5 years & counting: North Adams keeps Inkberry in its veins

NORTH ADAMS - Sixty-one Main Street is an ordinary building, but something special happens in Suite 223.

“People blossom,” said Emily Banner, who in 2001 joined Rachel Barenblat and Sandy Ryan to found Inkberry, a literary non-profit organization that is about to celebrate five years of helping budding writers.

“Our goal is to strengthen the connection between writing and life, and create a place where everyone can discover their voice,” Barenblat, Inkberry’s executive director, said last week.

“It’s unusual for a small town to have something like Inkberry. You find literary centers most often in big cities. And we didn’t know what to expect when we held our first reading in June 2001,” Barenblat said, recalling fondly the case of nerves the co-founders had before that first event.

“Poet Donald Hall was to be at the Main Street Stage - we didn’t have space in Inkberry - and we were terrified that no one would come,” she said. “We kept telling him, ‘We love your work!’ The night of the reading, though, there was a line of people in front of the Main Street Stage.”

Since its inception, Inkberry has offered nearly l00 writing workshops and book discussion groups, both in person and online. The online workshops have drawn people from as far away as Alaska and Sweden.

“Our students range from people familiar with the craft of writing to people who have never written,” Barenblat said. “Many people tell us they used to write in high school but haven’t done so in years.”

Banner said those experiences make Inkberry more rewarding. “When people come out of the woodwork - they always wanted to write or have written and never shown it to anyone - I like seeing their skills mature,” she said. “Some have their first piece published and go on to graduate school for their writing.”

During Inkberry’s infancy, cofounders Banner, Barenblat and Ryan, who specialized in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, respectively, taught all the workshops. Today, Inkberry draws on a larger talent base. Workshops this summer will be taught by novelist Susan Stinson and poet Carol Edelstein, among others.

Banner said she finds it satisfying that, as artistic director, she is able to talk to authors she admires and get them for workshops. Poet Ann Walman, described by Barenblat as “the last of the great, beat poets,” taught “Wide Awake Writing ” May 13. Also that night, Walman, Ellen Dore Watson and Ilya Kaminsky participated in a reading event at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington.

“Our home is North Adams, but we took the show on the road for a night to broaden our scope,” Barenblat said.

She and Banner have also tried to reach out to the community in other ways. Inkberry introduced Stories of Strength in 2003 to help breast cancer patients and survivors tell their stories through journals and oral history.

“That’s one of the programs we’re proudest of,” Barenblat said.

This year, Inkberry began collaborating with UNITY (United, Neighboring, Interdependent, Trusted Youth) a program of the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, on a teen coffeehouse series that offers local teens a friendly place to gather and share creative work two Thursday evenings a month.

“We encourage the kids to write, find themselves and express themselves,” Barenblat said. “Now we are applying for grants so we can continue this program.”

Also this year, with contributions from the Barrett Fund of Adams, Cheshire and Savoy, in partnership with the Adams Youth Center, Inkberry debuted a program for Adams Middle School students called ‘ZineBerry. Led by Kate Merrigan, UNITY coordinator and local writer, the students created a self-published magazine (‘zine), which was celebrated at a publication party at Café Topia.

The majority of Inkberry’s funds come from donations and grants. A 2005 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts was “a tremendous help,” Barenblat said, adding, ” Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation has been great from the beginning. We are fortunate to be a community where people care about literature and the written word.”

Co-founder Ryan moved to Washington, D.C., some time ago to attend to family concerns, but Barenblat and Banner have planned a fifth-anniversary celebration with a series of events early next month.

“It is a celebration of words and the community of writers who have sustained us for five years,” Barenblat said.

The festivities will start Friday, June 2, with “Ink Slink,” a free event that will be part of First Friday in North Adams, with folk music, an open-mike at Main Street Stage and a storyteller at Papyri Books, 49 Main St.

But the real birthday party will come June 10, at the Cup & Saucer on Main Street with “Inkstravaganza!” featuring readings of special commissioned poems, word games, an art auction and more. Several local artists have donated works in the shape of - or inspired by - letters of the alphabet.

“Come on down and buy a vowel,” Barenblat quipped.

Tickets are $30 each or $50 a pair in advance and are available at 413-664-0075, www.inkberry.org or Papyri Books.

“It’s tremendously exciting to have made it this far,” Barenblat said. “We can’t wait to see what the next five years will hold.”