This past weekend I attended the Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway, a fantastic weekend of writing workshops, readings, panel discussions, dancing and awesome people. This year (my 7th in attendance) I ventured into new waters by taking the fiction workshop, led by Richard K. Weems (due to Donna’s familiar and affectionate recollections of Gov school, it seems strange that he has a name other than “Weems”). The workshop, where I met the charming and talented Daniel Wallace, was excellent – several really great writers, all of whom made me feel safe and supported in this new territory. I started two separate pieces and think at least one of them may well be worthwhile. The weekend was also full of good food (Mexican on Saturday, a great bar burger on Sunday), drinks, friends, and yes, the aforementioned dancing (at which I am truly, truly terrible). And Monday morning, we wrapped the weekend up with a wonderfully moving celebration of the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which featured a performance by a local youth gospel choir. We closed the celebration by joining hands all around the room and singing “We Shall Overcome,” and I cannot explain just how much it affected me. Probably that’s another blog entry.
My dear friend and fellow poet David Bauman has created a lovely, lovely video of my poem “Wildflowers.” A simple presentation, the video features David’s reading of the poem. You can view it here.
If you want to see me reading, you can do that here – a video from the Collingswood Book Festival in October 2011, where I appeared as part of the Duo-ling Poets with excellent poet and ink black soul sister Anna Evans.
And finally, I received Reflex in the mail yesterday – we have just closed out Round 2, and are kicking off Round 3. You can see updates on the project here.
Great stuff here, Rachel! I’n happy to hear about your writing retreat. I’m heading to Twitter to share “Wildflowers.”