The process is extraordinary, as is the finished artwork that participants were able to create in just one six-hour workshop!!

Audience assembled at the Mount for the Gala Festival Finale

Nina Ryan and Michelle Gillett, who have shepherded many budding Berkshire writers to successful publication with their writing workshops, editing and agenting skills, opened the proceedings with many thanks to the 50 women who submitted their essays to the contest.

Nina Ryan

Michelle Gillett

Alison Larkin warmed up the audience with a marvelous comedic performance based on her autobiographical novel The English American, which has just been published as an audio book, and is on its way to becoming a major motion picture.  Alison had the audience laughing and sharing along with the joys and challenges of her experience as a creative young woman in an adoptive family that didn’t quite know what to make of her talents.

Alison Larkin

Then it was the turn of the prizewinners.

First up was Suzi Fowle, whose moving essay told of how her daughter’s impending rendezvous with menarche brought up all kinds of memories of her own first period, as well as resolutions to do more to nurture her daughter through this important life transition.

Suzanne Fowle

Sheela Clary read a piece about her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Papua New Guinea, and how she spent a terrifying night convinced she was about to be raped…only to learn later that her host “Papa” had been standing guard by her door the whole night to protect her.

Sheela Clary

Both Suzi and Sheela choked up as they read, and there were many tears in the audience as well, as their honesty and willingness to reveal their own struggles was deeply appreciated by their listeners.

Hilda Banks Shapiro

Hilda Banks Shapiro, the first prize winner, read an essay that looked back over a lifetime of strength and courage; focusing on how, as a young mother of 12, she used her intuitive grit and courage as a woman to find her own voice, and to make it on her own as a single mom after her husband walked out on the family, leaving them with a dairy farm that only managed to lose money.  Again, not a dry eye in the house as Hilda finished her story!

The presentation ended with a few remarks by yours truly, Festival founding director Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez. I was surprised and moved when members of the organizing committee, Alice Myers and Judy Nardacci, presented me with flowers and a spoken tribute, and I went on to express how much I have appreciated all the support and enthusiasm that the Festival has generated in all the hosts, organizers and participants, as well as the audiences that have turned out in such droves. It is truly inspiring and energizing to see how much talent is hiding away in these Berkshire hills, and I am already looking forward to more occasions to bring us together to share our gifts and voices, and in so doing, change the world.

Here are some great photos of the Gala Reception that followed the reading, taken by Suzi Banks Baum, Artist Mom extraordinaire, of Laundry Line Divine fame.

Sonia Pilcer, Hester Velmans and Jana Laiz

Essay Contest and Gala Finale hosts Nina Ryan and Michelle Gillett

Hester Velmans and Festival director Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez

Essay contest judge and host Alison Larkin, holding a copy of the new audiobook edition of her bestselling novel The English American

Guests Mary and Lila Berle

We hope the Festival will brighten the front door of the Mount in March for many years to come

From left, Melissa Batalin, Carole Owens, Hester Velmans and Jana Laiz

Each author had her own take on the relative merits of self-publishing, as opposed to trying the more traditional big publishing route, but all thought it was a very worthwhile avenue to explore.

Melissa Batalins, who runs Troy Bookmakers, shared a wealth of information about how to make your dream book a reality.

Jana Laiz, who runs her own imprint, Crow Flies Press, shared her war stories of being a DIY publisher and author, but she glowed when sharing the fruits of her labor.  Her success stories include Weeping Under This Same Moon and Twelfth Stone.

Hester Velmans talked about her two books for young readers, the first of which gained such a following that they positively demanded that a series follow–and it has!

And Carole Owens shared her stories of being published by big publishing companies, which she said, included enough difficult experiences that she was quite open to considering the possibility of other avenues.

The audience was filled with questions and comments, making for a lively discussion until the library closed its doors at 8 pm.

Audience in the Stockbridge Library

A full house at the Unicorn Theater for This Woman's Work

Mary Mott started off the evening, reading her funny, poignant short stories.

Mary Mott

Berkshire Theater Group Executive Director Kate Maguire and Barbara Sims joined forces in a staged reading of “Adjustments: A Gentle Comedy for Cynical Times,” by Gloria Miller and Ilene Tetenbaum.

Kate Maguire and Barbara Sims (seated)

“After Prom,” a play by Jane Denitz Smith, was given a lively staged reading by Lauren Stanek, Cody Miller and Hilary Somers Deely.

Condy Miller (seated), Lauren Stanek, Hilary Somers Deely

Stockbridge artist Susan Merrill read one of her short stories, which one audience member compared in content and delivery to the deadpan humor of Andy Rooney.

Susan Merrill

A staged reading of the screenplay “Lovesick,” by Maria Nation, about a girl whose early sexual abuse leads her to become a nymphomaniac, had the audience spellbound.  Cast members were Rudi Bach, Corinna May, Emma Dweck, Cody Miller, Walton Wilson and Hilary Somers Deely.

Staged reading of "Lovesick"

Cody Miller in Lovesick

Lovesick cast

Lisa Mandeville, backed by her husband Fran Mandeville, delighted the audience with several original songs.

Lisa and Fran Mandeville

The evening ended with a lively talkback between the writers and the audience.

This Woman's Work writers' panel with co-curators Barbara Sims and Hilary Somers Deely, standing

The evening, which ended with dessert, prosecco and general good cheer, gave the audience a tantalizing taste of what is to come in next year’s Made in the Berkshires Festival, slated for Columbus Day Weekend, 2012.

Meg Agnew (left) and Cindy Parrish

After the screening, Meg and Cindy led the audience in several writing exercises designed to stimulate the imagination and help writers tap back into the feistiness of their pre-adolescent selves.  A lively time was had by all!

Cindy Parrish

Celia Bland

Celia Bland read powerful poetry about her ancestry and family legacies that persist into the present.

Susan Fox Rogers read from her new memoir, My Reach, which combines environmental and nature writing about her kayaking experiences on the Hudson River, with the narrative of her parents’ deaths and her grieving process.

Susan Fox Rogers

Both writers held the audience’s rapt attention, and engaged in lively discussion afterwards.

Vera Kalm

Vera Kalm read a funny, poignant story from her own translation of a famous Hungarian woman folk storyteller.

Judy Nardacci reading Zoe Dalheim's Greek folktale

Judy Nardacci stood in for Zoe Dalheim, who was home nursing a cold, reading a marvelous folktale in the Greek tradition, written by Zoe.

Dolores Burch

Dolores Burch delighted the audience with her rendition of a traditional “Jack” tale from the American Appalachians.

The event concluded with a lively reception featuring homemade goodies and wine from host Matt Tannenbaum’s Get Lit wine bar.

In the morning, the Berkshire International Film Festival sponsored the screening of SARABAH, the inspiring story of Sista Fa, a Senegalese rap star who rose from a difficult, impoverished childhood to overcome gender discrimination and become the outstanding performer she was meant to be–and then used her talent and charisma to lend support to the Tostan campaign to end female genital cutting in Senegal.

In the afternoon, Pamela Yates was on hand at Bard College at Simon’s Rock to screen and discuss her new film GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR, produced by Paco de Onis with Skylight Productions.

Pamela was introduced by program co-sponsor Ricky Bernstein, director of the Berkshire Human Rights Speaker Series, as well as Eleanore Velez of Berkshire Community College.

Ricky Bernstein

Eleanore Velez

After the screening of the gripping, powerful film, Pamela Yates took the stage to answer questions from the audience.

Pamela Yates

Pamela’s personal story of bringing her “granito,” her little grain of sand, persistently to bear on the human rights atrocities in Guatemala was very inspiring for the audience to hear.  GRANITO tells the story of how Pamela’s early work as a filmmaker in Guatemala during the genocide years of the late 1970s and early 1980s bore unexpected fruit when her footage was used as evidence in an attempt to extradite a general to Spain to stand trial for genocide.

The story has a positive ending, too, as this general, Rios Montt, who for years continued to act with unapologetic impunity, has recently been ordered to stand trial in Guatemala for crimes against humanity.

The appreciative audience gave Yates a standing ovation for her work on the film, and left the hall feeling inspired  to look for occasions to add their own “granitos” to the on-going, worldwide struggles for social justice.

Listening to Pamela Yates speak at the McConnell Theater, Bard College at Simon's Rock

Danke Li

Danke Li, Professor of East Asian Studies at Fairfield University, mesmerized her audience with her film and stories of the struggles of ordinary Chinese women during the Chinese war with Japan.  Millions of Chinese retreated to the city of Chongqing during the war years, severely straining food supplies and living quarters.  Chinese women were the backbone of families’ survival, Professor Li argued, keeping the home fires burning despite terrible loss and privation as the Japanese relentlessly bombed the city.

A presentation that brought to the Berkshires the voices of Chinese women whose stories have never before been told–and without the efforts of Professor Li and her students, might have been lost forever, since the women celebrated in the film and book are now reaching the end of their lives.

Ruth Reichl speaks beneath a projection of the Walker Evans photograph, "Kitchen Wall, Alabama Farmstead, 1936."

Celebrated writers Francine Prose,  Ellen Dore Watson, Elizabeth Graver, Patty Crane, and Ruth Reichl each read pieces inspired by the same photograph by Walker Evans–some more historical, some personal, some associative and collagelike–and spoke about their creative process.

Ellen Dore Watson speaks. Behind her, left to right: Elizabeth Graver, Ruth Reichl, Patty Crane, Francine Prose.

Pamela Yates

Pamela spoke on Friday, March 16 with The Roundtable producer Sarah LaDuke.  She was on location in Peru, where she is currently working on her next film, which she discusses in the interview.

Click here for interview.

Pamela will be presenting GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR on Sunday, March 18 at 2 p.m. at the McConnell Theater, Bard College at Simon’s Rock.

Sista Fa

Jenn Smith of the Berkshire Eagle has provided us with a wonderful round-up of the Festival films, including the documentary film on Chinese women’s oral histories presented by historian Danke Li, last week’s sold-out screening of MISS REPRESENTATION and those yet to come:

this Sunday’s IWD offerings, SARABAH and GRANITO, and next week’s screening of HEROIC GIRLZ, which will be accompanied by a special writing workshop offered by filmmaker/educators Meg Agnew and Cindy Parrish.

Hannah Fries reading at the Women's Interfaith Institute

Poetry editor and associate editor Hannah Fries of Orion Magazine delighted her listeners last night with a series of poems about women like Noah’s wife, or the Oracle at Delphi, who have come down to us through history and myth as unnamed traces of women who lived, loved and left their mark.

In Hannah’s imagination, such women have been like spring bulbs planted beneath rocks, trying courageously but often fruitlessly to push their way up into the light.

Through her clear, powerful poetry, they found their way into the sunshine, and brought all of us with them.

If you’d like to read Hannah’s poem “Pygmalion’s Girl,” you can find it here at Mead Magazine.

Leslie Wheeler and Barbara Ross at the Bushnell-Sage Library

Leslie Wheeler, host of the session “Death in Shorts: Women Writing the Mystery Short Story,” has this to say about her presentation last week at the Bushnell-Sage Library in Sheffield:

“My co-presenter, Barbara Ross and I had a great time!  We were honored to have our event be one of the 40 put on by the Festival.

http://berkshirewomenwriters.org/?p=633

Date/Time: Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sponsoring Organizations: Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF), Berkshire Human Rights Series, Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Places: Triplex Theater, Great Barrington and Bard College of Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington

Contact: www.berkshirewomenwriters.org (photos are available at the website)

Description of events:

The Berkshire International Film Festival, the Berkshire Human Rights Series, and the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers will host a full day of events to celebrate International Women’s Day and honor the power of the arts as a vehicle for human rights activism.

At the Triplex Theater in Great Barrington, the day will open with an 11 a.m. screening of Sarabah, a new documentary film by Maria Luisa Gambale, Gloria Bremer and Steven Lawrence (Women Make Movies, 2011; 60 min.). BIFF presents the story of rapper, singer, and activist Sister Fa, a hero to young women in Senegal and an unstoppable force for social change. A childhood victim of female genital cutting (FGC), she decided to tackle the issue by starting a grassroots campaign against the practice. Sarabah follows Sister Fa back home to her own village, where she speaks out passionately to female elders and students alike, and stages a rousing concert that has the community on its feet.

About Sarabah: http://www.sarabahdocumentary.com/film/
About Sister Fa: http://www.sarabahdocumentary.com/about-sister-fa/

During the lunch break, Festival attendees will receive a special 10% lunch discount at any of the following restaurants with their BIFF ticket stubs: Aroma, Baba Louie’s, Bizen, Fuel, Great Barrington Bagel Company,  Martin’s, Neighborhood Diner, and 
Rubiner’s Cafe.

Following lunch, from 2-4 p.m. ,the Daniel Arts Center’s McConnell Theater at Bard College of Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road in Great Barrington will screen GRANITO: How to Nail a Dictator (Skylight Pictures, 2011, 103 min.). After the screening, Pamela Yates will talk with the audience about her experience as a human rights activist-through-the-arts for more than a quarter-century, and her vision for the future of arts-based activism in the 21st century.

In the early 1980’s, while working on her first documentary film, When the Mountains Tremble, Yates filmed the only known footage of the Guatemalan Army carrying out mass killings of the indigenous Mayan people. Twenty-five years later, her footage was used as forensic evidence at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, in a crimes-against-humanity case against former Guatemalan military dictator Gen. Efrain Rios Montt. Hailed as a compelling political thriller set in Guatemala and The Hague, Granito is the winner of numerous human rights and film awards, including Best Creative Documentary at the 2011 Paris Film Festival. “Granito is remarkable for allowing two intertwined stories, one global and the other personal, to unfold together,” says Stephen Kinzer, co-author of Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. “It presents the hurricane of violence that enveloped Guatemala 25 years ago not just as a historical horror, but as a lens through which the filmmaker examines herself, her values, and her relationship to her art. Subtle, provocative, and deeply original, it is a hymn to both the nobility of Guatemalans and the power of filmmaking.”

Madonna a Pelican, from MADONNA COMIX, by Celia Bland and Dianne Kornberg

Celia Bland, author of the intriguing multimedia poetry volume Madonna Comix, which features stunning graphic art by Dianne Kornberg, will be the host of Sunday’s BFWW reading “Annunciation,” with Sarah Towers and Harriet Brown, two accomplished writers whose work in a variety of genres includes pieces in The New York Times Magazine, O Magazine, Glamour, and many other publications.

Anyone who has been touched by the deeply destructive world of eating disorders will be especially interested in this program, since Ms. Brown will be reading from her new memoir, Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia.

2 p.m., Blodgett House, Bard College at Simon’s Rock.

Free and open to the public.

Read on!
xo Love, Suzi Banks Baum

Dr. Jenny Browdy de Hernandez at 'Out of the Mouths of Babes'

Here are a few highlights from Friday March 2 ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’.
I am posting favorite frames of the evening on my website Laundry Line Divine.

Stop over there to hear news, read highlights of the event and learn about the winners of the drawings I am holding there this month.

Win books by authors featured here at the BFWW like:

Alana Chernila

Gina Hyams

all photographs of 'Out' by Christina Lahr Lane

Thank you for all your support of this and all the BFWW events.
I am posting highlights on Twitter @laundrylinediv using #outofthemouthsofbabesevents and #BerkWomenWrite. Join me on Twitter.

With love,
Suzi Banks Baum

It was a beautiful series of presentations, moving from images of grieving daughters at a mother’s bedside, to solitary hikes up familiar Berkshire landscapes, to far-flung ports of call.

Jan Hutchinson shared poems about her alter ego, Grace, who always seemed to come at the right moment to offer words of wisdom or advice.

Jan Hutchinson

A lovely line from Jan’s work: “Moods are the inner life’s unpredictable weather.”  Later the narrator continues, “Moods are a lot like chickens.  We have to herd them out the front door.”

Susan Melot wrote about scenes from her daily life in New York and Becket, MA, where she and her husband have a home.  Her poem “Manhattan Corpus” brought the city to life in a series of metaphors, comparing the metropolis to a living body.

Susan Melot

Tammis Coffin

Christine Ward

Claudette Webster, one of the coordinators of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers and a poet herself, shared several poems that dipped into different emotionally charged moments of her life, keeping the audience spellbound.

Claudette Webster

Check it out here: Radio2Women Interview 3-6-2012.

Maria Sirois in action

On Day 4 of the Festival, Maria Sirois offered a writing workshop, “Happiness: Writing as a Path to Positive Transformation.”  Having seen Maria in action before, I knew she would be giving us something very special, and I was not disappointed.

She led us in a series of writing prompts that asked us to think about what our own personal sources of happiness have been.

She shared a great lesson: that pleasure plus meaning equals happiness.

And she reminded us to always “lean towards the light” in our creative endeavors, rather than dwelling on what upsets us.

The two hours of Maria’s workshop passed all too quickly, leaving me hungry for more of her wisdom.  Fortunately, she is working on a new book that will share her talents and knowledge much more widely in the world!

Maria left us with a few parting gems of thought.  The one I found the most powerful is this: Have faith that who you are matters to the world right now.

Write out of that faith.

More of my reflections on Maria’s workshop are posted on Transition Times.

—Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez

Well, here comes a treat!

Sonia has graciously shared with us another chapter from her novel-in-progress, The Last Hotel, about the residents of a residential hotel on the Upper West Side.  This is the chapter about that marvelous, mouth-watering brisket that brings the two lonely-hearts together.

Enjoy!

Suite 32

(c.) Sonia Pilcer, 2012

Once a week, Henry slipped rent envelopes under residents’ doors.  Saul  collected on Fridays.  Standing behind the top-half of the closed door of his ancient office, a tiny cubicle with black cubbyholes for mail, a cracked peg board with keys and an extinct switchboard, he studied his ledger with everyone’s names and room numbers.

Finally, he looked up.

Faye Meyer paid him forty-five dollars.  He stared at her check, peering in the light as if he hadn’t received the identical check the week before.  It might be forged.

“Okay,” he said, putting a mark next to her name in his large ledger.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”  He grumbled something in Polish or Yiddish to himself.

Though Saul could be a petty, parsimonious pain in the ass, everyone respected, even protected him.  It was hard not to stare at the blue number tattoo  on his left arm when his sleeve was rolled up.  There was a letter, which looked like a B, a hyphen, five or six numbers.  Faye tried to make out the exact numerals, but feared he’d notice her staring.

With his glossy, thick hair, black tight curls streaked with silver, his strong physique, Saul must have been something in his youth.  But thinking about his youth, she realized how he had spent it — in some German camp in Poland where they branded him like livestock.

Reardon, the Irish bartender on the second floor, stepped to the side of the elevator as Faye entered.  A strikingly handsome man with sculptured features, he had white skin like a baby’s that had never seen the light.  A regular vampire with very black brows and deep-set black eyes.  Black turtleneck.  Once he’d been an actor.  Rumor had it that he’d had a role in a Fellini film.

They nodded at each other.  He was polite enough, but never made a moment’s eye contact.  Oh well.  Faye reminded herself that she was a member of the Invisible Women’s Club.  As he walked out of the elevator, he nodded at her again.

Faye liked living at the Last Hotel.   The random roll of the dice every time you stepped in the elevator.  If you were going to live alone, as she did since Putzface walked out on her, there was always other people to watch, to imagine their lives.  And it was a crosstown bus to Hunter College, where she taught.  Often she walked across Central Park in the morning.  People said she was crazy to go by herself.  She loved the park and walked briskly.

Now Faye sat down on her couch and took off her shoes.  Then sighed.  The end of another week.  She’d only had a few classes.  She had to read her graduate student’s thesis proposal.  And her Colette article for Feminist Press was overdue.

She walked into her tiny kitchenette.  Open her small fridge, took out a package of sirloin wrapped in butcher paper.  Laying it flat on a wooden block, she contemplated the red meat.  She could never be a vegetarian.  She began to hammer the meat with her fists.

If only I had someone. He doesn’t have to be terrific or even great. But weekends sometimes seemed so long.  She’d go for B+, B, maybe even B-.  She said this to herself not with self-pity.  She’d had her share of lovers.  And she really didn’t mind being rid of Putzface.

Gathering her ingredients, she now wondered how she would build him.  Her Fantasy Man.  Of flesh and sinew, of course.  Broad shoulders.  She liked that.  Strong arms.  Dark, curly hair, but not too much.   Putzface had black hair on his back.  Now the truth could be told.  She hated it!   Graceful in body and speech.

Faye massaged kosher salt into the meat, imagining she was on a beach, spreading oil on his back.  The salt felt like sand.  Peeling the onions, she wept real tears, which she laughed at as she wiped them with her sleeve.  Pathetic. Peeling potatoes.  Carrots.  Blending them all in her mother’s black iron pot as more tears trickled down her cheeks.

Faye swirled her onions slowly in oil until they were thick and golden, floating in their own juices, the oil sizzling. How she loved the smells.  And how it reminded her of her mother, who she’d lost just two years ago.

Once she’d read an article in a women’s magazine.  “Are You Just Like Your Mother?” Well, she had her pot.  It was like spending a few hours with her mother.

Sadie Goldstein spent all of Friday preparing for the Sabbath.  Brisket was her specialty.  She too rubbed kosher salt into the beef, kneading it into the folds, until her fingers were raw, the salt pinching her skin.

As Faye stirred the iron pot, steam rose to her face, curling her hair.  Double, double toil and trouble. She added the sliced steak pieces. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she caught her reflection in the small window.

She had a strong face – a prominent nose that might overwhelm but for her jutting cleft chin.  Red hair dyed to the limit of respectability, definitely a hussy shade, created a nice frisson with her Ph.D.  Once Faye had been sought after, mooned over, whistled at, loved, and then not.  Now she was an aging Siren.  Would anyone hear her song?  Would she ever be loved and desired again?

“The Invisible Women’s Club,” she reminded herself.  Her sexuality obscure to men of all ages, except those close to the grave, who wanted a caretaker.  How could she accept it though?  To not want someone to see you? To look at your face, meet your eye?  Yet women of the club were hardly invisible to each other.  They scrutinized each highlight, every lost or gained pound, not to mention, any ‘work’ done.  “Did you do anything?  Your wrinkles disappeared!”

“I had a good night’s sleep.”

No, Faye hadn’t done anything nor did she intend to.  She worked for every wrinkle on her face.  So one part of her would look young while the rest sagged?  She wasn’t young.  And she’d paid heavily for her hard-won lines of experience.

At that moment, the telephone rang.  Faye didn’t move.  Five rings, her outgoing message, then she heard her editor Judi’s voice.  “The deadline is past.  Where is it?  Faye, I won’t be pleased if it’s not on my desk on Monday.”

She was supposed to deliver an article on “Women Transitioning: Colette as Role Model.”  Publish or perish.  Well, not really.  She already had tenure.  But she still had to finish the last part.

Faye had a doctorate from City College, specializing in French 20^th Century.  She’d lived in Paris for a year, fallen for a French painter, Claude. A year at the Sorbonne.  Lots of wine, lots of sex.   And a thesis: “Master or Muse: The Subjugation of Colette’s Art” which she had turned into a monograph.

She had to write the article this weekend.  Most of it was written.  Just needed a final read through and a strong ending.  Her mother’s brisket would keep her company.  She set the timer for an hour and a half.

Faye walked over to her wooden desk, opening a notebook.  In her notes, she found a quote from Colette that she’d been thinking about.

“You have to get old.  Don’t cry, don’t clasp your hands in prayer, don’t rebel, you have to get old.  Repeat the words to yourself, not as a howl of despair but as the boarding call to a necessary departure.”

Colette faced the same daunting struggle.  To put a so-called good face on it.  Yet in 1921, before turning 50, she had a facelift.  Then she became entrepreneurial, created a beauty institute where she dispensed her ‘secret recipes’ and conducted makeovers in a white lab coat!  Never underestimate a woman’s vanity.  Faye raised her cheeks with her fingers.

Walking into her small bathroom, she turned on the hot water for a bath.  Just hot, hot water.  It was a good, old-fashioned tub with claws. This was one of her Friday rituals.  (She tried not to teach on Fridays.)  To cleanse herself of the week.  Her own mikvah before Shabbat, though definitely secular.  She threw in desert bath salts, sprinkled lilac essence, and a little baby oil to soften her skin.

As she melted into the water, she felt a tweak in her bijoux. Her lovely jewel.  It still lived!  Jewel had the word Jew in it.  What Jonathan, when he loved her, called the little man in the canoe.  Faye raised her legs and pointed her toes.  Studying Martha Graham technique had preserved her stomach muscles, given her strong, muscular legs.  She exhaled and raised her pelvic floor.  Squeezed.  Oh, those kegels! Not kugels! She giggled.  Perhaps like so many other things, sex was wasted on the young. Would anyone ever see her again?  More seriously, would she ever fuck again?  She applied her Anti-Aging Crème into the pores of her face.

Wrapping herself in a towel, she wandered into her tiny kitchenette.  Raised the lid of the iron pot.  Beef effluvia filled the room.  She dipped a wooden spoon, blew, then tasted.  It still needed time.  She added a half a cup of wine, and pat of butter for greater succulence.  Cholesterol, be damned!

Jonathan had been a great appreciator of her brisket.  Though a self-hating Jew, like so many of the lefties they knew from City College, he made an exception for Jewish food.  Good Jewish food and deli, of course.  She’d married him when he was finishing graduate school.  She worked for a French publishing company for a year. He taught linguistics and Foucault deconstructionism at City.  They had two grown children.  After Elissa, their second daughter graduated Bennington, he spent several weeks of his sabbatical, writing a novel at an artists colony in Virginia.  He couldn’t publish the novel. He returned to teaching.  He started fucking his linguistics intern, some linguistics they must have performed, right in her own bed, as she discovered them that Wednesday afternoon when her shrink rescheduled her appointment.

The narrative piqued her colleagues in the lunch cafeteria at Hunter.

“A woman is incomplete until she is married,” said Betty Alecson, Applied Sciences, married to a reborn Scientologist.  “Then she’s finished.  You’re lucky to be free of Jon.”

“True, true,” agreed Selena Grosbard, an abandoned Byron scholar, whose husband ran off with a graduate student.  “When a woman steals your husband, the best revenge is to let her keep him.”  Her pause very pregnant.  “Don’t worry.  She’ll find out.”

“You have two choices in life,” added Alice Valens, a never-married Chaucerian.  “You can stay single and be miserable, or get married and wish you were dead.”

They were her Greek chorus.  Like so many women, feminists like her, they often sounded like they despised men.  She didn’t.  Her father, Isaac, was not an educated man, but had a gentle, compassionate nature, though he worked hard in the docks at Sheepshead Bay.  Yes, Jonathan was a putz.  No doubt about that.   She slipped into blue jeans and a denim shirt.

That’s when she heard the sound. Turning around, Faye saw something curious.  Slowly, her window rose by itself, and a fully formed, rather tall hooded figure crawled in through the fire escape.  She would have screamed, if she hadn’t sat on her bed in pure, open-mouthed amazement.

Was this her Fantasy Man?  Had her imagination created a golem?  She didn’t believe in supernatural kind of stuff, but she sat as if paralyzed.  Whatever it was, was cloaked in darkness, but there was an aura of light surrounding it.  She couldn’t see a face, but a ruby stone shone from a long, delicate finger.

“Who are you?” Faye asked the apparition.

“Who do you think I am?”

“My projection.  That’s what my analyst would say.  That I am transferring my need for love in my life, for a man –“

“Oh, shush, you!  Think of me as a fairy godmother,” she said, pulling down her hood. “I’m just here to give you a good turn.”

“How come?”

“Because we had a lottery, and I drew you.”

“What kind of lottery?”

“You wouldn’t understand.  It’s a complex equation of mitzvot, tzedakah, and because you need it.”

“Excuse me, I don’t understand, but I do have to check my brisket,” she said.  “I’ll be right back.”

She followed Faye into her kitchenette, watching as she stirred the beef, onions sizzling in her black iron pot.  “How did you prepare it?” she inquired.

“A steak, I used sirloin this time, oh, I don’t know, a little tomato paste, onions, carrots, potatoes.  Salt and pepper.  I throw in red wine.”

“And garlic?”

“No, my mother didn’t use garlic in her brisket.”

“You should.  Whole cloves which you sear –“

“What are you?  The Cooking Dybbuk?”

Faye looked, but couldn’t make out a form.  Who cared.  She was really enjoying this, whatever it was.  Maybe she was just losing her mind.  “So what can you do for me? Are you like a genie who offers wishes?”

She laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“That a woman like you goes to bed alone every night.”

“Huh?”

“We know your husband was a worthless piece of garbage.”

“So?”

“You shouldn’t give up.  You’re still young.”

“I’m over fifty.“

“I’m not impressed.  I’m over several hundred.  Go find a lover.”

“There’s no one around.”

“I see a man.  A man of fine character.”

“Oh.  Who’s that?”

“Think close to home.”

“The hotel?  There’s no one.  Saul is married.  Lenny, never.  Ugh.   Reardon doesn’t talk and besides he’s not interested.”

“Nu?”

“Pincus?”

“Pincus.”

“He’s an old man.”

“Pincus,” she said solemnly.  “There’s more than meets the eye.”

“How do you know?”

“I was married to him in one of my lifetimes.  He doesn’t eat well anymore.”

“Pincus?” she asked the apparition.

“There’s more than meets the eye,” she repeated.  Then disappeared.

Faye walked over to the window with the fire escape.  It was shut.  She tried to raise the window, but decades of paint prevented its budging.  Had she imagined the whole thing? Was it a hallucination?  Maybe something in the brisket.  She sighed.  Could Pincus be her fantasy man?

That’s when her eyes fell on the silver candlesticks, placed high on a shelf above her table.  They had belonged to her mother.  She took them down, blowing the dust off their surface.  She had the impulse to light Shabbat candles.  What the hell.  Faye was not a believer.  She was, in fact, a devout disbeliever.  And yet.  The Sabbath bride was on her way.   Faye lit the first candle, then the second.  She closed her eyes, hands cupped over her face, and said a soft prayer.

Sonia Pilcer

Led by host Sonia Pilcer, a longtime writer and teacher of writing who divides her time between homes in Columbia County and New York City, the reading featured four other strong women writers, ranging from women who have not yet published, to one woman, Sondra Zeidenstein, who runs her own successful press, Chicory Blue, dedicated to publishing poetry by women over seventy.

It was impressive to hear these women write so openly, with humor and humility, about characters whose experiences with love, erotic satisfaction and frustration, and the challenges of aging must mirror their own.

Zeidenstein read poems honoring two of her mentors in poetry: Allen Ginsburg and Sharon Olds, both of whom have been willing to reveal more to the world than most writers of their own inner-most desires and longings.

Sondra Zeidenstein

Beth Sack read a story about a woman dealing with cancer, and realizing that she would need to leave her husband, a distant and unhelpful figure, if she were to survive.

Beth Sack

Joan Embree

Joan Embree read an over-the-top story about a woman living with a man so horrid that no one is sorry when she sets out to murder him by appealing to his bottomless gluttony.  When he falls over dead after an orgy of eating her delicious home-cooked food,the audience cheered! Listening to Joan read off the drop-dead menu, it was easy to remember that this is a writer who spent many years professionally engaged in gourmet food preparation.

Victoria Sullivan represented a rollicking, sexy voice in older women’s writing, reading several poems that had the audience roaring with delight at her razor-sharp humor, for example when one of her narrators says matter-of-factedly, “I seem to be a woman in whom lust trumps the moral imperatives of the moment.”

Her poem “Blessing the Body” was exquisitely beautiful; perhaps she will be willing to share it with Festival blog readers in a later post.

Victoria Sullivan

Sonia Pilcer herself brought down the house reading a story from her novel-in-progress about the inhabitants of a rooming house on the upper West Side of Manhattan.  Laced with Yiddish and bold with sexual honesty, the story features two characters who might seem entirely innocuous to an outsider, but are brought to live in all their passion and color under the strokes of Sonia’s pen.

a small section of the audience at the reading

It was clear from the lively discussion following the readings that there are many “women writers of a certain age” in the Berkshires who are hungry to share their stories and learn from each other in the process, and many women and men of all ages who delight in listening!

Look for this panel, with a changing cast of “women of a certain age” readers, to become a Festival fixture in the coming years.

BLESSING THE BODY

by Victoria Sullivan,”Poet Laureate of the Woodstock Roundtable” on radio WDST 100.1 FM

We must gather the parts of our bodies up and love them.

Now I love my little hands.  And is it because someone,

a man, told me they were “perfect little hands”? Did that

make them worthy of my love?  Each part deserves

a blessing.  Here are my feet that hold my weight.

I will love them with their cherry painted toe nails.

My legs are sturdy, I do not fall over.  Bless them too.

And my hips that undulate slowly in dance, I will absolve them

of all crimes.  They need the music. My belly grounds me,

my breasts cry out for love, my neck holds the huge mass

of my head, surely a worth task.  All these I bless, and my eyes,

and ears and mouth that loves to kiss and eat and eat and kiss.

Don’t let me forget my tasting tongue that brushes his skin

and keeps my mouth from getting lonely.  My teeth and lips

of course demand their credit.  But it’s my hair that wants

always to wave the crowd on and guard my scalp and brain—

my hair that shouts a song to all my body: Dance on.

All this as youth slips further and further away, as if

the goddess is laughing at the ironies of life.  I am ready

to dance around the Beltane fires at last, while friends go down

to hip and knee surgeries daily.  At what point is ripeness all?

Never mind the question.  I will bless my body parts

because like yours and yours and yours, they do their best

to keep our hearts beating, the blood still rushing in our veins.

I will kneel down to this husk in which I live, this system

of bones and sinews, this fragile clothing for my soul,

and let tears flow at all the beauty that we grasp

so very incredibly briefly on the swift train ride of life.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

A capacity crowd packed Blodgett House at Bard College at Simon’s Rock tonight for the eagerly anticipated Out of the Mouths of Babes event, organized by Suzi Banks Baum of Laundry Line Divine with Alana Chernila, Janet Elsbach, Michelle Gillett, Gina Hyams, Jenny Laird and Matt Tannenbaum.

Each writer read a short piece linking creativity and motherhood, bringing the rapt audience to laughter and tears with personal narratives about the interweaving of these two dimensions in their lives.

The discussion afterwards was honest and profound, as audience members picked up some of the threads tossed out in the readings and added their own stories, questions and concerns to the conversation.

As always in a Festival event, new friendships and connections were forged, old relationships deepened, and all went home feeling richer for the sharing of our all the talent in our midst.

Discussing motherhood and creativity

Michelle Gillett reads to a packed house

Kate, will you participate in next year’s Festival?  We’re asking you a year in advance!

Read her post at Transition Times.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Berkshire Festival of Women Writers Announces Second Full Week of Events

Name of Event(s): Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Date/Time: Thursday, March 8 to Wednesday, March 14

Place(s): See details below

Contact: For more information about Festival events: www.berkshirewomenwriters.org
For further press information: Judy Nardacci, 413-243-2382; MssEnn29@gmail.com

Description of Events:
The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers continues with a second week of events at various county venues. Many generous donors and collaborators, along with the sponsorship of Bard College at Simon’s Rock, are providing a full month of events, all open to the public and most free of charge. Cultural Council grants from Alford-Egremont, Dalton, Great Barrington, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Marlborough, Pittsfield, Richmond, Stockbridge, Washington and West Stockbridge, provided by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, also support the Festival. A comprehensive listing of events and donors is available at the website: www.berkshirewomenwriters.org.

The second week’s events include:
Thursday, March 8 To MFA or Not to MFA, presented by Sarah Harris Wallman, Krysia Jopek, and Michael White,
Blodgett House, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 7-9 pm. The faculty of the “no residency” MFA program at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, CT will host a panel discussion on the usefulness of the MFA degree.
They will give honest answers about the benefits and pitfalls of an advanced degree in writing.

Friday, March 9  Photos Worth a Thousand Words: Successfully Writing Photo Essays Presented by Mary Kate Jordan, Stockbridge Library, 6-7:30 pm, $10 fee. Limited to six participants. You will learn seven skills to help you approach the genre with greater confidence. Bring your writing tools and 5-7 photos to which you have publication rights. You will put them to good use.

Friday, March 9 Special Benefit Opening Performance, Blood Sky, a play by Yasmine Beverly Rana, directed by Mari Andrejco. New Stage Performing Arts Center, 55 North Street, Pittsfield, 7:30 pm. Ongoing performances Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm through March 25. $45 for opening night; $20 for adults, $18 for students and seniors for all other performances. Blood Sky tells the story of a young woman coming to terms with sexual abuse in her past. Opening night performance and post-show reception benefit the Elizabeth Freeman Center. Post-show talkbacks follow each Sunday matinee. For tickets and information:
http//newstageperformingarts.org/2011/12/blood-sky/

Saturday, March 10 Writing Workshop: Micro-Fiction, presented by Jessica Treat, Professor of English at Northwestern CT Community College, Mason Library, Great Barrington, 10 am to 12:30 pm. Free, but pre-registration required. Limited to 12, first come, first-served basis. This workshop explores how short a short story can be; what goes into crafting a good story; and what differentiates prose poems and flash fiction. Exercises and prompts will be given for writing our own. You will write and go home with lots to work with. Markets for flash fiction will be shared.

Saturday, March 10 Our History is Our Strength: Ordinary Chinese Women During WW  II Dr. Danke Li, Professor of East Asian Studies at Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT, Clark Auditorium, Fisher Science Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, 2-4 pm. The program features a screening and discussion of the documentary film Echoes of Chongqing: Women in Wartime China, based on Li’s recent book, an oral history of the experiences of Chinese women in the war against Japan, and how they coped, worked, and lived during those years.

Sunday, March 11  Annunciation: A reading of poetry and nonfiction, Blodgett House, Bard College of Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, 2-4 pm. Nonfiction writer Harriet Brown, author of Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia, and short fiction writer Sarah Towers, hosted by Bard College Writer-in-Residence Celia Bland, author of the poetry collection Soft Talk.

Tuesday, March 13  Noah’s Wife: Women at the Fringes of Faith with poet Hannah Fries, Women’s Interfaith Institute, Church on the Hill Chapel, 55 Main Street, Lenox, 7:15-8:30 pm. Hannah Fries’ poetry features the imagined stories of women characters from the Bible and mythology. She is a published poet and associate editor and poetry editor at Orion magazine.

Wednesday, March 14  Miss Representation: A documentary film screening followed by discussion and Q & A, Lecture Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, 7-9:30 pm. The film addresses the message we receive from media that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty and sexuality more than in her capacity as a leader. It proposes that the obstacles must be addressed, and that there are positive actions we can take toward change. The panel includes Elizabeth Debold, Kristine Barnett, Gabrielle Senza and Maura O’Connor.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Berkshire Festival of Women Writers Opens with a Full Week of Events

Name of Event(s): Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Date/Time: Thursday, March 1 to Wednesday, March 7

Place: See details below

Contact: For more information about Festival events: www.berkshirewomenwriters.org
For further press information: Judy Nardacci, 413-243-2382; MssEnn29@gmail.com

Description of Events:
The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers opens with a full week of offerings at various county venues. Many generous donors and collaborators, along with the sponsorship of Bard College at Simon’s Rock, have combined to provide a full month of events, all open to the public and most free of charge. Cultural Council grants from Alford-Egremont, Dalton, Great Barrington, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Marlborough, Pittsfield, Richmond, Stockbridge, Washington and West Stockbridge, provided by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, also support the Festival. A comprehensive listing of events and donors is available at the website: www.berkshirewomenwriters.org.

The first week’s events include:
Thursday, March 1  Story-Truth: How Writing Keeps You Honest, hosted by Nichole Dupont at the Dubois Center, South Main Street, Great Barrington, from 7-9 p.m. The fee is $10 for the use of the W.E.B. DuBois Center. The workshop is for novice writers, or people (men and women) who have thought about writing but have never had the opportunity. Students under 16 are discouraged from attending because of the personal nature of the workshop.

Friday, March 2  Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading Their Own Writing, hosted by Suzi Banks Baum and Matthew Tannenbaum at Blodgett House, Bard College of Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, MA 7-9:30 pm. The fee is $5, free to the Simon’s Rock community. Readings by Baum, Alana Chernila, Michelle Gillett, Janet Reich, Elsbach, Gina Hyams, and Jenny Laird. Ranging from young mothers to mothers of adults, these writers open their journals and hearts to share the bounty that resides behind each apron, computer screen, or flannel nightgown. Facilitated discussion will follow the readings.

Saturday, March 3  Women Writers of a Certain Age: A Reading, hosted by Sonia Pilcher with Sondra Zeidenstein, Beth Sack, Joan Embree and Victoria Sullivan at the Mason Library, Great Barrington, 12-2 pm. These women, who grew up in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, are continuing to write their lives and also navigating through e-books and internet ‘zines and facing challenges to publishing print books. They will reach out to younger writers and exchange what they have learned.

Saturday, March 3  Elephant Tree House Press Poetry Reading at The Bookstore in Lenox. This small press publisher of contemporary poetry will introduce itself and the three authors of its first publications: Nan Becker, Susan Hartung, and Rosemary Starace, reading selections from their work. All three began their creative lives in the visual arts.

Sunday, March 4  Happiness: Writing as a Path to Positive Transformation at Blodgett House, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, 2-4 pm. Presented by Maria Sirois, participants will write and discuss practices that allow them to leave the past behind and fashion a live that thrives. No prior experience is necessary- just a pad, a pen, an open heart, a sense of humor, and the tiniest bit of courage.

Tuesday, March 6  “Death in Shorts”: Women Writing the Mystery Short Story, hosted by Leslie Wheeler, with Barbara Ross and Katherine Fast at the Bushnell-Sage Library, Sheffield, 7-9 pm. This workshop explores how writers plot, construct, and populate the mystery short story from lighthearted to noir, and examine the difference between writing short stories and novels. Participants will have an opportunity to write their own opening lines and paragraphs for possible short stories. A discussion of short story markets and contests will end the session.

Wednesday, March 7  “Nuts and Bolts of Book Production” hosted by Marie Gauthier with the staff and authors of Tupelo Press, MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams, 7 pm. This will include a presentation of book production, book sales, and distribution from marketing, editorial and creative perspectives. Tupelo is a nonprofit literary press now entering its twelfth year. The panel includes Rose Carlson, Cassandra Cleghorn and Ellen Doré Watson.

Wednesday, March 7  An Evening of Poetry Hosted by Dawn Barbieri, this event features local poets, both established and emerging, including Barbieri, Tammis Coffin, Susan Melot, Jan Hutchinson, Christine Ward and Claudette Webster.

Writing enables me to answer that longing by bringing forth not only a group of real-people-other writers, but a larger group of unknown potential readers; anonymous but nevertheless potent companions on a similar path.

Maria Sirois’ blog post on the ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’ blog series reveals her longing, both in her parenting and her writing.

And come see ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’ Friday March 2, 2012 at Blodgett Hall, Simon’s Rock College of Bard.

http://www.advocateweekly.com/ci_20018771

3/1
Story-Truth: How Writing Keeps You Honest

3/2
Out of the Mouths of Babes:
An evening of mothers reading their own writing

3/3
Women Writers of a Certain Age: A Reading
Elephant Tree House Press Poetry Reading

3/4
Happiness: Writing as A Path to Positive Transformation

3/6
“Death in Shorts”: Women Writing the Mystery Short Story

3/7
An Evening of Poetry at the Ramsdell Library
Nuts and Bolts of Book Production with Tupelo Press

3/8
To MFA or Not to MFA

3/9
Photos Worth a Thousand Words: Successfully Writing Photo Essays
“Blood Sky”: Benefit Opening at New Stage Theater

3/10
Writing Workshop: Micro-Fiction
Film Screening: Our History is Our Strength, Ordinary Chinese Women During WWII

3/11
Annunciation: A reading of poetry and nonfiction

3/12
Blogging, vlogging, tweeting: A writer’s guide to the digital arts

3/13
Women’s Interfaith Institute: Poetry Reading with Hannah Fries

3/14
Documentary Film Screening: Miss Representation

3/15
Women’s Salon Discussion of Miss Representation

3/16
Karaoke Confessions with JoAnne Spies
Gastronomica and Orion Magazines Present: An Evening of Art, Literature, and Food

3/17
Workshop: Journaling with Mary Richie
Olga Dunn Company Dance Performance

3/18
Human Rights, Activism, and the Arts:
A Film Festival in honor of International Women’s Day

3/19
Reading: Susan Fox Rogers, My Reach: A Hudson River Memoir

3/20
Deb Koffman’s ArtSpace Open Mike:
IWOWWOW (In Words Out Words in Women’s Own Words)

3/21
A Reading: Who Do You Think You Are?

3/22
Heroic Girlz: Screening & Workshop

3/23
Reading and Discussion with Jan Conn and Jessica Treat
This Woman’s Work, Made in the Berkshires Special Event

3/24
Break Through Your Writing Obstacles
Found Word Collage & Letterpress Workshop

3/25
An Afternoon of International Folktales at The Bookstore

3/26
Writing Workshop: What’s Your Story?

3/27
Redefining Sex & Power: Why Women Don’t Talk or Write About Money

3/28
Loving Our Girls: A Writing Workshop

3/29
Letterpress Poetry Reading and Exhibition Opening
Workshop: Writing and the Body

3/30
Self-Publishing–Wave of the Future? With Carole Owens

3/31
Gala Festival Finale at The Mount

4/1

Rescheduled! Breaking Through Limited Thinking: Coaching Workshop for Women Writers
Women Poets Celebrate National Poetry Month: An Orion Poetry Reading

This is a workshop for novice writers, or people who have thought about writing (men and women) but have never had the opportunity. Most of the hour-long workshop will be devoted to writing activities which encourage memoir-type, honest writing that gleans from real-life events/memories. Then we will see where these true events can fit into poetry and/or fiction pieces. All will be invited to share what they have written, but none will be required to do so. Because of the personal nature of this workshop, students under 16 are discouraged from attending.

Nichole Dupont

Nichole Dupont is a full-time writer and assistant editor for The Advocate Weekly and The Family Beat. She is also a former high school English and history teacher with a brief stint as an elementary school Spanish teacher, a time which she refers to as the “year of glitter and sugar skulls.” Nichole is a single mother of two children living, working and writing in Sheffield. She is the official “poet laureate” of the Great Barrington Bra & Girl and has read her work at several venues countywide, including Bascom Lodge and Burlesque for Books. In addition to her poetry, she has published her short fiction pieces in Catchn.net and other online lit sites. While her material is dark, her presentation style is nothing short of comedic and you can find her “lighter side” through her personal blog www.verbosa-versus.blogspot.com. When she is not writing or judging crust flakiness at area pie contests, Nichole can be seen, often with her two reluctant children, out and about looking for fodder for her outdoor column

‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: an evening of mothers reading to others’

Hosted by Suzi Banks Baum and Matthew Tannenbaum, with readings by Suzi Banks Baum, Alana Chernila, Michelle Gillett, Janet Reich Elsbach, Gina Hyams, and Jenny Laird.  Bedtime snacks will be served, and pajamas are welcome.  For more information, please visit www.outofthemouthsofbabes.org or call Suzi Banks Baum at (413) 429-1799.

Blodgett House, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 7-9:30 p.m.
 Fee: $5, free to the Simon’s Rock community

Suzi Banks Baum was deep in the wilds of raising two healthy teenagers when she realized she was engaged in a major act of creativity.  In talking with other mothers, however, she realized how few of them shared her view. Most dismissed their smaller, everyday creative acts as inconsequential, whether they were planning meals or quilting.

In her March 2^nd event, “Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others,” she brings together several writers who, in the process of raising children, found richness, solace, and even an artistic identity in the details.

Readers will include:

• Poet, author, and op-ed columnist Michelle Gillett, whose accomplishments include awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, several collections of poetry, essays, and recipes, and two grown daughters
• Award-winning playwright Jenny Laird, who finds inspiration on the axis of child-rearing, epilepsy, developmental and learning disabilities, literature, and Buddhism
• Alana Chernila, a Great Barrington selectman, mother of two young daughters, and author of The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making, which is due in the spring
• Author and editor Gina Hyams,  co-editor of the anthology Searching for Mary Poppins: Women Write About the Relationship Between Mothers and Nannies, and specialist in “mysterious and confounding subjects” such as pie, nannies, incense, folk art, death, and room service
• Janet Reich Elsbach, a sheep farmer and mother of three who writes about Tolstoy, pickles, gardening, and “assessing the real chances that we the people will come to our senses in time to save the bees, the oceans and the last vestiges of true democracy”
• Blogger and event coordinator Suzi Banks Baum, who writes at laundrylinedivine.com about seeing and celebrating the sacred in everyday life, and whose forthcoming book recounts the “wild adventure” of raising herself as she raised her children.

Banks Baum and Matthew Tannenbaum, of The Bookstore in Lenox, MA, will facilitate a discussion following the readings.

To celebrate the event, Banks Baum is also hosting three months of posts around the topic of mothers and creativity at her blog, www.laundrylinedivine.com. “No mother is lacking in creativity,” says Banks Baum. “Whether she stays at home with her children, or works outside of the home while someone else looks after her kids, she is using major creative muscles to make it all work. My desire is to provide women with a vehicle to discuss the importance of creativity in their daily lives; to witness the beauty of words written by other mothers; and to emerge from this event inspired to celebrate and engage with their own creativity.”

More Information at outofthemouthsofbabes.org.

Bios:

Janet Reich Elsbach
I am mother to three fine children.  My chief interests in life include, but are not limited to: what we will have for dinner tonight; what we will have for dinner tomorrow; whether my children are rested, fed, encouraged and aware; getting out of the grocery store with as much dignity and as little plastic packaging material as possible; assessing the real chances that we the people will come to our senses in time to save the bees, the oceans and the last vestiges of true democracy; and the very powerful and inspiring ways all of these things connect. With my husband, the artist Bart Elsbach, I am managed by a small sheep farm, and I write about all of this when I can stay awake long enough to string four coherent words together. What I am trying to say can be found at  http://raisinporpoise.blogspot.com.

Gina Hyams is an author and editor who specializes in mysterious and confounding subjects, such as pie, nannies, incense, folk art, facials, death, and room service. She is the creator of the Andrews McMeel Publishing “In a Box” series of food contest book-kits, which includes Pie Contest in a Box, Chili Cook-Off in a Box, and Christmas Cookie Contest in a Box. Her other books include the bestselling travel-design titles, In a Mexican Garden and Mexicasa, as well as Pacific Spas, Day of the Dead Box, and Incense – all published by Chronicle Books. She is also co-editor of the anthology, Searching for Mary Poppins: Women Write About the Relationship Between Mothers and Nannies published by Hudson Street Press and Plume, divisions of Penguin U.S.A. For more information, see  www.ginahyams.com.

Alana Chernila writes, cooks, sells fresh vegetables, and teaches kids’ cooking. She created the blog EatingFromTheGroundUp.com in 2008. Alana is a graduate of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM and lives with her husband and two young daughters in Great Barrington, where she is a selectman.  Clarkson Potter will publish Alana’s first book, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making in Spring 2012.

Suzi Banks Baum’s favorite roles in her 53-year career as a woman have been mother and rat.  She took up the former 17 years ago, upon the birth of her son, and the latter in 1965 at Potawatomie Park in Chicago, in the after school theatre program.  Suzi actively blogs at laundrylinedivine.com where she writes about seeing and celebrating the sacred in everyday life. Her upcoming book, “Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers” recounts the wild tale of her adventures raising herself while raising her children. She is an artist, gardener and good friend. Suzi lives with her husband and 2 teenagers in Great Barrington, MA.

Michelle Gillett is the author of three books of poetry: Rock &Spindle (Mad River Press, 1998), Blinding the Goldfinches, selected by Hayden Carruth as winner of the Backwaters Poetry Prize and published in 2005, and The Green Cottage, winner of The Ledge 2010 Poetry Chapbook Competition. She has won poetry awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and published work in literary magazines and poetry journals. She received an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College. A collection of her essays, Celebrating Motherhood, was published by Storey Press in 2002. Her cookbook, a collection of recipes and essays, The Kitchen Gardener’s Cookbook was published by Country Roads Press.

A regular op ed columnist for The Berkshire Eagle, she also teaches writing workshops and is co-partner of g & r, an editing, writing and book development company.  She and her husband have two grown daughters and live in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Jenny Laird was a long-time Chicago Playwright and Arts Advocate before settling in the Berkshires.  She is the author of several award-winning plays and is currently creating a series of musicals based on The Magic Tree House books for Music Theatre International’s Broadway Junior Collection.  When she is not writing, she is busy running an intensive home-based play therapy program for her wondrous son, Quinn.  Now and then, Jenny blogs about her adventures with autism and epilepsy at:  zenmasterquinn.blogspot.com

Matt Tannenbaum

Matt Tannenbaum has owned The Bookstore in Lenox for 36 years. He began his career in the book trade in New York City in 1971 where his passion for literature was first ignited.. His memoir, “My Years at the Gotham Book Mart with Frances Steloff, Proprietor: Recollections about the Pantheon of Writers and Artists Who Passed Through Her Store, and How I Became A Bookman” was published three years ago by a small country publisher. He is currently working on an expanded version of that book. In 1993, after eleven years of marriage, his wife, Sheila, died of breast cancer, leaving their two children, Shawnee and Sophie, ages seven and three. He became a “mom” the day his wife died. Or shortly before. Or shortly afterward. It’s not quite the same as when the baby’s head begins to crown and the beleagured spouse stands by excitedly crying out “you’re doing great, honey, just breathe”! Matt remembers doing exactly that and remembers also, exactly, the look on his wife’s face and what she said back to him. He never felt farther away from motherhood than at that moment! The next twenty years or so brought him a lot closer. He lives in Housatonic with one cat, which he inherited when his daughters moved away. Last year on his birthday they gave him a coffee mug with the legend: CRAZY CAT LADY.

Mason Library, Great Barrington, 12-2 p.m.

We are women writers of a certain age, who grew up in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. If our mothers lived this long, they were retired, if they had ever worked. Not only do we continue to write our lives, but we are navigating through the turbulent waters of e-books and internet ’zines, not to mention facing the challenge of publishing old-fashioned books. We want to reach out to our younger cohorts and to our age peers, receive their wisdom, and share ours.

Biographies:

Sonia Pilcer is the author of five novels including her most recent The Holocaust Kid, which she adapted as a theatrical play, and was performed at Shakespeare & Co.
She has just completed a new novel The Last Hotel about NYC, 1980, from which she will read.
She teaches writing at the Writers Voice in New York City and at Berkshire Community College in Great Barrington.

Sondra Zeidenstein is author of three books of poetry, most recently Contraries, New and Selected Poems. She is
editor of Family Reunion, Poems about Parenting Grown Children, A Wider Giving, Women Writing after a Long Silence and other anthologies. She is publisher of Chicory Blue Press, a small press that focuses on supporting the voices of older women writers.

Beth Sack was born and raised in the suburbs of New York.  In  11th grade,  she realized that her greatest passion was literature: both in the reading and the writing. She is a member of the Library staff at Bard College of Simon’s Rock, mother of two fabulous(!) grown sons, and a not so secret writer of short fiction.
Joan Embree is a caterer, cook, former restauranteur and yoga teacher. She has beloved creatures: children, grandson, dogs and cats and happily keeps trying to become a writer all the while living in the beautiful Berkshires.

Victoria Sullivan, both a poet and a playwright, has performed her poetry in numerous venues in New York City, Ulster County and Cairo, Egypt, as well as on radio and television.  Her latest chapbook, Eating Figs at Twilight won the Edda Poetry Chapbook Competition for Women of the Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press.