September 2005

Greetings from Inkberry!

In typical late-summer fashion, August zipped past us. One minute we were ambling down the street to Sugar Llama for ice cream cones; suddenly the first leaves are starting to yellow, and the grocery stores are stocking apples again. Fall must be on its way.

We just said farewell to our fabulous summer intern (Holly, we miss you already!), and now we’re busy preparing for our fall season, which officially starts tomorrow with an online workshop called “The Joy of New Poems,” taught by Kelli Russell Agodon. (There’s still room, but you need to sign up now; if that interests you, let us know quickly!) You can read about it here.

It looks like this will be our busiest, and most exciting, season yet. I realize we say that prety often — because it always feels true, to me! — but this time I think that might be empirically provable.

This fall we’re offering online workshops in poetry, copyediting, and essay-writing; in-person workshops in the art of the novel, short fiction, and nature writing; readings by children’s book author Jane Yolen, essayist Philip Lopate, and poet Jack Gilbert, among others; events at Papyri Books, Williams College, and Williamstown Elementary School; and a weekly salon series that begins on Thursday, September 29th, here at Inkberry Central. (The first meeting will feature a screening of Robert Altman’s Shortcuts, a series of short films based on the stories of fiction writer Raymond Carver. Plus, of course, refreshments and the company of other interesting writers, but that’s a given.)

I already mentioned the online poetry class that starts tomorrow. After that, our next event in September will be an evening of poetry and open-mike goodness at Papyri Books (that’ll be our regular second-Saturday WordPlay, featuring poet Mark Weiss this time around). And then comes our RiverWriting walk and workshop, offered on conjunction with the Hoosic River Watershed Association (HooRWA): a walk down by the river on Saturday 9/17, and then a nature-writing workshop taught by Tammis Coffin at Inkberry on Monday 9/19. (Read about that here.)

This weekend we’ll be hosting a group of incoming Williams freshmen as part of the “Where Am I?!” program that the Chaplain’s Office runs; once again, we’ll be putting them to work painting our space! Last year they painted the classroom (at the back of our old boxcar space) in several bright triangles and squares of color; this year they’ll be making our classroom glow butter-yellow, and our library a calming dove-grey. Keep an eye out for pictures of the Williams kids on our blog — and drop a comment to let us know you were there!

Meanwhile, we’re doing all the behind-the-scenes work we usually do: applying for grant funding to try some new teen programming in the wintertime, filing paperwork with the NEA to follow up on the Verlyn Klinkenborg events we presented in late July, enjoying the sweet new computer we bought earlier this summer (lately we’ve been digging the internet radio capabilities of iTunes).

Reading-wise, my latest big acquisition is the single-book compilation of Jeff Smith’s comic Bone. Ethan and I started reading Bone years ago; we’ve been buying it in single-issue form and trade paperback form, but we didn’t have the end of the saga, and when I saw that a new single-book volume was out I snatched it up with glee. I’m planning to reread the whole saga, so when I get to the new stuff (the very end) I’ll remember everything that came before. Though the first characters we meet are a little goofy, this is a surprisingly wild story, with tasseled dragons and stubborn villagers and princesses who don’t know they’re princesses (our cat, Thorn, is named after one) — I’m looking forward to savoring its twists and turns again.

And that’s the news from Inkberry! We hope you’ll sign up for a workshop or two, and if you’re in the area, come to an event or a salon (or both). Fall always seems like a good time to begin new endeavors; make Inkberry the place for yours.

— Rachel