workshops!
September 12, 2018
Once again, the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest will offer two days of poetry workshops this fall:
On Saturday, October 20, 2018, 10:00am to Noon, Jory Mickelson will teach Spectacular, Wild, Precarious! and 1:00 to 3:00pm, Maya Jewell Zeller and Laura Read will teach The American Character & The Personal Pronoun.
On Saturday, November 17, 2018, 10:00am to Noon, Jane Wong will teach Revisiting the Ode, and 1:00 to 3:00pm, Bruce Beasley will teach Dreams and the Work of Poetry.
Space is limited and registration is required (all fees benefit the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest): $30 for one workshop or $50 for both workshops offered the same day, paid by check or cash at the workshop.
Register by sending an email to boyntonpoetrycontest@hotmail.com indicating the workshop(s) you wish to take and including your name and a phone number. See the complete workshop descriptions and instructor bios on the Workshops page.
FisherPoets-on-Bellingham Bay
September 4, 2018
Bellingham SeaFeast 2018 is coming up on Friday, September 21, and Saturday, September 22, 2018, and that means it’s time once again for FisherPoets-on-Bellingham Bay. Modeled on the original Astoria, Oregon, FisherPoets Gathering (next up: February 22-24, 2019), the event highlights poetry, prose, and song, at various venues in downtown Bellingham, Washington, including Boundary Bay’s Mountain Room, two recently refurbished theaters within the Sylvia Center for the Arts, and Honey Moon Mead and Cider. Performers’ chapbooks, stories, CDs, photos, cards, and whatevers will be for sale in the Sylvia Center’s entrance lobby thanks to Village Books.
If you are a commercial fisher and/or find inspiration in or on the sea that fuels your art, consider signing up to perform. Read the guidelines and register to present your prose, poetry, film, or songs of the sea at FisherPoets-on-Bellingham Bay on Friday, September 21, 2018. The registration deadline for performers has been extended to Monday, September 10, 2018.
Clover!
August 29, 2018
It’s Clover time again! Join Mary Gillilan, Norman Green, and Village Books as they welcome contributors to Clover: A Literary Rag, volume 15.
The writers/readers will be: Janet Bergstrom, James Bertolino, Anita K. Boyle, Susan Chase-Foster, Virginia Herrick, Paul Hunter, J.I. Kleinberg, Shannon Laws, Andrew Shattuck McBride, C.J. Prince, Abbe Rolnick, Betty Scott, and Pat Phillips West.
The reading begins at 4:00pm on Sunday, September 2, 2018, in the Readings Gallery at Village Books. It’s free, of course, and copies of Clover will be for sale before and after the reading.
memoir your September
August 24, 2018
September is Whatcom Memoir Writing Month (WhaMemWriMo) and for the fourth year, Chuckanut Writers and Village Books will offer a series of four memoir workshops. The goal for each writer is 1,666 words a day — 50,000 words (a book’s worth) for the month.
The workshops, taught on successive Thursdays by Cami Ostman, Laura Kalpakian, Nancy Canyon, and Jennifer Wilhoit, can be taken individually or as a series ($25 each or all four for $89). See the full description and registration links on the Village Books WhaMemWriMo page.
it’s Poem Booth time again
July 24, 2018
Residents of Whatcom County are invited to submit a poem for the quarterly POEM BOOTH poetry contest. The winning poem will be displayed for three months in the Poem Booth located in downtown Bellingham outside the Community Food Co-op, next to the community board on Forest Street. The winning poet will receive $25 cash and a $25 gift certificate to the Community Food Co-op. Read the full guidelines and winning poems and other submissions, and learn more on the Poem Booth Bellingham website. Deadline is Wednesday, August 15, 2018.
book launch
July 13, 2018
Celebrate the art of poetry and the poets who make it happen on Friday, July 20, 2018, as Village Books hosts a book launch and reading.
Award-winning poet Jed Myers will read from his new book, Between Dream and Flesh, a handmade limited-edition publication from Egress Studio Press. He will be joined by poet and fiction writer Lana Ayers (founder, publisher, and managing editor of MoonPath Press) who will read from her illustrated handmade book, The Moon’s Answer (Egress Studio Press), as well as other poems. James Bertolino will read selections from a variety of his poetry publications.
poems, photos, and moon cakes!
July 3, 2018
Energetic, globe-hopping writer and illustrator of personal travel journals, Bellingham poet Susan Chase-Foster will read poems from her new book, Xiè Xiè Taipei, on Friday, July 6, 2018, 7:00pm in the Readings Gallery at Village Books in Fairhaven.
Accompanying Susan, bearing moon cakes and oolong tea, will be her son and co-adventurer, photographer Moshe Foster, who moved to Taiwan in 2005 and hasn’t looked back. Moshe will share slides of his photos from the book.
