Berkshire Festival of Women Writers Program 2014

The Fourth Annual

Berkshire Festival of Women Writers Readings, workshops, panels & performances—58 events in March 2014 at 36 venues throughout Berkshire County

See inside for schedule and check our website for complete listings:

Berkshirewomenwriters.org

2 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Celebrating the writer in all of us!

Your anywhere, anytime community link to life in the Southern Berkshires Southern Berkshire

141 West Avenue, Great Barrington, MA 413-528-0095 • Fax 413-528-4805 • www.shoppersguideinc.com

Welcome to the 2014 Berkshire Festival of Women Writers!

From best-selling authors like Gloria Steinem, to less well-known but no less talented writers and performers in a variety of genres, more than 150 women of all ages and from many backgrounds will participate in the 2014 Festival, giving readings, lectures, workshops and performances at 36 Berkshire County venues from Sheffield to Williamstown.

Each event promises to be more intriguing and inspiring than the last; all are open to Dr. Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez the public, and most are free, thanks to the generosity of our presenters, venues, donors and collaborators. For complete biographies of participants, please visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org.

Included in the Festival is our annual observance of International Women’s Day, held at Bard College at Simon’s Rock since 2002. The 2014 IWD event is co-sponsored by the Berkshire Human Rights Speaker Series, and features three generations of a remarkable Argentinian Jewish family, who have used the arts as a means of overcoming the traumatic events they lived through during the Argentinian dictatorship in the 1970s.

This year there is also a special focus within the Festival, “Writing the Self, Righting the World: New Visions of Personal and Planetary Health and Healing.” Sixteen sessions will explore the links between personal and planetary health and wellness, prompting inquiry into the intimate interdependence between our individual, social and environmental landscapes.

We look forward to seeing you at many of the outstanding Festival events this year, and thank you for your support of our work in opening up new spaces and occasions to celebrate women’s creative expression in the Berkshires.

The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers Organizing Committee: Dr. Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez (Chair), Joanne Cooney, Jan Hutchinson (Program coordinator), Pauline Dongala, Carolyn Fabricant, Maureen Hickey, Johanna Janssen, Vera Kalm, Lorrin Krouss (Festival coordinator), Betsy McTiernan, Heather Meehan (Simon’s Rock intern), Alice Myers, Anna Myers (webmaster and graphic design, www.anna-myers.com), Lynnette Lucy Najimy (media relations), Judith Nardacci, Beth Sack, Kuukua Yomekpe.

Special thanks to our hard-working Horizons interns from Miss Hall’s School, Anna Durning and Olivia Gomez

3 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Drum roll please for the Fourth Annual Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, celebrated county-wide in the month of March 2014, Women’s History Month.

BERKSHIRE’S SPOOKIEST PLACE RETHINKING THE RANCH HOUSE

SIMON WINCHESTER’S CITIzENSHIP ON THE HOPS AND CIDER TRAIL

Berkshire BERKSHIRE’S SPOOKIEST PLACE RETHINKING THE RANCH HOUSE

IS REAL ESTATE RISING? JACOB’S PILLOW AT 80

Berkshire

Berkshire

GETTING INTO BERKSHIRE CHICVISITS PRESIDENTIAL DEAR HENS, FORGIVE US INDASHIO: BACK TO HIS BAD ROOTS

MARY POPE OSBORNE’S SISTER ACT WHO ARE VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE?

time

MAGAZINE

Berkshire FARMING FINDS ITS NICHE

Premiere

ISSUE

2012

MAGAZINE

TAYLOR MALI SPEAKS UP MAGAZINE

ZIPPING THROUGH TREES LIVING IN NOWHERE

JULY

SEPTEMBER

GETTING INTO BERKSHIRE CHIC

HOW NANCY TAKES A (LONG) HIKE BERKSHIRE ICE CREAM AND FARMEATS MARKETS

ocToBER

JOSH PENN: FROM OTIS TO SUNDANCE

bk style

ZIPPING THROUGH TREES LIVING IN NOWHERE

IS REAL ESTATE RISING? JACOB’S PILLOW AT 80

Berkshire to eat A HIP FAMILY IN A HIPSTER HOME

MAGAZINE

JULY

bk style

NANCY TAKES A (LONG) HIKE ICE CREAM AND FARM MARKETS

SIMON WINCHESTER’S CITIzENSHIP ON THE HOPS AND CIDER TRAIL

MAGAZINE

SEPTEMBER

4 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

MAGAZINE

MARY POPE OSBORNE’S SISTER ACT WHO ARE VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE?

ocToBER

time Berkshire to eat PRESIDENTIAL VISITS DEAR HENS, FORGIVE US

berkshiremag.com

berkshiremag.com HOW

BERKSHIRE EATS

INDASHIO: BACK TO HIS BAD ROOTS

FARMING FINDS ITS NICHE

Premiere

A HIP FAMILY IN A HIPSTER HOME

ISSUE

2012

TAYLOR MALI SPEAKS UP

berkshiremag.com

JOSH PENN: FROM OTIS TO SUNDANCE

Your front row seat to all the action Your front row seat to all the action berkshiremag.com berkshiremag.com

berkshiremag.com

berkshiremag.com

berkshiremag.com facebook.com/berkshiremagazine Like us. You’ll love it. facebook.com/berkshiremagazine Like us. You’ll love it.

Special Thanks Sincere thanks and appreciation to all the Festival presenters, venues, advertisers and contributors, without whom this great community event would not be possible.

The Wyomissing Foundation The John A. Sellon Charitable Trust Bard College at Simon’s Rock (BFWW fiscal sponsor) Quality Printing Berkshire Magazine (BFWW media sponsor)

The Shopper’s Guide Sally-Jane Heit Berkshire Gas Upstreet Magazine Anonymous The Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts

The Local Cultural Councils of the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, including Northern Berkshire and the towns of Alford-Egremont, Dalton, Great Barrington, Lenox, Monterey, Mount Washington, New Marlborough, Otis, Pittsfield, Sandisfield, Stockbridge, Washington and West Stockbridge

Thanks to our 2013-14 Festival Godmothers and Friends of the Festival Donors: Barbara Bonner Shirley Bressler Sue Browdy Jennifer Clark Sharon Coleman Susie Crofut Janet Egelhofer Jan Krause Greene Hannah Hanani Mary Harrison Felicia Hendrix Maureen Hickey Christine Hobbie Marilyn D. Hunter Deborah Hutchison

Johanna Janssen Vera Kalm Audrey Kalman Nancy Kalodner Katherine Keenum Alison Larkin Maggie Leonard Eleanor Lord Barbara Manring Rachel Masch Carole Spearin McCauley Judith Nardacci Nancy Nirenberg Maryann Norris

upstreet a literary magazine

Wendy Rabinowitz Karen D. Richards Vlada Roussoff Nina Ryan Anne Serafin Marcie L. Setlow Hilda Banks Shapiro Mary Vasquez-Slack Lorna Strassler Abbie von Schlegell Edith Velmans Sandra Jean Walker Francine Weinberg Kelly Wickliff Gertrude Wilmers

5 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Major funding for the 2014 Berkshire Festival of Women Writers is provided by:

6 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Who starts college after the 10th or 11th grade?

We do.

Our rigorous program in the liberal arts and sciences challenges students who are original thinkers, passionate learners, and creative self-starters. Most start here at 16 and earn their BA by 20. If you know a student who is ready for more than high school offers, we’re ready too.

Contact us to learn more. Be sure to ask about our Berkshire Regional Scholarship.

simons-rock.edu • achieve@simons-rock.edu • 800.235.7186

(Numerals indicate number of Festival events held at venue) Arrowhead Museum, Pittsfield Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington (7) Barnes & Noble, Pittsfield Bartholomew’s Cobble, Sheffield Beacon Theater, Pittsfield The Bookloft, Great Barrington Bushnell Sage Library, Sheffield Church on the Hill Annex, Lenox (2) Clark Biscuit Community Room, North Adams Congregation Knesset Israel, Pittsfield Congregational Church, Stockbridge Deb Koffman Artspace, Housatonic (2) Dewey Memorial Hall, Sheffield Good Purpose Gallery, Lee Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School The Guthrie Center, Great Barrington (2) Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Lenox (3) Lenox Library, Lenox The Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, Pittsfield (2) LifeWorks Studio, Great Barrington Mason Library, Great Barrington (6) MCLA Church Street Center, North Adams MCLA Gallery 51, North Adams Milne Public Library, Williamstown Miss Hall’s School, Pittsfield (3) The Mount, Lenox (4) Movement Matters, Great Barrington (2) Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge Otis Public Library, Otis PRESS Gallery, North Adams Shaker Dam Coffeehouse & Stanmeyer Gallery, West Stockbridge Shakespeare & Company, Lenox Six Depot Roastery and Café, West Stockbridge South Berkshire Friends Meeting House, Great Barrington The Unicorn Theater, Stockbridge (3) Whitney Center for The Arts, Pittsfield (3)

7 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Thanks to our 2014 Festival venues:

8 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

upstreet is an award-winning literary annual publishing the best new fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction available.

The first nine issues contain interviews with Jim Shepard, Lydia Davis, Wally Lamb, Michael Martone, Robin Hemley, Sue William Silverman, Dani Shapiro, Douglas Glover, and Emily Fragos.

Our tenth anniversary issue, featuring an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler, will be

available in early July 2014.

www.upstreet-mag.org

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Events

All events are free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis unless otherwise indicated in the event listing. Complete bios and additional information about the presenters available on the Festival website, Berkshirewomenwriters.org.

Event titles in green are part of the 2014 Festival Special Focus, “Writing the Self, Righting the World: New Visions of Personal and Planetary Health and Healing.”

Please check the website regularly for late-breaking changes or cancellations due to weather or illness.

Date

Page Writing About Place, Part I

15

Food Writing Forum

15

Out of the Mouths of Babes

17

Inspiring Generosity

19

I Sing The Body Electric

19

3/3

The Weary Heart in a Weary World: Writing to Stay Alive

19

3/4

Gloria Steinem: The Progression of Feminism

21 21

3/5

Corona: A Dark Comedy about Being a Pakistani-American Woman Young Women Writers from Monument Mountain High School

23

The Belly Monologues

23

Take Good Care!

25

Balancing the Personal and the Political

25

Here on Earth: Poetry and Song

25

Writing About Place, Part 2

27

Essay Writing with Purpose

27

Rumors

29

3/1

3/2

3/6

3/7

3/8 continues

9 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Be

hire Fest ival of Wo s k r m

10 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Proud to support the 2014 Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

www.berkshiregas.com

Page The Earth is Our Mothers…

29

The Heroine’s Journey

31

3/9

International Women’s Day 2014: On the Side of Justice

33

3/10

Meeting On the Bridge

35

Nature Journaling

35

A Date with Your Creative Self

35

Shakespeare & Company Young Women Writers

37

Writing from Life - Writing for Life

37

The Heroine’s Journey Workshop

37

Indie Publishing for Women

39

Tools to Jumpstart Your Writing from Page to Stage

39

Poetry in Play

39

Introduction to Writing for Blogs and Social Media

41

Writing That Matters

41

Women Writers of a Certain Age

43

Preparing for Print: An Introduction to Self-Publishing

43

Communologue: The Power of Community

43

Peggy Seeger Lecture in Song

45

In Words Out Words In Women’s Own Words

47

Poetry, Paradox, and Prayer

47

Press Ready 101

47

Balancing Your Feminine and Masculine Energies

49

Women Who Embrace Aging

49

Literary Transvestism: An Exploration of Cross-writing

49

3/8

3/11

3/12 3/13 3/14

3/15

3/16

3/17

3/18

3/19 3/20 3/21

11 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Date

12 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Congratulations

Berkshire Festival of Women Writers.

We applaud celebrating the stories of women changing the world right here at home.

womensfund.net

Page Rites of Passage

51

Writing for Publication

51

Making Fiction Matter

51

Woman Talk: Voices We Write

53

Karen Shepard: On Writing Historical Fiction

53

We Are Not Alone: Friendship, Solitude and the Writing Life

53

Creating a Positive Future with the Alphabet of Vibration

55

A Celebration of The Next Generation of Young Women Writers

55

Soundplay/Wordplay

55

3/26

What I Forgot…And Why I Remembered

57

3/27

Who Cares?

57

Courage: A Collaborative Community Performance

59

Emerging Berkshire Poets Read

59

Conversations with the Sea

61

Night Vision

61

Motherhood Out Loud

63

Inspired by Melville—Writing About Place

63

2014 BFWW Writing Contest Reading and Prize Ceremony

65

Motherhood Out Loud: Gala Performance

65

Before I Forget… A Workshop in Memoir Making

67

Channeling Rachel Carson: Finding Your Inner Muckraker

67

Performance: ENUF!

69

Gala Festival Closing Party

69

3/22

3/23 3/24 3/25

3/28

3/29

3/30

3/31

13 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Date

14 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Fifth -grader Sajani Thapa, on her way to a Saturday morning enrichment class.

Sponsorship is a special kind of giving that creates a relationship between you and the family for which Hands In Outreach is helping to create beneficial and lasting change. Providing more than the satisfaction that comes with helping to improve the health and well-being of children, sponsorship delivers a meaningful opportunity to witness young lives enabled over time to gain a foothold into a better life.

A yearly pledge of $400.00 covers tuition, books, uniform and health care for a girl in one of our affiliate schools, from KG through high school in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. Our small, caring staff in Nepal knows each of the 100 children we sponsor, making regular home and school visits to closely monitor the progress of each HIO student.

Ricky Bernstein, 413.229.7993 or rickypenrose@gmail.com Hands In Outreach is a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization

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Events

Writing About Place: How Place Can Save You, Your Writing and the World Led by Kateri Kosek Bartholomew’s Cobble, 105 Weatogue Road, Ashley Falls, 10:30 a.m.

In this first half of the Writing About Place workshop, we will consider how place can serve as a vehicle for stories and discoveries of a more personal nature, as well as how an awareness of place might extend to community action and a larger environmental consciousness. Kateri Kosek will lead a bird/nature walk at the Cobble (bring binoculars if you have them). Afterwards, through writing exercises, we’ll attempt to find links between the self and the natural world, both near and far. Part Two, led by Jessica Treat, on Saturday March 8.

Photo by Christina Rahr Lane.

Food Writing Forum Hosted by Carolyn Fabricant Milne Public Library, 1095 Main St., Williamstown, 1 p.m.

Writers are invited to entertain the gathering with a short piece in poetry or prose (500 words maximum)—fiction or non-fiction, humorous or serious—about that subject most vital to our personal pleasure and planetary health: FOOD. Some suggestions to stimulate your creative juices: a restaurant review; a personal culinary passion; an exotic (or dismal) dining experience; an imagined last meal; portrait of a chef; a dieter’s journey; a food plan for health in hard times. Leave us with a pungent taste of your style and a vivid memory of your subject. If you would like to read your work, telephone 413-664-0167 or email carolynfab@aol.com by February 25, 2014.

15 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Saturday 3/1

16 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Laundry Line Divine presents:

Saturday 3/1 continued

Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading To Others

What do mothers make? Our event delves into this question through writing and art by women of the Berkshires, spelunking into the heart of mothers who promote ideas or make pie, write poems or make peace, paint paintings or write plays. Written work by Janet Reich Elsbach, Jenny Laird, Leigh Strimbeck, Michelle Gillett, Nichole Dupont and Suzi Banks Baum will be counterpointed by video presentations featuring new women writers who have discovered their own stories in Suzi’s Powder Keg Sessions writing workshops. Since March 2012, this Festival event has opened the landscape for presenters and audience alike in a frank discussion of mothering and creativity. Bedtime snacks included!

Top: Suzi Banks Baum and Michelle Gillett. Left and bottom: 2013 “Out” reading. Photos by Christina Rahr Lane.

17 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Hosted by Suzi Banks Baum, featuring readings by Janet Reich Elsbach, Jenny Laird, Leigh Strimbeck, Michelle Gillett, Nichole Dupont and Suzi Banks Baum Dewey Memorial Hall, 91 Main Street, Sheffield, 7 p.m.

18 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

CELEBRATE THE NEXT GENERATION OF BERKSHIRE WRITERS!

sponsored by

Guardian Life and

The Berkshire Eagle

The 15th Annual Edith Wharton Writing Competition Awards Ceremony and Reception

April 27, 2014 4:00 p.m.

For more information please visit EdithWharton.org or call 413-551-5100.

Sunday 3/2 Inspiring Generosity: New Perspectives on What it Means to Be Generous Inspiring Generosity grows out of Barbara Bonner’s extensive experience working with philanthropists and a desire to explore the power of generosity to transform our lives as individuals, families, communities, work places, cultures and the world at large. Generosity often arrives in our lives in a lightning bolt of inspiration – a word, a gesture, a story, a quotation or poem. In her presentation, Barbara will discuss these moments of inspiration in others’ lives, as well as her own transformational exploration of generosity. She will give us some highlights from the book, including stories of “generosity heroes,” inspirational poems and quotations from a wide variety of sources, and a few remarks on the vagaries of getting just the right publisher for her first book. Barbara’s talk will be followed by a champagne reception and book-signing.

I Sing The Body Electric

Workshop led by Heather C. Meehan Daniel Arts Center Dance Studio, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 7 p.m.

In this workshop Simon’s Rock senior Heather C. Meehan will lead the group in exploring and activating the dialogue between language and movement, through exercises that use literary forms (short story, poetry, personal essay, etc.) as a framework for inspiring movement. Learn how to move your body in poetic meter, create dance “haikus” and retell stories from your own personal mythology through interpretive dance.

Monday 3/3 The Weary Heart in a Weary World: Writing to Stay Alive Reading led by Kuukua Dzigbordi Yomekpe Blodgett Hall, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington 7 p.m.

We know that the world has the potential to wear one out but when does one become weary? Statistics show that women of color tend to become weary at a much earlier age.

To counteract this, some of these women turn to writing. This lively reading will feature Ghanaian writer Kuukua Dzigbordi Yomekpe and other young women of color from Bard College at Simon’s Rock who are writing their way through this weary world.

writing astonishes its writer first. Be bold. Be honest. “ Good ” —Mary Pipher

19 • BFWW • March 2013 For full listings and biographies, check our website at berkshirewomenwriters.org

Book Launch, Reading, and Reception with Barbara Bonner The Mount, 2 Plunkett St, Lenox, 2 p.m.

20 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

P U BLI C P OLI C Y LEC TU R E SER IES

GLORIA STEINEM Tuesday, March 4 at 7pm MCLA ChURCh STREET CEnTER Eleanor Furst Roberts Auditorium, 375 Church Street, North Adams, MA Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, editor, and feminist activist.

She is currently at work on a book about her more than thirty years on the road as a feminist organizer.

FREE And OPEn TO ThE PUBLIC. Made possible through the generosity of the Ruth Proud Charitable Trust.

M AS SA C hu S ettS Col l ege of l ib erAl Ar tS

M C LA .E dU

Tuesday 3/4 Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Spring 2014 Public Policy Lecture:

The Progression of Feminism: Where are we going?

Lecture by Gloria Steinem The Public Policy Lecture Series is made possible through the generosity of the Ruth Proud Charitable Trust.

Distinguished writer, lecturer and editor Gloria Steinem has been a leading media spokeswoman on issues of equality since 1972, when she co-founded Ms. Magazine. She continues to serve as a consulting editor for Ms., and was instrumental in the magazine’s move to join and be published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. In 1968, she had helped to found New York Magazine, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles for many years. She will present her view of the progress (or lack thereof) of the feminist movement, and her vision of a future of greater equality for all.

yet to be on a campus where most women weren’t “ I’ve worrying about some aspect of combining marriage, children, and a career. I’ve yet to find one where many men were worrying about the same thing.

—Gloria Steinem

”

Wednesday 3/5 Corona A Dark Comedy about Being a Pakistani-American Woman A Reading & Writing Workshop with Bushra Rehman Alumni Library, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 4 p.m.

Bushra Rehman will read from Corona, her new novel about the misadventures of Razia Mirza, a young Pakistani woman from Corona, Queens. When Razia is ex-communicated from her Muslim community, she hits the road, but it doesn’t take her long to realize that traveling as a woman is very different than traveling as Jack Kerouac. Following the reading and discussion, Rehman will lead a workshop on writing from life, which can be a tricky business when there are people to protect, faulty memories of events, and the pitfalls of self-censorship and self-aggrandizement. Together, we will write, inspired by both the truths and lies of our lives.

Bushra Rehman. Photo by Jaishri Abichandani.

21 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

MCLA Church Street Center, Eleanor Furst Roberts Auditorium, North Adams, 7 p.m.

22 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

stockbridge, massachusetts

mission driven, donor supported

800.741.7353

kripalu.org

Wednesday 3/5 continued

A Celebration of Young Women Writers from Monument Mountain Regional High School Hosted by Lisken Van Pelt Dus The Guthrie Center, 2 Van Deusenville Rd, Great Barrington, 7 p.m.

Students from last year’s MMRHS celebration.

Thursday 3/6 The Belly Monologues Workshop led by Grace Rossman Alumni Performance Center, Student Union, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 4 p.m.

If your belly could talk, what would it say? We are bombarded daily with messages urging us to reduce, fix and “tame” our bellies: to make them go away. We’ve heard enough of what society has to say on the subject of your belly; now we want to hear from YOU. In this workshop focused on the art of purposeful memoir, you will get a chance to write the story of your relationship to your belly, share the most important points of your story with the group and, ultimately, condense the essence of your story into a word or phrase to be proudly written on your belly – and photographed, if you so choose. This workshop is for women only.

23 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

This celebratory reading will feature a mixed-genre selection of work by young women writers. The young writers will each read a short selection of poetry, fiction, drama, journalism or creative non-fiction. Participants will be selected by Monument Mountain English faculty members, who will also moderate the event.

Women’s Interfaith Institute in the Berkshires Twenty-One Years of Women Supporting Women of Diverse Faiths and Traditions Monthly Gatherings ~ Spirituality ~ Community Wednesday, March 19, 2014 24 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

6:00 pm – 8:30 pm Potluck Program

Poetry, Paradox, and Prayer Jan Hutchinson will lead poetry writing exercises and give a short reading from her new book of poems,

Raggedy Prayers and Crooked Ladders First Congregational Church of Stockbridge 4 Main Street

Stockbridge, MA

www.womensinterfaithberkshires.org (413) 442-3604

Abbie J. von Schlegell, CFRE Principal Abbie, based in the Berkshires since 2007, has been providing counsel in the nonprofit sector for over 40 years. Workshops and individual coaching available.

Contact us today for a free 60-minute consultation!

Join me in the Godmother’s Circle!

Fundraising Governance Planning Women’s Philanthropy 

410.908.9068





www.abbievonschlegell.com

Thursday 3/6 continued

Take Good Care!

Have you ever been well-tended, or looked after another with tenderness? What does good care look like? What does it feel like? Join CATA faculty member Janet Reich Elsbach to explore the feelings and details of kind care giving. Part memoir, part imagination and part community-building, this three-session writing workshop is open to writers of all abilities, ages 10 to 103. Second and third sessions on March 13 & 20. Advance registration is warmly encouraged. Please email seewhocares@gmail.com to register.

Balancing the Personal and the Political Panel Discussion with Carol Ascher, Laurie Lisle and Marnie Mueller Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Route 183, Lenox, 7 p.m.

Three feminist writers, each with different rich experiences and long-developed perspectives, will explore the potential challenges and conflicts of simultaneously “writing the self” and “righting the world.” Although the writers on this panel have spent years deeply concerned about environmental dangers to our planet as well as other burning political issues, we are predominantly writers of memoir and fiction. In our everyday lives we have taken strong activist positions, though when we sit down to write, our outrage at the world’s injustices more often than not serves as subtext in our work. The desire to right the world can be hidden in personal obsessions, or filtered through imaginary characters intentionally created to hold values quite different from our own. This session will explore the daily decisions we face as writers about whether it is enough that our self-expression, in its honesty and sensitivity, indirectly shows our concerns and commitments, or whether our words and narrative arcs must be more explicit and direct.

Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Please call 866-200-5203 to reserve tickets.

Friday 3/7 Here on Earth: Poetry and Song Led by Rosemary Starace and JoAnne Spies Six Depot Roastery and Café, 6 Depot Street, West Stockbridge, 7 p.m.

Join JoAnne Spies and Rosemary Starace as they interweave songs and poetry in praise of our planet—its inhabitants and happenings. Dragonflies and slugs, robins and rainstorms, cat ladies and continents: all are represented. Guitar, dulcimer, accordion, flutes, rattles, and drums will accompany original and familiar pieces spoken, chanted and sung.

Top: Rosemary Starace. Left: JoAnne Spies

25 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Writing Workshop led by Janet Reich Elsbach Mason Library, 231 Main St, Great Barrington 5:30 p.m.

26 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

10 CASTLE STREET • GREAT BARRINGTON • MASS 01230 TEL: 413-528-5244 • LIVE JAZZ FRI & SAT WWW.CASTLESTREETCAFE.COM • INFO@CASTLESTREETCAFE.COM

MICHAEL BALLON, CHEF PROPRIETOR

is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope. “ Life ” —Edith Wharton

Saturday 3/8 Writing About Place: How Place Can Save You, Your Writing and the World Jessica Treat will lead this second half of the Writing About Place workshop in the more urban setting of Pittsfield. After listening and looking, reading excerpts of poetry and nonfiction of cityscapes, we’ll do our writing from memory and imagination. We will then consider how place can serve as a vehicle for stories and discoveries of a more personal nature, as well as how an awareness of place might extend to community action and a larger environmental consciousness.

Essay Writing with Purpose Writing workshop led by Anastasia Stanmeyer Otis Public Library, 48 North Main Rd, Otis, 2 p.m.

Participants at Stanmeyer’s 2013 workshop at the Otis Public Library.

This adult writing workshop will focus on writing an essay with a purpose and an audience in mind, an essay that tells a story by pulling the writer into it. This more personal type of writing allows the writer to put herself into the piece, while allowing facts and impressions to add authenticity and credibility. The goal is to set up an “argument” or a hypothesis that, if crafted well, carries the reader through the end and not only creates a revelation, but also brings the reader closer to the writer and to the subject that is being written about. This workshop, let by Berkshire Magazine editor Anastasia Stanmeyer, is free, although registration is suggested because space is limited. Participants are encouraged to share work that they have done and receive feedback. To register, email astanmeyer@berkshiremag.com.

27 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Workshop led by Jessica Treat Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, 28 Renne Ave, Pittsfield, 10:30 a.m.

OPEN YEAR-ROUND!

COMING SOON!

28 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

ANI DIFRANCO May 3

PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY July 24-26

14 Castle St, Gt Barrington, MA • www.mahaiwe.org • 413.528.0100

Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Support The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers!

Visit our website at

Berkshirewomenwriters.org for secure online donations

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Saturday 3/8 continued

Reading by Stephanie Abrams Barnes & Noble, 555 Hubbard Avenue, Pittsfield, MA, 2 p.m.

The Earth is Our Mothers…

A One-Woman Exhibition of Weavings and Mixed-Media Assemblages

by Wendy A. Rabinowitz Opening Reception and Artist’s Talk in honor of International Women’s Day Hillman-Jackson Gallery, Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, 4 p.m.

On view until April 6, 2014 “The Earth is Our Mothers” represents fiber artist Wendy Rabinowitz’s on-going dedication to bringing forth women’s unique stories, as well as her commitment to advocating for the wise stewardship of our sacred Earth. Her exhibit features a series of artworks expressed in visual and written form using a diversity of materials and techniques: weaving, wrapping, layering, molding, embellishment and calligraphy, employing a variety of forms and materials from the Earth.

The artist’s intention, as she works daily in her Living Threads Judaica studio in Pittsfield, is to co-create with “The-Source-of-All” to provide gateways of connection and renewal.

Detail of Sarah, the V’imoteinu, by Wendy A. Rabinowitz.

29 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Conspiracies, secrets, lies, scandals and loves are woven into the intrigue of the business and personal lives of Frank, his young wife, Maisy, their family and friends as rumors swirl around them and the company Frank joins in his search for a more comfortable life. Join radio broadcaster Stephanie Abrams for a lively reading and discussion of how rumors can change your life!

Anna Myers Illustration

30 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Graphic Design Web Design & Wordpress

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Saturday 3/8 continued

The Heroine’s Journey: Tales of Love, Despair, Faith and Forgiveness

In this unique one-woman performance, storyteller Amber Chand offers evocative tales from her own heroine’s journey. Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Amber spent much of her early life cloistered in a British boarding school. She was then caught up in the terrifying military coup that brought tyrannical dictator Idi Amin. Ultimately, Amber arrived in the United States where she rebuilt her life as a global entrepreneur supporting women in places like Rwanda, Afganistan and Darfur. Her performance is part memoir, part musing – authentic, raw and vulnerable. By sharing her own personal narrative, Amber inspires audiences to experience their own hero/ine’s journey, one that is part of a larger poignant huAmber Chand man story of love, despair, faith and forgiveness.

Join the community of women writers in the Berkshires!

Visit the Festival website to learn more about these upcoming events: •

April 13, Lean in with the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, free monthly drop-in networking and learning circle for women at any stage of their journey as writers, 3 – 5 p.m. at the Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield

•

May 17, Questions for our Mothers, community reading in honor of Mother’s Day 2014, 4 p.m. at the Sandisfield Arts Center

•

June 7 – 13, a week of Writing Workshops for Women—stay tuned for more details!

Berkshirewomenwriters.org Find us on Facebook

31 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Written and performed by Amber Chand Whitney Center for the Arts, 42 Wendell Avenue, Pittsfield, 7 p.m.

Tickets $25, available at: www.heroinesjourney.eventbrite.com

32 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Presented by the Berkshire Human Rights Speaker Series & The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

2014 International Women’s Day

On the Side of Justice

Sunday, March 9, 2014 at 2pm

McConnell Theater, Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, MA

Raquel Partnoy, Alicia Partnoy and Ruth Irupé Sanabria For more information, contact Ricky Bernstein rickypenrose@gmail.com 413.229.7993

Lorimer Burns CERAMICS

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A portion of all sales goes to Kiva.org to support women entrepreneurs in developing countries. lorimerburnsceramics.com

Sunday 3/9 Special Event:

International Women’s Day 2014: On the Side of Justice Moderated by Nicole Caso, Bard College Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock 84 Alford Rd, Great Barrington, 2 p.m.

Co-sponsored by Bard College at Simon’s Rock, the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers and the Berkshire Human Rights Speaker Series.

During the years of military rule in Argentinian the 1970s, Alicia Partnoy was a young student who, along with her husband and thousands of others, was “disappeared.” For five months, she was held in a clandestine prison by government forces for daring to argue for social equality and human Left: Ruth Irupé Sanabria. Right: Alicia Partnoy, photo by Emilia Marconetto rights. Her 18-month-old daughter Ruth was fortunate to have been found by her grandparents and raised by Raquel and her husband until Alicia’s release. Alicia was one of the few survivors of this kind of brutal detention, and after two and a half additional years in jail, she was expelled from the country and admitted to the United States as a refugee with her daughter. Her parents later followed, and together they rebuilt their lives in Washington DC. Raquel, Alicia and Ruth have made use of literature, poetry and visual art to process their traumatic personal experiences, as well as to raise awareness about human rights abuses in Argentina and other places in the world. The paintings of visual artist Raquel Partnoy are a call to action on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. Alicia Partnoy’s 1982 book, The Little School, was the first testimonial written in English, describing in detail an Argentine secret detention center. It is still widely read and taught today and it was presented as evidence in the recent trials against the genocide perpetrators. Ruth Irupé Sanabria’s book, The Strange House Testifies (2009), is the first book to poetically document the Argentinian genocide from a child’s point of view.

Raquel Partnoy, Alicia Partnoy and Ruth Irupé Sanabria will share their art, writing, memories and commentary on the continuing struggles for justice in Argentina. They will discuss their conviction that active engagement and resistance through creative expression is worth the effort and the risk, providing the possibility of countering destructive violence with creative healing and regeneration that benefits society as a whole.

33 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Featuring three women of a remarkable Argentinian Jewish family: Raquel Partnoy, Alicia Partnoy, and Ruth Irupé Sanabria

34 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Change Your Story Creative Body-Centered Psychotherapy

M

M

Annabelle F. Coote, MA, LMHC, BC-DMT, CADC www.movement-matters.com ac@movement-matters.com 413.854.1512

Monday 3/10 Meeting On the Bridge

Meet Polish radio announcers, a Muslim man from Morocco happily married to a Catholic woman from Massachusetts, leaders of the NAACP, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, families from Ecuador celebrating Easter with a rich bean soup and remembering the holiday that filled the streets of their native cities, Kate Abbott and Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant and a spoken word performer from the Berkshires who has traveled to South Africa. For more than two years, Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant of Multicultural BRIDGE and Kate Abbott, Editor of Berkshires Week in The Berkshire Eagle have collaborated on a regular highlight in the magazine, “On the Bridge,” a column allowing Berkshire residents from all over the world to tell their stories. Celebrate the richness of the people around us as On the Bridge writers Siobhan Connally, Elizabeth Blackshine, and Margot Welch gather to share stories as part of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers.

Tuesday 3/11 Nature Journaling Workshop led by Karen Lindquist, Director of the Bushnell-Sage Library Bushnell-Sage Library, 48 Main Street, Sheffield, 3:30 p.m.

A workshop for writers of all ages on the history and technique of nature journaling, designed for the beginner. We will present a brief history of nature journaling through readings and explore techniques in observation, drawing and writing to make this an enjoyable life-long experience. Weather permitting, we will take a foray onto the park-like grounds of the library to observe, experience and illustrate our immediate environment.

A Date with Your Creative Self Workshop led by dance/movement therapist Annabelle Coote Movement Matters, 30 Elm Court 1st floor, Great Barrington, 7:30 p.m.

Have a date night with yourself! Kick off your shoes and take some time out to relax, quiet the chatter in your thoughts, wake up your body and feel energized. In this interactive workshop, we will use writing, movement and other creative arts to play, explore and discover. There will be opportunity to share writing and creative works for those who wish to do so. No prior writing, arts, or movement exAnnabelle Coote perience necessary - just willingness to explore and create.

35 • BFWW • March 2013 For full listings and biographies, check our website at berkshirewomenwriters.org

Reading and discussion hosted by Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant and Kate Abbott with Multicultural BRIDGE “On the Bridge” columnists for The Berkshire Eagle Mason Library, 231 Main St, Great Barrington 7 p.m.

36 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

LENOX, MA

feb 14 – mar 30 BERNSTEIN THEATRE

private liveS

by NOËL COWARD directed by TONY SIMOTES featuring DANA HARRISON and DAVID JOSEPH

coming Summer 2014

celebrate

450th

the anniverSary of ShakeSpeare’S birth

ShakeSpeare.org or 413-637-3353 Tony Simotes, Artistic Director

70 Kemble Street, Lenox, MA

Wednesday 3/12 Shakespeare & Company presents: Reading hosted by Carmen-Maria Mandley The Elayne P. Bernstein Theater, 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, 7 p.m.

Tickets $5.00 for students, seniors and military; $10.00 for the general public, available through the Shakespeare & Company box office: www.shakespeare.org or 413-637-3353 The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers and Shakespeare & Company join forces to co-sponsor this special event celebrating young women writers ages 12-19 from the Berkshires and neighboring communities in an evening of poetry, short stories and short plays. Participants hail from many different local schools, including Wahconah High School, Taconic High School, Pittsfield High School, Lenox Memorial High School, Mount Everett Regional High School, Miss Hall’s School, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Chatham High School, The Montessori School of the Berkshires and Drury High School. Before the reading participants will take part in a free performance workshop taught by professional Shakespeare & Company actors and directors, culminating the evening performance of their own work for friends, family, and the public.

Writing from Life - Writing for Life Workshop led by Signe Schaefer Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School, 35 West Plain Road, Great Barrington, 7 p.m.

Writing is an important tool in working with our own biographies. As we write about our lives, we can awaken insights into past events and can also discover windows and doorways to the future. Biographical writing invites us to open our attention, to look beyond what we think we know, beyond our habits of self-perception. Using visual prompts we will explore our way through past experiences toward our own next steps - as writers and/or in our everyday lives.

Thursday 3/13 The Heroine’s Journey: Stepping into a Brave New World Workshop led by Amber Chand Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Route 183, Lenox, 7 p.m.

What would you do if you were to move beyond the safe edges of your life and step into a new story – one that calls you to live from an enlivened place of possibility? During this workshop we will explore the call of our souls, which beckons us from the liminal space of potential, and begin to trace pathways into our envisioned future. We will listen deeply to what is seeking to emerge through us and be gently guided to meeting our “future self.” We will discern what needs to be released and left behind in order for us to bravely embrace this call, and discover transformational tools that will enable us to manifest the heroine within us with the spirit of ease and grace. Please bring your journal and an open heart.

Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Please call 866-200-5203 to reserve tickets.

37 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

A Celebration of Young Women Writers

38 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Friday 3/14 So You Want to Publish Your Book: Indie Publishing for Women With the world of traditional publishing in disarray, many writers are making the choice to self-publish. However, the world of independent publishing can be bewildering at first.

Texts need editing and many rounds of proofing; formats need specifying; cover copy needs writing; the book needs designing, inside and out; the mode of printing, of distributing, of fulfillment....And we haven’t even mentioned marketing and promotion, the writer’s presence online, or the business end of the endeavor. Managing all these choices so that the self-publishing enterprise is not only successful but enjoyable takes knowledge of the resources available professionally and personally. This session provides an overview of the field.

How to Get it Up…. Tools to Jumpstart Your Writing from Page to Stage Workshop led by Sara Katzoff and Nichole Dupont LifeWorks Studio, 50 Castle Street, Suite 2 Great Barrington, 5 p.m.

How do words transform when they are spoken aloud? It’s one thing to sit down alone and write, it’s quite another for those words to come off the page and begin to live on their feet. This workshop allows writers of all walks—fiction, memoir, poetry, fun—to experience the excitement of incorporating physicality and action into their work. Participants will write, collaborate and perform short dialogues, monologues and vignettes—all in one evening.

Sara Katzoff and Nichole Dupont

Saturday 3/15

Poetry in Play Workshop led by Lisken Van Pelt Dus Mason Library, 231 Main St, Great Barrington, 10:30 a.m.

Join poet and teacher Lisken Van Pelt Dus for a fast-paced, low-pressure round of improvisational writing exercises. Prompts will be interactive and surprising - come share in the group inspiration!

Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Become a Founding Festival Godmother!

For more information on supporting the Festival, visit us online at berkshirewomenwriters.org, or e-mail Festival Director Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez at bfww@simons-rock.edu.

39 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Workshop led by Marilyn Oser Mason Library, 231 Main St, Great Barrington, 2 p.m.

40 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

We know who makes the decisions.

You do.

Fairview Hospital is proud to be named among America’s 100 Best Hospitals for Patient Experience according to WomenCertified,® the home of the Women’s Choice Award.

WomenCertified® is a consumer advocacy organization for women which awards 100 hospitals in each of four bed-size categories based on their scores from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS). Responses to assessments are weighed based on the preferences and priorities of women to arrive at a score for each hospital.

29 Lewis Avenue, Great Barrington, Mass. • www.berkshirehealthsystems.org

Saturday 3/15 continued

Ready, Set, Go: Introduction to Writing for Blogs & Social Media You’ve got talent, ambition, writing skills and great ideas. You enjoy working on your own, and you’re not afraid to learn new technology. If you love the idea of running a blog but don’t know how to create one that will stand out in the overcrowded blogosphere, this workshop will help you zip past zero. Learn how to develop a blog with an authentic voice, how to engage in conversations with your audience, and how to maximize opportunities through social media. You’ll also learn the difference between writing for blogs and for social media platforms, and how to cross-promote, build an audience, develop a content calendar and more.

Sunday 3/16 Writing that Matters: Social and Environmental Activism Through the Written Word A Berkshire Magazine Live Panel Discussion Hosted by Anastasia Stanmeyer, editor of Berkshire Magazine, with Karen Berger, Clemma Dawsen, Kristin Moe, Judith D. Schwartz and Jenn Smith Beacon Theater, 57 North St, Pittsfield, 11 a.m.

From left: Anastasia Stanmeyer, Karen Berger, Clemma Dawsen and Jenn Smith.

Writing has always been a vehicle for raising awareness, sparking action, and posing questions that might unnerve readers—and people in power. Five established writers gather to discuss what stories mean the most to them, and how their writing has impacted their world. The talk will center around writing and publishing something that matters to you, that matters enough to you to tell others about it and that matters so much that you want as many individuals as possible to learn about it, to be impacted and to ultimately create change.

41 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Workshop led by Robin Catalano Lenox Library, Main Street, Lenox, 1 p.m.

42 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

The Troy Book Makers is a locally owned small business, offering a one-on-one relationship to each of our clients. Over the past 7 years we have helped more than 500 authors self-publish their books,

Sunday 3/16 continued

Women Writers of a Certain Age Hosted by Sonia Pilcer with readings by Jan Krause Greene, Maureen Howard, Cecile Kraus, Marilyn Oser and Sonia Pilcer The Mount, 2 Plunkett St, Lenox, 2 p.m.

We are women writers of a certain age, who grew up in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Perhaps age and experience give us the courage to express things we kept under wraps when we were younger. Certainly our writing skills improve with time, as does the desire to say the unsaid or unsayable. No more euphemisms! Come and hear a group of older women writers share their passions and what they know. There will be a discussion afterward—join the dialogue!

Sonia Pilcer

Monday 3/17 Preparing for Print: An Introduction to Self-Publishing With Jessika Hazelton of the Troy Bookmakers The Bookloft, 322 Stockbridge Rd, Great Barrington, 6:30 p.m.

You’ve just put the cap back on your pen or saved your last sentence—your latest written work is now complete. Now what? Join Jessika, manager of the Troy Book Makers, to find out more about polishing your completed work, getting ready for print, and what steps you can take to sell your book. This is an informational session that gives authors the basics about self-publishing. The Troy Book Makers staff provides tips, to-do lists, and honest advice.

The Power of Community: Linking the Personal and the Planetary Through Communologue Workshop led by relationship therapist Ani Grosser Church on the Hill Annex, 55 Main Street, Lenox, 7 p.m. ”When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.” - Brenda Ueland.

In this workshop we begin with the structured conversation known as Communologue, and then do some writing and (optional) sharing. The Communologue uses principles of deep, empathetic listening and thoughtful speech to create a safe and respectful space where our ideas can grow within us and come to life. The theme for our Communologue and our writing will be this year’s Festival special focus: “exploring the links between personal and planetary wellness.”

43 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

“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

44 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

“Peggy Seeger: A Feminist View of the Image of Women in Traditional Anglo-American Songs” is co-sponsored by Graham Dean, Lori Levinson, Crystal Essence, and Dennis Downing.

Tuesday 3/18 Special Event:

Hosted by Barbara and Graham Dean The Guthrie Center, 2 Van Deusenville Rd, Great Barrington. 4 p.m. $10 cover at the door ($5 students) benefits the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers and WBCR-LP

Peggy Seeger. Photo by Dale Hubert.

In this interactive lecture with song, acclaimed folksinger Peggy Seeger explores the image and roles of women in traditional Anglo-American songs dating from the 1600s onward.

In the first half, Peggy sings and talks about folk music and its role in conditioning us to accept and pass on the status quo. The traditional songs are descriptive: where gender politics are involved, they tend to crystallize and reinforce gender stereotypes. In the bulk of these songs (both humorous and serious), women are seen as property, as victims, as nags, as scolds, as schemers, and as traps laid for helpless men: they are subjected to incest, physical abuse and coercion at every level. In a minority of traditional pieces, women are seen as individuals of courage, stamina, tenderness, loyalty and inventiveness. In the second half, Peggy introduces contemporary songs about women, by both men and women. These songs are prescriptive: they not only cover the myriad of subjects left untended in the traditional pieces but they also challenge the stereotypes and offer various means of solving the contemporary gender bind.

45 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Peggy Seeger: A Feminist View of the Image of Women in Traditional AngloAmerican Songs

U N I TA R I A N U N I V E R S A L IS T M E E T I NG OF SOU T H BE R K SH I R E

46 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Now meets on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. at Ahavath Sholom 15 North Street Great Barrington, MA 01230 413-358-3877 uumsb@yahoo.com www.uumsb.org

h

UUMSB – A voice of liberal religion in the heart of beautiful Berkshire County, Massachusetts W E W E L C OM E E V E RYON E

Leave the center open to allow the wild rush of sky.

If the heart rises up to sail on the wind, how lovely.

If it lodges in a tree, follow your kite string, winding as you go.

r a g g e d y pr ay er s a nd c ro ok e d l a dder s ja n hutchinson d raw ings by chet k a lm

Climb and retrieve your flying heart.

Mend its tail of rags.

Prepare it for flight again tomorrow.

book available from: uumsb, p. o. box 423 great barrington, ma 01230 uumsb@yahoo.com www.uumsb.org

“these poems love the world, laugh at themselves, and honor the fluidity of truth.” jan

Tuesday 3/18 continued

IWOWWOW (IN WORDS OUT WORDS WOMEN’S OWN WORDS) A Festival favorite returns! This special women’s edition of In Words Out Words (IWOW), a monthly open mic for storytellers, poets, musicians, and performers, provides a vibrant, supportive platform for women writers to perform or read their own work: poetry, stories, songs. Reserve your maximum 5-minute slot by emailing Deb Koffman at deb@debkoffman.com or calling 413-274-1212.

Wednesday 3/19 Poetry, Paradox, and Prayer Reading and workshop with Jan Hutchinson Congregational Church, 4 Main St, Stockbridge, 6 p.m.

After the Women’s Interfaith potluck, Jan will read from her new poetry collection, Raggedy Prayers and Crooked Ladders, then lead a generative poetry workshop. Bring paper and pen. We will write from prompts and share our rather spontaneous poems, which will have been written in the spirit of play rather than of perfectionism. For some, the writing of poetry can be a spiritual practice. It can help us pay sharper attention to particulars, ponder self and world, honor the Great Mysteries, and move toward equanimity.

Jan Hutchinson

Press Ready 101 Workshop led by Sarah Platanitis PRESS Gallery, 49 Main St, North Adams, 6 p.m.

Workshop participants will be coached by a seasoned journalist and award-winning teacher to gain a better understanding of how journalists work. Learn the secrets to writing the perfect press release, how to prepare press and media kits, plus get tips on how to ace interviews and tune-up existing PR skills. This workshop can be motivating for beginners and energizing for those at intermediate or advanced levels.

Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Want to participate in next year’s Berkshire Festival of Women Writers?

For more information, drop us a line at

bfww@simons-rock.edu

47 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Reading hosted by Deb Koffman Deb Koffman Artspace, 137 Front Street, Housatonic, 7 p.m.

The Center for Peace through chotherapist for more than ed and facilitated a series of hers on environmental and SA, Europe and Canada and ciation.

antasy tales that will stimu-

e and masculine energies

d masculine energies

d of each story for a deeper

48 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

begin to integrate feminine

The Rose & the Sword • Judith Bach, Ph.D. & Nanette Hucknall

psychotherapist, writer and ed the Berkshire Center for Massachusetts, and, later, s Institute of New York and a Psychosynthesis trainer, a h that recognizes and works d spiritual dimension of an on to her long-time private rk as a trainer, Dr. Bach has in the United States, Ausd Germany.

The Rose & the Sword

How To Balance Your Feminine & Masculine Energies

Judith Bach, Ph.D. & Nanette Hucknall

Exploring Feminine & Masculine Energies in Yourself and in Your Writing

Explore the intuitive, reflective feminine and active, assertive masculine energies in yourself and in your writing to create compelling characters and story lines. Come to Nanette Hucknall’s dynamic workshop. Try first-hand experiential exercises that teach you how • you experience these energies; • this inner polarity governs your actions and relationships; • to balance and incorporate the positive aspects of both within yourself; and • to use these insights to enrich your writing.

The Rose & the Sword is available from Amazon.com, Ingram, Bowker or MSIPress.com

future belongs to those who believe “ The in the beauty of their dreams. ” —Eleanor Roosevelt

Thursday 3/20 Balancing Your Feminine and Masculine Energies Inside each of us, men and women, there are two kinds of energy — the active, assertive masculine energy, and the intuitive, reflective feminine energy — that exist beyond gender and sexual identity. Exploring the interaction between the energies and their positive and negative aspects, can help you create compelling fictional characters and story lines.

In this dynamic workshop there will be experiential exercises in how to balance and incorporate the positive aspects of the masculine and the feminine within yourself and how to use these insights to enrich your writing.

Friday 3/21 Women Who Embrace Aging A reading and discussion with Karel Rose Mason Library, 231 Main St, Great Barrington, 2 p.m.

This active participatory session aims to raise the consciousness of Berkshire women about the problem of ageism in American society. Elderly women, the fastest growing population in America, are living without a map, bereft of role models in a society that worships youth. Aging for women is compounded by the political and economic turmoil of our times which fuels personal fears and exacerbates long-standing sexist and ageist practices. Karel Rose will share the results of her interviews with aging women, some fictional and artistic references, and her own scholarship and personal memoir about aging, as well as read briefly from her forthcoming book, Women Who Embrace Aging. A discussion will follow, aimed at developing an agenda for future action.

Literary Transvestism: An Exploration of Cross-writing Reading and discussion hosted by Edie Meidav, with Sabina Murray, Helen Benedict, and Roxana Robinson The Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, 28 Renne Ave, Pittsfield, 7:30 p.m.

What does it mean in this era to write across gender? Where does the freedom and limitation of fiction locate itself? Join four lively, engaged contemporary fiction writers in a reading and interactive panel discussion on a topic burningly relevant to the pleasures, anxieties and aspirations of our current moment.

Edie Meidav, Helen Benedict Roxana Robinson, Sabina Murray

49 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Workshop led by Nanette Hucknall Mason Library, 231 Main St, Great Barrington, 4 p.m.

50 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

most common way people give up their “ The power is by thinking they don’t have any. ” —Alice Walker

Saturday 3/22

Workshop led by Pooja Ru Prema and Cindy L. Parrish with Meg Agnew, Cynthia Atwood, Suzi Banks Baum, Sarah Nicholson, Nancy Rothman, Camille Roos, Gail Ryan and Gabrielle Senza Whitney Center for The Arts, 42 Wendell Ave, Pittsfield, 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Rites of Passage was a 21-room living museum/ performance which took place in June 2013 at Whitney Center for the Arts, celebrating the unique thresholds of women’s lives from girlhood through elderhood, directed by Pooja Ru Prema in collaboration with 65 women and men, ages 3 to 89. In this writing workshop, we will view film footage from a handful of select rooms taken by Cindy L. Parrish, and then break out into writing sessions led by Pooja Ru Prema and Cindy L. Parrish. artists, in the (now-empty) rooms they curated or performed in during the June show. Participants will be able to experience and visit three different rooms through the course of the workshop, as well as participate in larger group sharing over toast and tea. Bring a back-jack for comfort if you desire, and please plan to arrive at least 5 minutes ahead of time. We encourage you to bring your mothers & daughters (age 10 and up). Men are welcome!

Writing for Publication Workshop for teen girls led by Berkshire Magazine editor Anastasia Stanmeyer Shaker Dam Coffeehouse & Stanmeyer Gallery, 2 Main Street, West Stockbridge, 2 to 4:30 p.m.

This writing workshop for teens will focus on the skills needed for creative writing, and result in finished works that could be published in magazines or online publications, including, potentially, Berkshire Magazine. The workshop will encompass finding a meaningful story, the process of reporting and pulling together this story, the editing process, and the goal of getting it published. Young participants will have an opportunity to share their writing and also to write from prompts. Space is limited for this free workshop, so advance registration is suggested; email astanmeyer@berkshiremag.com.

Making Fiction Matter: Writing for Social and Environmental Justice Reading and discussion hosted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez with writers Susie Dworkin, Christine Hobbie, Ellen Meeropol, and Jan Krause Greene Whitney Center for The Arts, 42 Wendell Ave, Pittsfield, 2 p.m.

Four fiction writers whose work deals with themes of environmental and social justice will read from their works and discuss the challenges of balancing commitment and craft in politically-themed fiction. How can fiction work to instill an urge to action and change in a reader? What are the major social and environmental issues that face us today, and how can fiction be a conduit for change?

51 • BFWW • March 2013 For full listings and biographies, check our website at berkshirewomenwriters.org

Rites of Passage Writing our way over the thresholds of womanhood

52 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

PROUD PRESENTERS & CO-PRESENTERS OF: • Berkshire Songwriters in the Round concert series • Music in Common Youth concert series • Sheffield Historical Society lectures • Sheffield Contra Dances • Berkshire Children’s Chorus

• • • • •

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Saturday 3/22 continued Reading and discussion with Amy Dryansky, Annie Boutelle and Ellen Doré Watson, hosted by Tupelo Press MCLA Gallery 51, 51 Main Street, North Adams, 2 p.m.

Sometimes the voices we write have a distinct persona, and sometimes it seems as if the poet herself is speaking. Between these two poles is a continuum in which the poet’s experience, identity, intention and imagination are at play. How do we know who’s really doing the talking? Join in a lively reading and discussion with three distinguished poetpresenters who will read from their work and talk about how they invent speakers who may--or may not--share characteristics with their authors. Each of the poets has experimented with writing a range of speakers, creating poems (and entire poetry collections) written in the voice of historical figures, contemporary characters drawn from the headlines and personae that are less easy to pin down, but somehow feel familiar.

Sunday 3/23 BFWW March Book Club Selection:

The Celestials Reading and talk by Karen Shepard The Mount, 2 Plunkett St, Lenox 2 p.m.

The Celestials is a historical novel about a group of 75 Chinese factory workers who arrived in North Adams, Massachusetts in 1870 to break a strike at the Sampson Shoe Factory. Except for the foreman, they didn’t speak English. They didn’t know they were strikebreakers. They stayed for ten years. Join us for a lively reading and discussion with Karen Shepard about the fact, fiction and writing process behind The Celestials.

We Are Not Alone: Friendship, Solitude and the Writing Life Reading and discussion led by Susie Kaufman and Joan Embree Deb Koffman Artspace, 129 Front Street, Housatonic, 4 p.m.

Writers need solitude to do their work and to visit their personal past where their material lies waiting for them. But writers are also famously lonely, exiled in the attic like Emily Dickinson, often without a community or even one other trustworthy listener to exchange experiences with. In this event, Joan Embree and Susie Kaufman, who have re-discovered each other as literary friends after more than 30 years, will explore this paradox by reading from their work, talking with one another and engaging the audience. They will entertain such thorny questions as: Can writing actually decrease our sense of isolation and despair? Is it possible for writers to be friends? Is it more or less difficult for women writers to become friends? And when they do come together to read, to talk, to listen, is that not sacred space?

Joan Embree in the Deb Koffman Artspace

53 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Woman Talk: Voices We Write

54 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

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Monday 3/24 Creating a Positive Future with the Alphabet of Vibration This workshop begins with the premise that creating a future where we honor each other and the earth is possible. What is the new vision? What do we need to release to make room for new ways of being to take place? How can we do that together? The Alphabet of Vibration® is an art series created by Analesa Rose Berg that combines 23 letters of the Hebrew alphabet with symbols from many traditions. Learn how Analesa created these images and be inspired to listen deeply to your own inner knowing. Through visualization, you will be invited to interact with the colorful mandala images as prompts to write, draw, or dance what you feel, see or hear. Expand your creative muscles and energize a positive future for all.

Tuesday 3/25 A Celebration of The Next Generation of Young Women Writers Hosted by Emily Pulfer-Terino with Olivia Gomez and Anna Durning Miss Hall’s School, 492 Holmes Rd, Pittsfield, 6:30 p.m.

This event will feature creative non-fiction and personal essays by Miss Hall’s students and other high school-age girls in Berkshire County. Participants will be selected by hosts Olivia Gomez, Anna Durning, and Emily Pulfer-Terino.

Soundplay/Wordplay Workshop led by Bhavani Lorraine Nelson Movement Matters, 30 Elm Court 1st floor, Great Barrington, 6:30 p.m.

In this workshop you’ll free your voice from the ground up with simple exercises to open the body; empower yourself to express more fully in every area of your life; luxuriate in the feeling that comes from sounding with like-hearted others; and use your experience of that exercise as inspiration for a short piece of writing, which you may share with the group if Bhavani Lorraine Nelson listens to Hilda Banks Shapiro read her essay. you wish. It’s guaranteed to be an enriching experience. Come dressed for movement and ready to fall in love--with your sound.

55 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Workshop led by Analesa Rose Berg Church on the Hill Annex, 55 Main Street, Lenox, 7 p.m.

Littlefield Color & Light 56 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

color and lighting design for interiors and exteriors Lydia Littlefield • 413 329 7567 LLColorandLight@gmail.com

DONOVAN & O’CONNOR, LLP Attorneys and Counselors at Law Serious Injury Representation Family and Divorce Law 1330 MASS MoCA Way North Adams, MA 01247 (413) 663-3200

Asset Protection and Estate Planning Business Representation

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www.docatty.com 100 Years of Service to Our Community

A woman-led non-profit organization since 1998.

Wednesday 3/26 What I Forgot…And Why I Remembered Purposeful memoir excavates the individual and societal past in order to understand the present and envision the future we want to live. How did we get here, both personally and as a society? And where do we want to go from here? How can we be the change we want to see, contributing our personal experience and talents to a broader movement for social and ecological health and balance? Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez will read from her forthcoming memoir, in which she explores the narrative of her own life as a means of grappling with the contemporary environmental crises that beset us all. Following the reading, an interactive discussion and guided writing exercise will bring these big questions and concerns back to the ground of our own life experience, understanding each of us as a microcosm of the human experience on the planet.

Maria Sirois, Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez and Lydia Littlefield lean in at the September 12 “Writing from the Heart” event at The Mount.

Thursday 3/27 Who Cares? Five Writers Raise the Voices of Women Who Tend To Others Reading hosted by Janet Reich Elsbach with Jenny Laird, Lydia Littlefield, Laura Silverman and Maria Sirois Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Route 183, Lenox, 7 p.m.

Through the prism of personal experience—caring for an aging parent, a dying sibling, a child with a disability, a partner with a chronic illness, and a job in a white coat—these five women will represent the collected thoughts of dozens engaged in the give and take of care. A discussion on looking after the self while tending to others will follow the readings.

Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Please call 866-200-5203 to reserve tickets.

57 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

A Reading and Discussion of Purposeful Memoir by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez South Berkshire Friends Meeting House, 280 State Road, Great Barrington, 4 p.m.

Writer’s Block?

58 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Hypnosis can help.

The Jordan Center for Creative Insight on the Great Barrington side of Monterey MA

Mary Kate Jordan, CH, DHP marykate@thejordancenter.com 413-528-5557 long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that “ Somatters, and whether it matters for ages or only for hours,

nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeves, is the most abject treachery.

—Virginia Woolf

”

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Friday 3/28 Courage: A Collaborative Community Performance

JoAnne Spies at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge.

Courage is a collaborative, interactive community performance and guided tour of the Norman Rockwell Museum, created by singer-songwriter JoAnne Spies, featuring songs, poems and stories on the theme of courage.

See JoAnne’s blog at storydrum.blogspot.com for a listing of community participants.

Emerging Berkshire Poets Read Poetry reading hosted by Jessica Treat, with Claudette Webster and Kathline Carr Good Purpose Gallery, 40 Main St, Lee, 5:30 p.m.

This event will feature two emerging Berkshire women poets whose work explores excavations in memory, experience, documentation, myth and history. Claudette Webster will read from a series of poems that explore the intersections of a daughter’s life with that of her mother’s, moving geographically from Jamaica to the US, and taking the measure of the impact of her mother’s death in 2001. Kathline Carr will give a reading of her recent documentary poems, which draw on myth, history, news events, feminist praxis and sociological fractures, creating a hybrid and fragmentary amalgam that blurs the sonic and the visual.

Claudette Webster

59 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Hosted by JoAnne Spies Norman Rockwell Museum, 9 Massachusetts 183, Stockbridge, 2:30 p.m.

visit www.BerkshireTrades.com for expanded advertiser’s information

60 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

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Friday 3/28 continued

Conversations with the Sea: A Collaborative Presentation in Words and Pictures

Spotted dolphins in the Bahamas.

Photo by Marie-Elizabeth Mali.

Marie-Elizabeth Mali’s underwater photography and poetry has been inspired by the plight of sharks, rays and other sea creatures worldwide. Hannah Fries and Sara Parrilli were inspired by the albatrosses of Midway Island, who feed at the plastic-filled Great Pacific Garbage Patch, to embark on a multimedia correspondence of poetry and visual art. Through poetry and striking visual images, the three artists will create a conversation inspired by the tragedies and beauties of the sea. The presentations will be followed by a discussion and Q&A on process and collaboration.

Night Vision Performance by Darlene White, hosted by Carolyn Fabricant Clark Biscuit Community Room, 179 Ashland Street, North Adams, 7 p.m.

(For reservations/parking, call 413-664-0167 by 3/26) In “Night Vision,” writer and storyteller Darlene White journeys back to the tenement neighborhood of her Pittsfield childhood, where her jittery mom ran illegal racetrack gambling operations and hosted marathon poker games in their tiny smoke-filled apartment. When young Darlene discovers“National Enquirer”tabloids stashed under her mother’s mattress, she learns new things. But her “Enquirer Studies” backfire, and worse, she begins to suspect that her mother and the National Enquirer have prepared her for the outside world about as much as drinking alcohol prepares you for a driving test. Determined to beat the odds and prove her nemesis mother wrong, Darlene begins trying—and failing—to make her losing hand win. With unblinking candor and delicious humor, Darlene’s mixture of street savvy and exquisite use of language brings her vivid stories to life.

61 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Reading with Hannah Fries, Sara Parrilli and Marie-Elizabeth Mali Centennial Hall, Miss Hall’s School, 492 Holmes Rd, Pittsfield, 7 p.m.

62 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

A film by high school students A film by Miss Hall’s girls

To view the film visit: www.tobecomealeader.org

Miss Hall’s School 492 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, Massachusetts 01201 (413) 499-1300 • www.misshalls.org • email: info@misshalls.org A L L - G I R L S • B O A R D I N G a n d D AY • G R A D E S 9 - 1 2

Friday 3/28 continued

Motherhood Out Loud

Motherhood Out Loud, conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein, is a culturally and gender diverse series of monologues on the subject of Motherhood, written by a host of celebrated writers. Motherhood Out Loud traverses the experience of motherhood in all its wonderful glory, from inception, birth, sexuality, growing up, letting go and the inevitable role reversal that occurs as we find ourselves parenting our parents. After successful productions all over the country, including an off-Broadway run in New York City, this will be the show’s Berkshire premiere. The cast will feature some celebrity surprises and some local favorites—check the Festival website for full cast listing.

After the show, WAM Theatre Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven and producer Susan R. Rose will moderate a panel discussion with the cast and Berkshire community members, delving further into the wide-ranging challenges and choices surrounding motherhood today.

Saturday 3/29 Inspired by Melville—Writing About Place Writing workshop led by Jana Laiz Arrowhead, 780 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, 10:30 a.m.

Workshop limited to 10 participants; register by emailing Jana at jana@janalaiz.com Come to Arrowhead with a notebook and a pen, quill or ballpoint and write the way Herman Melville did in 1850. Writer-In-Residence Jana Laiz will lead this ”unplugged” writing workshop. No Macbooks, no PCs, no iPads. With just paper, pen and inspiration we will write stories, essays, poetry… anything you feel inspired to put down on paper. We will share our stories (or not) and have fun getting the creative juices flowing in the place where it all happened. As Herman Melville gazed at Mt. Greylock from his window, the view and place inspiring him to pen Moby Dick and other stories, we will take inspiration from Melville’s place.

Jana Laiz

a voiced community, we all flourish. ” “ In—Terry Tempest Williams

63 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Performance with discussion moderated by Kristen van Ginhoven and Susan R. Rose Presented in collaboration with WAM Theatre, produced by Jayne Atkinson and Susan R. Rose The Unicorn Theater, 6 East St, Stockbridge, 7 p.m.

Tickets $30; see the Festival website for ticket information

64 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

The Berkshire Festival of Women Writers invites you to submit a short personal essay or poem in honor of Mother’s Day, written in response to this prompt:

Questions you would like to ask your mother / Questions you wish you had asked your mother Submissions will be judged by a Festival panel for a special Mother’s Day reading at the Sandisfield Arts Center on May 17 at 4 p.m.

Mail submissions in hard copy (750 words maximum) to Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, Bard College at Simon’s Rock / 84 Alford Road / Great Barrington MA 01230.

Postmark deadline April 15, 2014.

Saturday 3/29 continued

Special Events 2014 BFWW Writing Contest Reading and Prize Ceremony

This year’s contest invited women writers to submit nonfiction, fiction and poetry on the subject of “weather”: weather of the heart, weathering the storm, how weather extremes are affecting us personally, politically, culturally, environmentally, keeping in mind the special focus of the 2014 Festival, “Writing the Self, Righting the World: New Visions of Personal and Planetary Health.”

The prize ceremony will feature a reading by each winner, followed by a panel discussion moderated by contest judge and Orion magazine editor, Jennifer Sahn.

Other panelists are Barbara Zheutlin, Executive Director of Berkshire Grown, Alice Maggio of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, and poet Amy Dryansky, who works for a regional land trust. With the winning pieces as a starting point, the discussion will focus on ways to examine, explore, and spark new perspectives on the links between personal and planetary wellness, particularly within our own lives and communities. How can writing inspire change? What stories are being told in our culture and communities on this subject? What stories are not being told?

Motherhood Out Loud: Gala Benefit Performance Performance presented in collaboration with WAM Theatre, produced by Jayne Atkinson and Susan R. Rose The Unicorn Theater, 6 East St, Stockbridge, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Tickets for the matinee are $30; $50 for the 7 p.m. gala performance with reception, to benefit WAM Theatre and the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers; See the Festival website for ticket information Motherhood Out Loud, conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein, is a culturally and gender diverse series of monologues on the subject of Motherhood, written by a host of celebrated writers. Motherhood Out Loud traverses the experience of motherhood in all its wonderful glory from inception, birth, sexuality, growing up, letting go and the inevitable role reversal that occurs as we find ourselves parenting our parents. After successful productions all over the country, including an off-Broadway run in New York City, this will be the show’s Berkshire premiere. The cast will feature some celebrity surprises and some local favorites—check the Festival website for full cast listing.

After the 2 p.m. show, WAM Theatre Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven and producer Susan R. Rose will moderate a panel discussion with the cast and Berkshire community members, delving further into the wide-ranging challenges and choices surrounding motherhood today.

There will be a champagne reception following the 7 p.m. Gala performance.

65 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Hosted by Michelle Gillett and Nina Ryan with Jennifer Sahn, Barbara Zheutlin, Alice Maggio and Amy Dryansky Centennial Hall, Miss Hall’s School, 492 Holmes Road, Pittsfield, 2 p.m.

66 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Before I Forget…

A Memoir with Music Performance and Memoir Writing Workshop with

Sally-Jane Heit Sunday, March 30 2:00 pm The Mount

I'll tell you my story.

You'll tell me yours.

And together we'll discover that coming of age is not only for the young!

www.sallyjaneheit.com

Sunday 3/30 Before I Forget… A Workshop in Memoir Making Led by Sally-Jane Heit The Mount, 2 Plunkett St, Lenox, 2 p.m.

I’ll tell you my story, you tell me yours. I need to do this before I forget… Hey! That’s the name of my musical memoir! I am funny, irreverent, and sometimes my voice cracks on the high notes. What can you expect from an 80-year-old swinging Nana?

You have a question. I have an answer. Ask Hamlet. He asked me…

“Sally-Jane, To be or not to be?”

“Honey,” I said, “Relax, have a cup of tea, and come to the workshop. All will be revealed.”

And so it will be.

In this workshop, actor Sally-Jane Heit shares scenes from her life in order to inspire and support others to take the center stage in their own lives. Born in Brooklyn as one of eight children, she was the one who didn’t fit in. From the womb, she sang, danced, acted— creating agita for her mother and her siblings. Lacking the courage of her convictions, she “went along” with a traditional script as a young adult. As the marriage faded and the children grew, she escaped. On Broadway, Off Broadway, movies, television…she was a late bloomer, and she’s still blooming and sharing her talents with audiences all over the country.

Channeling Rachel Carson: Finding Your Inner Muckraker Lecture and discussion with psychologist Carol Goodman Kaufman Congregation Knesset Israel, 16 Colt Road, Pittsfield, 2 p.m.

This lively lecture and discussion will explore how we can use our writing gifts to right the world. Kaufman’s work in criminological research shows that whether the issue is global climate change, neighborhood blight, or domestic violence, writers have the means to educate, engage, and empower their readers. Muckraking based on solid research can propel grassroots activism to repair the world.

We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the “ roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one less traveled by—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.

—Rachel Carson

”

67 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Here’s the deal.

68 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

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Tel: 413.637.9777 www.jaeslenox.com Jae’s since 1990

Sunday 3/30 continued

Special Events ENUF!

ENUF! is a multi-disciplinary theatrical work based on the true-life stories of twelve young women of color from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who perform their own narratives in song, dance and story. Inspired by the OBIE Award- winning play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, by Ntozake Shange, ENUF! gives voice to the powerful experience of young women of color living in the Berkshires. A talk-back with the performers will follow the show, moderated by Sirker and Professor Frances Jones-Sneed of MCLA.

Monday 3/31 Gala Festival Closing Party Jae’s Asian Bistro, 55 Pittsfield Road, Lenox, 5 – 7 p.m.

Join the organizers, presenters and supporters of the 2014 Berkshire Festival of Women Writers for a lively closing reception celebrating another great season. $10 cover & cash bar—delicious food, great company, not to be missed!

Left: Alison Larkin & Kristen van Ginhoven. Right: Suzi Banks Baum and Lorrin Krouss.

69 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Performance produced by R.O.P.E. World, developed by playwright/director Yvette “Jamuna” Sirker, MFA. Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Road Great Barrington, 7 p.m.

70 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

C E L E B R AT I N G 2 0 Y E A R S !

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Coming to the

The Gutsy Gals Inspire Me® Award Honoring a short film by a gutsy gal, for a gutsy gal or about a gutsy gal

gutsy gal |’gǝtsē| |gal|

noun 1 of, relating to, or derived from ‘lionhearted lady’ 2 denoting one female who ignores barriers and setbacks 3 characterized by forward thinking and the ability to drive her destiny 4 indicating one who embraces imperfections and learns from mistakes *see also: ‘spirited’, adj. ‘go-getter’, n., and ‘fabulous’, adj.

ORIGIN: History’s finest females who continue to inspire and encourage the Gutsy Gal in each of us.

For more information about nominating or submitting a film for consideration, see the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers website at

berkshirewomenwriters.org

Gutsy Gals Inspire Me®Award

71 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Berkshire Festival of Women Writers 2015

72 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

THE PRINT SHOP @ berkshire direct 616 Main Street | Williamstown, MA 01267 413.458.1721 ph

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The truth is, the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers has an ambitious agenda. It’s not just about inspiring women and girls to put their ideas on paper, or about getting the voices of more women and girls into the public sphere in our local region, although these are certainly among our goals.

What the Festival really aims to do, quite simply, is to change the world, one woman at a time.

Help us make it happen.

Find out about making your tax-deductible donation to the Festival at Berkshirewomenwriters.org or for more information contact contact Festival Director Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez at bfww@simons-rock.edu 413-528-7224 Thanks for your support! We can’t do it without you!

73 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Become a Friend of the Festival and Change the World!

Available for

74 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Performance & rehearsal space Corporate Events Office Space Fundraisers Private Parties

Visual & Perfomance Arts Gallery

W

Gallery W@ the Whit

Bringing world class Arts to the Berkshires

New Exhibits on Display Every Month

Gallery hours: Wed. - Fri. 4 to 7PM, Sat. 12 to 5PM

www.galleryw.org

42 Wendell Ave. Pittsfield, MA 01201 Contact: 413-443-0289 / info@thewhit.org / www.thewhit.org day’s work might turn out to have been a mess. So what? “ Your Vonnegut said, ‘When I write I feel like an armless legless man

with a crayon in his mouth.’ So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friends.

—Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

”

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75 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Where Gardeners Grow

76 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Want to learn more about the events in the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers?

Visit our website:

Berkshirewomenwriters.org

Digital women’s imaging Mammography • Bone density • Ultrasound

SCHEDULING: 413.664.5405 www.nbhealth.org

77 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

78 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

We make the world a more beautiful place.

This is where health, beauty and well-being begin.

The Guthrie Center

2 Van Deusenville Rd • Great Barrington, MA (413) 528-1955 • www.guthriecenter.org guthriecenter@gmail.com

Free Tutoring

Arlo Guthrie Revivals

Free Legal Aid Free Community Lunch (Wednesdays at noon)

Troubadour Concert Series Hootenanny (Thursdays at 8PM)

Take Care & Give Care

79 • BFWW • March 2014 For full listings and biographies, visit our website at Berkshirewomenwriters.org

at The Old Trinity Church