Seven Days is looking for nominations for the Daysies—their annual “best of” list that features all sorts of categories. I encourage you to fill out the nomination form and add any Burlington Writers Workshop members to the nomination list. We have lots of visual artists and musicians and (ahem) radio hosts that would love your vote.
Here are the opportunities and announcements for this week.
Thanks to everyone who made our May push for sustaining members a success! We signed up 11 new sustaining members, bringing our monthly income to $585.47. This is super close to our $610/month rent. With one-time gifts, we’ll cover everything, so thanks very much. It’s truly a pleasure to see so many people come together to create this beautiful, artsy thing for Burlington and Vermont.
I’ll have the results of the drawing for the Patty Griffin tickets soon. Here are the opportunities and announcements for this week.
Become a sustaining member of the BWW at $12/month or more and a group of anonymous donors and Cope & Associates will give the BWW $25 AND you’ll be entered to win tickets to see Patty Griffin at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, June 14th.
Thank you for supporting Burlington’s public writing center!
Fiction writer Megan Mayhew Bergman comes to Hotel Vermont on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. for a free reading, Q&A, and book signing. Join us!
For a contribution to the BWW of $200 or more, we’ll thank you with dinner with Megan at Juniper before the reading, as well as an edit and consultation (in person or by phone) with Megan about a piece of your work. You can arrange this with Megan anytime within the next year. Make a contribution now.
Here are the opportunities and announcements for this week. Continue reading
Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Burlington Writers Workshop. Five years is an eternity for projects like these, so thank you to everyone who makes this community vibrant and strong.
A bit of history: I remember signing up for my first meeting (the group was founded on Meetup.com by someone who has since moved away). It was a spring day in 2009 and I actually thought: Do I really need to attend? What will happen at this meeting? I almost didn’t go. It was easier to just stay home and read or cook dinner or take a nap. But I was new to the area and I wanted to make some friends, so I thought: Why not try it?
And here we are.
Anyway, those are the Cliff Notes of a much longer story. Here are this week’s opportunities and announcements.
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde, in his essay The Decay of Lying, famously claimed that “life imitates art.” This thesis stands in opposition to the Aristotelian idea of mimesis, which holds that our greatest art—in all artistic forms—attempts to describe and represent the real. Wilde’s statement defies this, as does his believe that life and nature are “uncomfortable” and that human creation is a defiance of nature. In this way, he argues that life, our lives, is an imitation of the art we see all around us. Continue reading
If you’ve attend just a handful of writing workshops, you’ve realized that many writers are working with ideas that originate from a topic they know best: family.
On Mother’s Day, I was reminded of the first time I wrote anything that I thought was worthy of sharing with others. When I was a sophomore in college, I wrote a poem about the passing of my mother. I did not keep the poem and I only remember the first line: “My lips brushed her warm skin.” That line memorialized my last moment with her. Continue reading
Megan Mayhew Bergman
Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise and the forthcoming novel Almost Famous Women, will read from her work and sign books at Hotel Vermont on Wednesday, May 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Her short stories have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Agni, Ecotone, Carolina Quarterly, and many other places. She’s posted a list of her publications here and you can sample some of her delightful stories. I’d recommend “The Pretty Grown-Together Children.”
This event is free and open to the public. Take a look at her stories and you’ll be totally convinced that this is a must-see reading. You’ll also have a chance to ask questions and get a book signed.
The staff of Mud Season Review has been chosen. Those folks will get together soon to figure out some work-flow details and I’m really looking forward to seeing what they come up with. Even though the masthead positions have been chosen, you’ll still be able to get involved. If you have ideas, especially for the logo design, please contact us to share your thoughts/design ideas.
Here are the opportunities and announcements this week. Continue reading
First, some good news. I’ve added up all the numbers and found that, through automatic contributions, we’ve covered $515.53 of our $610 monthly rent on our workshop space. That’s amazing! Thank you!
Second, more good news. Cope & Associates and a group of anonymous donors will give the workshop $25 when you sign up for monthly dues through Meetup.com or through our website at $12/month or more. They’re doing this as a way to entice you to help us pay 100% of our rent automatically.
Third, even more good news! When you set up automatic contributions of $12/month or more, you’ll be entered to win tickets to see Patty Griffin at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts on June 14th. How cool is that?
The Burlington Writers Workshop 