February 2001

Hello again from the friendly folks at Inkberry!

We’ve had another fantastic month. In the last four weeks we were covered by two of the Berkshires’ most prominent newspapers, and all three co-founders appeared on The Opinion Show (a North Adams talk radio show). As a result, we received phone calls and emails from a wide variety of people. We heard from some of you who want to study writing, some of you who want to teach, and some of you who want to volunteer or collaborate. It is great to hear from you; please keep the phone calls and emails coming.

This month we also secured agreements to read from Alicia Ostriker and Donald Hall, both noted poets and essayists. I’m especially fond of Ostriker’s volume of new and selected poems, The Little Space, and of her book The Nakedness of the Fathers, a feminist exploration of the Bible. Where Donald Hall is concerned, my favorite books are probably Life Work (nonfiction about the New England writing life) and Without (a stunning book of poems dealing with the loss of his wife, poet Jane Kenyon, to leukemia). Both Ostriker and Hall are among my favorite contemporary writers, so I couldn’t be more delighted about bringing them to the Berkshires.

Our lineup of local readers has expanded, too. We’re now planning readings by North Adams historian Joe Manning, author of Steeples; fiction-writer Paul Marino; and poet and MCLA professor Abbot Cutler, author of recent Mad River Press release The Dog Isn’t Going Anywhere. Stay tuned for more information about our reading series - updates will be appearing here every month, “same bat-time, same bat-channel.” In other news, we’ve established a partnership with the Main Street Stage in North Adams, Mass., where our book groups and writing workshops will be held beginning in April - and where most of our readings will be held, beginning in June. The Main Street Stage is a year-round performance space committed to developing local talent and new scripts, as well as producing cutting-edge contemporary plays; its artistic goals mesh neatly with ours.

But the coolest news is that registration is now open for Inkberry’s first term of book groups and writing workshops. The April-June tem includes two book groups (New England Voices and Classic Science Fiction) and an introductory mixed-genre writing workshop.

New England Voices, which I’m leading, has its first meeting on April 10; Classic Science Fiction, moderated by Sandy, has its first meeting on April 17. Each will meet from 7-9pm every other Tuesday for a total of five sessions. If you want to be reading and discussing Sarah Orne Jewett, John Jerome, and Edith Wharton - or Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke - come and join us!

Our first writing workshop, designed for beginning and intermediate writers in all genres and team-taught by all three of us, begins on April 12, and will meet weekly from 7-9pm for a total of ten sessions. Enroll in book groups and workshops at our website (http://www.inkberry.org) or by calling us at 664-0775.

I’ll follow Emily’s lead and end by telling you about something terrific I’ve been reading: The Last Life, a novel by Claire Messud. The novel is told from the point of view of Sagesse LaBasse, an adolescent French girl whose mother is American and whose father was raised in Algeria when it was under French control. Messud does a glorious job of interweaving the complicated political story of French Algeria into this narrative about Sagesse’s life. In the book’s first chapter (which appeared as a short story in Granta magazine last year), Sagesse’s grandfather shoots one of her friends; that’s the life-changing event which begins her story. I won’t spoil its ending for you, but I can tell you it’s a terrific read.

And that’s the news from Inkberry! Come and see us sometime soon.

— Rachel