Listen to this week’s Kaatscast podcast to learn about arts and culture in the Catskills, creative writing and publishing with Simona David, Sharon Israel, Anique Sara Taylor, and Leslie T. Sharpe, authors affiliated with Writers In The Mountains (WIM). Kaatscast is a biweekly podcast produced by Silver Hollow Audio delivering history, travel guides, arts and culture, outdoor adventures, sustainability news and local interviews from New York’s Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley. Celebrate the Catskills with Kaatscast!

https://anchor.fm/kaatscast/episodes/Writers-in-the-Mountains-er29qu/a-a4odqig

Simona David is a media consultant, author of How Art Is Made: In the Catskills (2017), and former president of Writers In The Mountains (2012 – 2019), currently working as an advisor to the Board. Her website is simonadavid.com. 

Sharon Israel hosts the radio show Planet Poet-Words in Space on WIOX 91.3 FM (WIOXradio.org) in the Catskills, and hosts a podcast by the same name (available on Spotify, Apple iTunes and Google Play, and on her website at sharonisraelpoet.com). Sharon’s debut chapbook Voice Lesson was published in 2017 by Post Traumatic Press. She was a 2020 “quarterly challenge” winner in four lines Poetry and Art Magazine online at https://www.4lines.art/challenge/winners . Sharon has served on the Writers In The Mountains’Board of Directors for over a decade.

Anique Sara Taylor is the author of Where Space Bends published in May 2020 by Finishing Lines Press. Her works have appeared in Rattle, Common Ground Review, Adanna, Earth’s Daughters, St. Marks Poetry Project’s The World, and many anthologies. She has co-authored works for HBO, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and others. Anique holds an MFA in Poetry from Drew University, an MFA in Drawing from Pratt Institute, and a Diplôme from the Sorbonne University in Paris. An award-winning artist, Anique’s paintings have been featured in numerous museums and galleries throughout the tri-state area. She teaches creative writing for Writers In The Mountains and Bard LLI.

Leslie T. Sharpe is an author, editor, and educator. She began her editing career at Farrar, Straus & Giroux and is currently an editorial consultant specializing in literary nonfiction, literary fiction, and poetry. 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).  Leslie has been a regular contributor to Newsday’s “Urban ‘I’” column, and her essays and articles have appeared in a variety of publications including the Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Global City Review, International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, New York Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and Village Voice; The Villager; The Writer; and Psychology Today. Her latest book The Quarry Fox and Other Critters of the Wild Catskills, a lyric narrative look at the wild animals of the Catskill Mountains, was published by The Overlook Press in the spring of 2017. The Quarry Fox audiobook was published by Silver Hollow Audio in June 2020. Leslie has taught writing and editing at Columbia University, New York University and the City College of New York as well as Writers In The Mountains.

Writers In The Mountains (WIM) was founded almost three decades ago in Roxbury to promote literary arts in the Catskills and beyond. Over the years the organization has grown into a major cultural force in the region by significantly expanding its programs and outreach. In addition to its core mission, to offer creative writing workshops year-round, WIM has ventured into other arenas as well, by hosting a popular annual Literary Festival and a quarterly Literary Salon that bring together a variety of publishing professionals: whether be writers, illustrators, editors, literary agents, educators, consultants, and publishers.

Writers In The Mountains promotes literary arts while at the same time builds community. 

The pandemic however has forced the organization to re-invent itself. After New York went into lockdown in the spring of 2020, WIM took a pause, then re-emerged with a series of online programs that catapulted the organization into the national limelight virtually overnight. Once the programs were moved online, nationally recognized professionals from all over were able to participate, in addition to local communities in the Catskills, Hudson Valley, and New York City metropolitan area. Consequently, our literary community has grown bigger and moreover happier, because we get to learn from one another, and grow professionally at a different pace, which makes the experience ever more fulfilling.

WIM PROGRAMS:

• CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS

WIM offers creative writing workshops year-round with established professionals and covers anything from creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and publishing advice. For instance, this year WIM has offered for the first time a Micro-Memoir workshop taught by Linda Lowen, a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly – participants learn how to submit stories to The New York Times’ Tiny Love column. Several have already been published. 

• WRITERS UNBOUND ANNUAL CATSKILLS LITERARY FESTIVAL

Launched in 2014, the festival had been taking place every year in the spring at Union Grove Distillery in Arkville. In 2020 the festival was canceled due to the pandemic. Beth Lisick, a New York Times bestselling author, was scheduled to be the keynote speaker; Beth is also an actress – she has appeared at the Cannes Film Festival and other events. Silver Hollow Audio was scheduled to be on the Publishing Panel to address the rise of audiobooks. The festival has been a great opportunity for authors to network and have a platform. 

• RANDOM CONTEXT LITERARY SALON

A few years ago, WIM launched a literary salon to give writers taking its workshops the opportunity to share their work with the public, and also give the community a chance to get to know the writers. In between readings, there were opportunities to mingle, exchange ideas, and make connections. The pandemic has put this successful program on pause as well. It will be revived with a series of online readings.

• PARTNERSHIPS WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

Over the years WIM has partnered with other organizations in the region to enrich the Catskills cultural life. In 2017, for instance, WIM hosted a series of Artist – Writer Talks called “The Arts Converge – Mutual Muses in the Catskills” in partnership with the Catskill Center. There were writers in conversation with visual artists or music composers to a great effect. In 2018 WIM hosted a series of workshops and readings at the Zadock Pratt Museum in Prattsville, partly funded by Poets and Writers, and New York State Council on the Arts. Leslie taught a nature writing workshop, Simona taught an art writing workshop, and Sharon performed music and poetry with composer Robert Cucinotta. That was a perfect example of synergetic artistic endeavors.

• UPCOMING LITERARY JOURNAL                                                                       

WIM is currently working on launching a literary journal dedicated to authors who have an affiliation with the organization. More details will be revealed soon. Read about Writers In The Mountains at writersinthemountains.org.