Stone Valley Arts Literary Festival — A Celebration of the Written Word! 

August 5, 6, 7, 2022. For tickets, click the above button; these are only suggested donations, so please feel free to donate whatever amount feels comfortable for you. 

SVA Lit Fest workshops (Poetry, Fiction, Playwriting) are carefully crafted by professional facilitators to benefit writers in all genres and with all levels of experience. 

Friday, August 5: Meet and Greet (7:15 to 8:30). Everyone is invited to meet the workshop leaders. Keynote presenter John Fox, Founder of the Institute for Poetic Medicine, will give a brief talk about IPM and his decades long career using poetry as a tool for healing and community building. 

Herb Childress (Fiction), Burnham Holmes, (Playwriting), Carolyn Stellatella, (Children’s Poetry and Art), and Bianca Amira Zanella (Performance/ Slam Poetry) will also be available to discuss and answer questions about their respective workshops. 

Saturday, August 6: 

–Seeing Takes Time (10 a.m. to Noon). Writing Workshop presented by John Fox, Practitioner of Poetic Medicine (PPM). 

                            “Nobody sees a flower -really – it is so small –

                                               We haven’t time –

                                          and to see takes time

                                   like to have a friend takes time”.

                                   ~  Georgia O’Keefe  

A gift of poetry is that it encourages us to take our time. We can take our time to not only see a small flower, but see and feel the richness of the world and of the person whose shoulder is next to yours. Writing poetry allows us to reflect upon our lives and varied experiences. Sharing our poems with one another, we take time to listen to a friend. It is a great gift, this kind of listening. This retreat offers a safe, supportive environment to write poems—or what William Stafford preferred to call ‘things’—that can open up feelings, distill meaning, shore up your ability to respond to difficulties with integrity, resilience and courage. And we’ll take our time. 

–Seeing Takes Time – Part 2. Poetry Writing Workshop (2 p.m. to 4 p.m.) presented by John Fox. 

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass,

                                           it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”

                                                                  ~ Henry Miller 

Although similar in format and continuing the focus of “Seeing Takes Time,” this second workshop will use different poems and prompts to create a fresh and unique writing experience. Participants are encouraged to attend this second workshop even if unable to attend the first. 

–Art/Poetry for Children ages 12 and under (10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.). A Fun and Educational Art/Poetry Workshop in which children will be encouraged to express themselves using words and images – guided by Carolyn Stellatella, SVA Artist member and art educator with over a decade of experience working with young writers and artists. Participants will be able to explore a variety of poetry styles including Haiku, Free Verse, Ekphrastic, and Acrostic poems, as well as illustrate their creations using a variety of mediums. Beat, Meter, and Wordplay will all be explored as they construct their poems. 

–Performance/Slam Poetry Mini Workshop (5:45 to 6:45) with Bianca Amira Zanella. Learn how to step into the feelings of your poem and speak with confidence through this mini spoken word workshop with Poet Bianca Amira Zanella. Bring a poem you would like to workshop the delivery of with you. Workshop participants will walk away ready to perform at the Open Mic with gusto! 

–Open Mic (7:00 to 9:00): Festival participants are invited to share their new or prior work. 

Sunday, August 7: 

–Poetry Writing Workshop for Children ages 8 to 12 (10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.), presented by John Fox. This workshop will offer children writing possibilities through poetry. This workshop will be fun and playful, yet it will also welcome serious responses.  

–Fiction Writing Workshop (10 a.m. to Noon). Who ARE These People? Developing Powerful Characters in Fiction presented by Herb Childress. From the short story to the epic series, fiction succeeds when it makes us care what happens to characters. In this workshop, we’ll  investigate what makes a character real, and what makes readers want to find out what happens. Bring your preferred digital or manual writing tools, and be prepared to bring someone to life! 

–Poetry Writing Workshop for Teens ages 13 to 18 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.), presented by John Fox. This workshop will offer teens writing possibilities through poetry. Our writing and sharing will encourage and inspire creativity. Examples of poems will come from teens and poets that speak to the challenges faced by planet earth, poems that address social justice issues & LGBTQ realities and poems which treasure the deep value and necessity of youth voices. 

–Playwriting Workshop (1:00 to 3:00) GIVING VOICE TO CHARACTERS presented by Burnham Holmes. This workshop will explore the basics of playwriting. By the end, you will have written a short play to share or expand. 

–Closing Ceremony (3:30 Main Gallery.) Circle to share thoughts, feelings, takeaways… 

Tickets: $45/day or $80.00 for the weekend. Kids are free thanks to funding form the Poultney Recreation Department (These are only suggested donations, so please feel free to donate whatever amount feels comfortable for you).

SVA Literary Festival Presenter Bios 

–Herb Childress is a longtime writer of nonfiction and fiction whose work has been reviewed in the New Yorker and the Wall Street Journal, among others. Before moving to Vermont, he taught undergraduate writing at Duke University, and was a dean at the Boston Architectural College. This past spring, he taught a two-month fiction course through Stone Valley Arts, and might do it again sometime. He lives with his fellow writer and wife Nora Rubinstein, and two cats who haven’t written any stories yet, in Middletown Springs.  

–John Fox, PPM, is a poet, educator, and author. His books include Finding What You Didn’t Lose: Expressing Your Truth and Creativity through Poem-Making (1995) and Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making (1997). His work is featured in the 2008 PBS documentary Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine. John has taught as associate adjunct professor in California at Institutes and Universities over the last 25 years. He is President of The Institute for Poetic Medicine, a nonprofit, which provides poetry-as-healer to
marginalized communities and people across the United States and throughout the world. 

–Burnham Holmes is a co-creator and co-writer of Trumpilton (with Karen Klami), a musical parody that recently appeared Off Broadway. He has written 12 plays (winner of 2011 NorEastern Playwriting Contest for The Palm Leaf Dialogues). He teaches writing and speech at Castleton University (Endowed Part-Time Faculty Award in 2009). 

–Carolyn Stellatella earned her BFA from California College of Art in Textiles, has exhibited her mixed media collage works in juried exhibitions and invitationals throughout the US. Enjoys incorporating text into her creations as both a visual element and texture. Carolyn is a Stone Valley Arts Artist Member and SVA Literary Open Mic Regular “Minute-Taker” who enjoys a variety of writing styles. She has taught high school science as well as kindergarten and elementary school art and also has a Medical Anthropology Degree from The Pennsylvania State University. Currently she teaches yoga and enjoys nature – especially in the Green Mountains of Vermont.  

–Bianca Amira Zanella is a cis queer Vermont-based performance poet, artist, and advocate living on traditionally Abenaki land. She is the Poet-in-Residence at Phoenix Books, hosting an international monthly open mic. Her poems have appeared in The Artful Mind, The Rutland Herald, The Mountain Troubadour, and The Reverie. Their poem films, sculptural poems, and poem paintings have also been on exhibit with PoemCity Montpelier, Merwin Gallery, Stone Valley Arts, SPACE: a Pop Up Art Gallery, and Surdam Gallery. They received the Corrine Eastman Davis Memorial Award for their poem, “A prayer –before the soup– for the suicidal” (2018). In 2019, Bianca acted as Wellness Coordinator for the Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam (FEMS) tournament based in Cambridge, MA, and founded “Infinite Lit: a night of spoken word poetry”; co-producing the series alongside Moth storyteller Michael Kingsbury.  In 2020, Bianca founded The Paper Poet, offering healing poetic experiences to anyone experiencing suffering and continues to perform around the United States and globally, including reading for the American Club of Brussels and competing at the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Dallas, TX. Bianca attended the Ruth Stone House 2021 Next Galaxy Poetry Retreat and was nominated for the Presidency of Poetry Society of Vermont. In 2022 as PSOV President, she connects diverse poets across the state to create community around poetry. Stay connected with Bianca by subscribing to The Paper Poet’s free newsletter full of resources and events at thepaperpoet.com and/or on Instagram @thepoetbianca.

♿