Dear Literary Folk,
Tonight, Elizabeth Herron and June Gerron at Rivertown Poets/Aqus Café
The reading begins at 6:15 p.m. Bring your best (or most outrageous) poem to share at open mic, which follows the features. The open mic signup list will be available by 5:45. 189 H Street in Petaluma.
Who is Charmian London?
This fall the Jack London State Historic Park opens a new permanent exhibit at the House of Happy Walls featuring the life of Charmian Kittredge London. Saturday, October 6, 2:00-4:00 p.m. Iris Jamahl Dunkle and Clarice Stasz, Ph.d. will discuss Charmian London’s significance in women’s history and her writings. Iris will also read original poems inspired by Charmian’s life and speak about her forthcoming biography. The Sitting Room, 2025 Curtis Dr, Penngrove. Details: www.sittingroom.org/events.html
Saturday, October 13, 10 a.m.-4:00 p.m. 23rd Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival!.”Stand Up for the Earth” with dynamic readings of over thirty poets and writers. Civic Center Park, 2151 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley. The Strawberry Creek Walk, part of the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, poetry, begins 10 a.m. sharp with talk, and easy walk along beautiful Strawberry Creek through UC Berkeley and its underground path, in a culvert, through downtown Berkeley to the Watershed Festival at Civic Center Park, led by Nevada City poet/eco-educator Chris Olander. Poets include: Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Joan Gelfand, and Maya Khosla. Details: http://poetryflash.org/programs/?p=watershed_2018
2018 Poesía del Recuerdo/Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading
On Friday, October 19, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, join Sonoma County Poet Laureate Maya Khosla and members of the community for the annual El Día de los Muertos “Poesía del Recuerdo/Poetry of Remembrance” celebration.
This year’s event will take place at Our House Intercultural Center, 116 Jacobs Hall, on the SRJC Petaluma Campus, 680 Sonoma Mountain Parkway, Petaluma. https://petaluma.santarosa.edu/maps-directions.
Featured readers will include bilingual poet Beatriz Lagos, originally from Argentina; bilingual poet and artist Katie Numi Usher, from Belize, and sansei (third-generation Japanese American) poet Jodi Hottel, who will tell us about Obon, the Buddhist tradition of honoring one’s ancestors and demonstrate a simple folk dance.
Those who wish to honor the memory of someone who has departed are encouraged to bring something—a photo or an item that reminds them of their loved one—that can be placed on a community altar for the evening.
If you’d like to share a poem or brief statement to remember a loved one, contact John Johnson: johnmjohnson09@gmail.com (707) 338-5765.Poesía del Recuerdo/Poetry of Remembrance Community Reading is part of the month-long El Día de los Muertos celebrations held in Petaluma during the month of October, featuring community altars, bilingual storytelling, sugar skull workshops, music, dance, and a procession with giant puppets.
Admission is free. Click here for a Schedule of all the El Día de Los Muertos events.
The 2nd Inaugural Wine Country Spoken Word Festival
Hosted by West Side Stories and featuring Steve Connell,Bil Lepp, Zahra Noorbakhsh, Denice Frohman, Elizabeth Ellis and W. Kamau Bell, this event will be held the weekend of Friday, October 19-Saturday, October 22, At the Mystic Theater, Petaluma. For details: www.davepokornypresents.com/2018-schedule
Read to Write Books Renewed: A Guest Feature by Christine Walker
The practice of writing fiction and memoir exercises muscles of empathy, which we need in our culture more than ever. Fulfilling creative potential comes from engagement in one’s chosen art and from helping others achieve their potential. Thus, an important part of my process as an artist and writer has been teaching.
In 2010, I created “Read to Write Books” workshops that I taught at Copperfield’s. I loved doing this and hope to teach locally again in the future. For now, because my travel as a visual facilitator makes it difficult to sustain a class schedule, I created a self-paced course in video and pdfs, “Writing Fiction – 9 Ways to Mastery,” and started a YouTube channel with short “Moments of Mastery” videos. My blog continues to support it all.
I’d love to hear if and how the content enriches your writing journey and creative process. I welcome your suggestions and questions.
Youtube channel: https://bit.ly/2QhnRKV
Online course: https://courses.christinewalker.net
Blog: https://readtowritebooks.com
All good wishes & thanks!
Christine Walker, MFA, MA
An Evening With Emily Dickinson
On Monday, October 29, 7:00-8:30 p.m., Holly Springfield will present an intimate portrait of poet Emily Dickinson at the Petaluma Public Library Springfield is an Emily Dickinson scholar and meditation teacher who has been studying, teaching and sharing her passion for Emily Dickinson for the past 18 years. Holly will draw upon poems, letters, biography, 19th century New England culture and stories from her long sojourn with Dickinson, in order to bring lo life an American treasure in an intimate, personal portrait.
Poem for October
Sixteen Rivers Press’ new anthology America, I Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience, includes poems by local authors like Gail Newman, David Beckman, Kay Ryan, Jane Hirshfield, Janet Jennings, Joe Zaccardi, Ellery Akers, and Ada Limon. It also reaches back through the centuries to feature poets who have challenged the status quo of their times. Here’s one by Emily Dickinson.
No. 1096
These Strangers, in a foreign World,”
Protection asked of me—
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee—
Terry Ehret
Co-editor, Sonoma County Literary Update
Sonoma County Literary Update 
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