been around for decades but have become quite popular in recent years, as a stress relief activity. In 2015 Crayola launched its own line of adult coloring books, for the first time in its more than a century history. The company also expanded its variety of colored pencils and markers, including the ones with extra fine tip, to fit a wider range of projects. Coloring a book is not only a relaxing activity but it’s also a means of self-expression and a creativity jump-starter. Some users frame their artworks to display and share with family and friends. The richness of possibilities is motivating.
The Zadock Pratt Museum’s Collection of Twenty-Six Catskill Historical Quilting Designs is more than a coloring book. It’s also a reflection of Early America coded in the quilting designs of the women who moved to the region which eventually became the Schoharie and Greene Counties of New York State. In a note prefacing the book, Ms. Walsh explains: “the women of mixed Palatine and Dutch heritage arriving in Schoharie Kill in the 1700s found themselves living during the time when the screams of the mountain lion were a chilling reminder of just how wild this frontier outpost really was; nonetheless, with brave hearts and steady hands they cut and stitched their quilts with the astonishing skill and imagination they passed to their descendants. Some of their legacies are found in this book today.”
Quilting has been described by scholars as “the art of necessity.” When textiles were scarce, women patched old blankets, coverlets, and table runners with cloth they had available and ready to use. European settlers brought this practice to the New World, and it flourished here and took on a new life. A utilitarian activity at first, quilting did eventually become an American folk art.
According to Lisa J. Allen who writes about the history of quilting in America, “In the 100 years between 1750 and 1850 thousands of quilts were pieced and patched, and many of them are preserved. Many of these quilts were so elaborate that years were spent making and quilting them. It is no wonder they are cherished as precious heirlooms and occupy honored places in homes and museums. Those early quilts provide a glimpse into the history of quilting as well as the history of the United States.”
American Folk Art Museum in New York City has an impressive textile collection, and has begun the New York Quilt Project to locate, document, preserve, and create an archive for New York State quilts. Dr. Jacqueline M. Atkins, a curator who worked at the Folk Art Museum, wrote the introduction for the The Zadock Pratt Museum Coloring Book, and shared “the thrill of the hunt, as one is never sure just what new and exciting quilts, patterns, and designs will turn up in addition to renewing acquaintances with many old favorites.”
Among the 26 quilts included in the book, our favorites are the Japanese Fan (a 19th century feed sack quilt), Honeycomb (a coverlet dated 1929), and the Friendship Quilt (dated around 1850s). The Japanese fan motif became popular in the U.S. after the Centennial International Exhibition that took place in Philadelphia in 1876, as related by Atkins; Catskill artisans quickly incorporated the motif in their work. The Honeycomb quilt block known by other names as well, most notably Hexagon, but also Mosaic or French Rose, may be in fact one of the oldest known quilt blocks in America. The Friendship Quilt was created by several women as a solace for a loved one who would move West. Each block was sewn in secret by a friend or a relative who signed their name in ink or embroidered it on their finished block. During the 1850s it became popular to embroider the name rather than sign it in ink, a practice that would help historians date the quilts.
© Zadock Pratt Museum
The Zadock Pratt Museum’s Collection of Twenty-Six Catskill Historical Quilting Designs can be ordered by phone at (518) 299-3395, email at prattmuseum@hotmail.com, or mail at Pratt Museum, PO Box 333, Prattsville, NY 12468. For questions about this project, you may contact Suzanne Walsh at (518) 937-6120 or suzanwal5@aol.com. All funds go to support the Museum’s mission. To learn more, visit zadockprattmuseum.org.
Literary Festival Postponed
Writers Unbound, Seventh Annual Catskills Literary Festival, scheduled for April 26, has been postponed.
The program included:
12:30 p.m.—Poetry Reading hosted by Sharon Israel / Featured Poet Jared Daniel Fagen
1:30 p.m.—Publishing Panel moderated by Simona David / Group Discussion Addressing the Latest News and Trends in Publishing
Panelists include Leslie T. Sharpe (author and editor), Carrie Bradley Neves (editor), Andrew Flach (publisher, Hatherleigh Press), Brett Barry (publisher, Silver Hollow Audio)
2:00 p.m.—Keynote Address with Beth Lisick, author of the New York Times bestseller Everybody Into the Pool
3:00 p.m.— SPARK! with Lilly Golden and Lorrayne Bolger
The Roxbury SPARK!:Art and Literary Magazine is the student-run magazine of Roxbury Central School. In its sixth year, this publication showcases creative works of students in fifth through twelve grades, including paintings, drawings, photographs, poems, short stories, and even novellas and plays. SPARK! is produced by the students, for the students, to display, publish, and archive their work. The process of experimenting with writing, workshopping projects together and encouraging fellow student writers and artists makes the journey as meaningful as the final publication.
3:30 p.m.— New Release with Anique Sara Taylor, author of Where Space Bends (Finishing Line Press), forthcoming in 2020
4:00 p.m. — The Bounty of Books Raffle, with a prize of ten selected book titles, will be awarded (come early, tickets are limited!), and the winner of the Best Cover Contest will be announced.
Keynote Speaker Beth Lisick is a writer, actor, and the author of five books, including the New York Times bestseller Everybody Into the Pool. Her work has been published in various magazines and journals, including Best American Poetry. She co-founded San Francisco’s Porchlight storytelling series, traveled the country with the Sister Spit performance tours, and received a Creative Work Fund grant for a chapbook series with Creativity Explored, a San Francisco studio for artists with developmental disabilities. Beth has appeared in films that have screened at Cannes, Sundance, and the San Francisco International Film Festival. Her first novel Edie on the Green Screen was just published by 7.13 Books. Beth is a resident of Brooklyn and West Hurley. Her website is bethlisick.com.
The festival will be re-scheduled.
Learn more at writersinthemountains.org
Adapting to a Post-Coronavirus Economy: Keep a Journal
Brands will adapt and lifestyle will change in a post-coronavirus economy. Morgan Stanley anticipates the U.S. GDP will shrink 30% in the second quarter due to record unemployment caused by Covid-19. Restaurants, retailers, museums and other organizations have laid off staff while consumers have cut spending on travel, dining out and entertainment. Creative minds are already at work envisioning a post-coronavirus society. Politico surveyed 30 thinkers who shared their predictions on what changes we may see in our lifestyle, technology, health, economy, and government. Research is accelerating to diagnose and treat those affected by the pandemic.
The U.N. has invited content creators around the world to come up with innovative messages to inform communities about Covid-19 and help stop the spread of the virus. Six key areas of interest were identified: personal hygiene, social distancing, knowing the symptoms, global solidarity, myth-busting and donation.
We are inviting our followers to keep a journal to record the changes they see in their lives. We can help publish a book, whether be poetry, memoir, essays, or illustrations, etc. Write or make art for the sake of history, but also to help process the changes all around.
Stay safe, and practice social distancing.
At Writers Unbound Sixth Annual Catskills Literary Festival
Publishing Panel
Keynote Speaker Martha Frankel
Annie DeWitt
Mercedes Gonzalez with her newly released book “Chronicles of a Fashion Buyer”
Nancy Barton, former chair at the NYU Art Department, spoke about Artists Who Use Text in Their Work
Ginnah Howard won The Best Cover Contest
April 28, 2019
Union Grove Distillery
Arkville, New York
At Blink Gallery
BLINK GALLERY
AUGUST 19, 2018
At the Catskill Interpretive Center’s Book Fair
Catskill Interpretive Center
Mt. Tremper, New York
June 23, 2018
At Writers Unbound Fifth Annual Catskills Literary Festival
April 29, 2018
Union Grove Distillery
Arkville, New York
Publishing Panel with author Leslie T. Sharpe, editor Sari Botton, literary agent Roz Foster, and poet Anique Taylor
With Featured Poet Beth Lisick
With author John O’Grady, winner of the Best Cover Contest
WRITERS UNBOUND – Fifth Annual Catskills Literary Festival
Writers in the Mountains invites you to its fifth annual Catskills literary festival. The daylong event welcomes all writers and readers, artists and audience, and community members from every walk to enjoy a warm gathering of successful and fascinating writers, illustrators, editors, educators, booksellers, and publishers from Syracuse to New York City and points between and beyond. The program includes poetry and fiction readings, a talk by keynote speaker Jan Albert, a panel on news and trends in publishing, illustration, and a few well-kept surprises.
Emmy Award-winning, Jan Albert has worked on documentaries for CBS, NBC, and PBS, produced presentations for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Library of Congress, and interviewed hundreds of creatives including Joan Didion and Stephane Grappelli. Albert currently blogs for PsychologyToday.com.
Featured Poet this year is New York Times best-selling author Beth Lisick. Lisick has appeared in films that have screened at Cannes, Sundance, and the San Francisco International Film Festival.
The program is as follows:
12:30 p.m.—Poetry Reading hosted by Sharon Israel, author of Voice Lesson / Featured Poet Beth Lisick
1:00 p.m.—Publishing Panel / Group Discussion Addressing the Latest News and Trends in Publishing
Panelists include Leslie T. Sharpe (author), Sari Botton (editor), Anique Taylor (educator), and Roz Foster (literary agent). Moderated by Simona David.
1:30 p.m.—Keynote Address with Jan Albert
2:30 p.m.—Illustrator’s Moment with cookbook editor Carrie Bradley Neves and illustrator and children’s book author Durga Yael Bernhard
3:00 p.m. —Writing Fiction: Leaping from the Known to Unknown with Ginnah Howard
3:30 p.m. — Catskill Fish Stories / Angler Tall Tales: The Ones That Didn’t Get Away, reading moderated by Dr. Bil Birns (readers include Stephen Sautner, Leslie T. Sharpe, Anique Taylor, and Sharon Israel)
4:00 p.m. — The Bounty of Books Raffle, with a prize of ten selected book titles, will be awarded (come early, tickets are limited!), and the winner of the Best Cover Contest will be announced.
Throughout the day, participating authors will read from their works and share their stories with the audience. Admission is free.
Come by to shop for books directly from their authors, hear readings and peer-to-peer discussions (always with a Q and A element), join in an enticing raffle (books are the prize, of course), and vote in the Best Book Cover contest. Union Grove’s hand-crafted vodka drinks as well as beer and soft drinks will be on sale. (Note, there is no food sold at Union Grove, but the Arkville Bread & Breakfast Diner is right next door.)
For more information, visit writersinthemountains.org
WRITERS IN THE MOUNTAINS (WIM) PRESENTS AT THE CATSKILL INTERPRETIVE CENTER’S BOOK FAIR, SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 2017
Writers in the Mountains (WIM), a literary nonprofit organization serving the Catskills and the Hudson Valley area since 1992, offers a variety of creative writing workshops year round, and hosts numerous literary events to promote the written word throughout our region and beyond.
On Saturday, June 24, 2017, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Writers in the Mountains will present at the Maurice D. Hinchey Catskill Interpretive Center’s Book Fair in Mount Tremper, and introduce some of its finest writers and poets. Presenters include nature writer Leslie T. Sharpe; art writer Simona David; poets Sharon Israel, Sharon Ruetenik, and Lissa Kiernan; fiction and creative nonfiction writers Anique Taylor and Carrie Bradley Neves; and monologist Bonnie Lykes. There will be readings, short presentations, and illustrative class exercises.
Leslie T. Sharpe is a writer, editor, and educator. A member of PEN American Center, she is the author of Editing Fact and Fiction: A Concise Guide to Book Editing (Cambridge University Press, 1994), which is regarded as a “modern editing classic” and “On Writing Smart: Tips and Tidbits,” featured in The Business of Writing (Allworth, 2012). Her new book, The Quarry Fox and Other Critters of the Wild Catskills, published by The Overlook Press in March 2017, is a lyric narrative look at the wild animals of the Catskill Mountains. Ms. Sharpe will be reading excerpts from her new book, and will discuss the genre of nature writing, as it relates to the Catskill Mountains.
Simona David, president of Writers in the Mountains, is a writer and media consultant. She is the author of Self-Publishing and Book Marketing, A Research Guide (2013), Art in the Catskills (3rd. edition, 2016), and How Art Is Made: In the Catskills (2017). Ms. David will discuss her latest book How Art Is Made: In the Catskills, released earlier this year. The book pays homage to the place where American art was born through a series of conversations with some of the world’s most accomplished artists who live and work in the Catskill Mountains.
Sharon Israel is the host of Planet Poet-Words in Space, an edition of The Writer’s Voice program on WIOX 91.3 FM in Roxbury, New York, and serves on WIM’s board of directors. She has just released her first chapbook Voice Lesson, published by Post Traumatic Press. Her work most recently appeared in Per Contra, SPANK the CARP, 5:2 Crime Poetry Weekly, Medical Literary Messenger, and Spry Literary Journal. In 2016, Ms. Israel appeared as a panelist at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Salem, Mass. As a poet and soprano, she collaborates with her husband, composer Robert Cucinotta, on works for voice, live instruments, and electronics. Ms. Israel will be reading selected poems from Voice Lesson.
Anique Taylor has co-authored works for HBO, Scholastic, and Simon & Schuster. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The World (St. Mark’s Poetry Project), Rattle, Common Ground Review, Adanna, Earth’s Daughters, Stillwater Review, and e-Bibliotekos’ Pain and Memory. She’s has been a featured writer at New York City readings including St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Dixon Place, the Speakeasy, and Cedar Tavern. Her chapbook Poems is published by Unimproved Editions Inc. Her chapbook Where Space Bends was chosen as a finalist for both Minerva Rising and Blue Light Press’s 2014 Poetry Chapbook Competitions; and her collection Under the Ice Moon was a finalist in Blue Light Press’s 2015 Competition. She holds a Poetry MFA from Drew University, a Drawing MFA from Pratt Institute, and a diplome in French Literature from the Sorbonne. She teaches Creative Nonfiction for Writers in the Mountains.
Sharon Ruetenik is the author of a poetry chapbook, The Wooden Bowl. She is currently working on a manuscript of sevenlings. Her work has appeared in print and online journals, most recently The Green Door. Ruetenik was awarded a poetry fellowship at the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. As a speaker for the New York Council for the Humanities, she has lectured on short stories, novellas, and poetry. Her day job is working at SUNY Delhi as the coordinator of the Writing Center, the international student advisor, and adjunct instructor in composition and literature. She teaches for Writers in the Mountains The Journey from Theme to Images to Poem.
Lissa Kiernan is the founding director of the Poetry Barn in West Hurley. Her first full-length volume of poetry, Two Faint Lines in the Violet, was a 2014 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award finalist, as well as a finalist for the Julie Suk Award for Best Poetry Book by an Independent Press. Her first book of prose, Glass Needles & Goose Quills: Elementary Lessons in Atomic Properties, Nuclear Families & Radical Poetics will be published later this month. Ms. Kiernan holds an MA from the New School and an MFA from the Stonecoast Creative Writing program, and she teaches for Writers in the Mountains It’s Elemental: The Art of Revision in Poetry.
Carrie Bradley Neves is an Upstate New York native who grew up outside Albany and returned to the area a little over a decade ago. She has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Williams College, where she also studied playwriting and poetry; and a master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of New Hampshire, where she studied fiction writing and poetry. For the last twenty-five years, Carrie has focused many of her writing goals on writing lyrics, making records, performing, and touring as a singer-songwriter and violinist. Other current writing and activities and projects include secretaryship of her college alumni publication, writing for her town newspaper, The Times of Halcott, and new work on a musical play. Her work-for-pay life is as a copy editor, specializing in cookbooks. She serves on WIM’s
Board of Directors.
Bonnie Lykes is a monologist, performance artist, and voice-over artist. Her work has been featured in Crack The Spine Literary Journal in both poetry and creative nonfiction, and is also featured in the subscription podcast “The Strange Recital.’ Ms. Lykes is a founder and president of the nonprofit organization Reservoir Food Pantry in Upstate New York. She is the host of Nonfiction Railroad Hour, an edition of the Writer’s Voice on WIOX 91.3 FM in Roxbury, New York, and serves on WIM’s board of directors.
To learn more about Writers in the Mountains, visit writersinthemountains.org.
Simona David Consulting 