Recorded 2023 Events
2024 Events will be on this site by April 1st.
Visit our youtube channel for Spring Writes panels, reading and workshops from the past few years.
Developing the New Musical: Story, Script, & Stage
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Walking on Water Productions will hosted a virtual forum with writers Jenny Stafford and Scotty Arnold, creators of the new musical Extended Stay--the audience favorite from Walking on Water Productions' recent festival of new musical staged readings (WoW's NoW). Jenny and Scotty spoke about the various stages of development of this musical and other pieces they have written over the years, focussing on the development of story and character, as well as the collaboration with creative team members and actors in the rehearsal room that have influenced script and lyric revisions. The team is gearing up to collaborate with WoW again in 2024 for Extended Stay's first fully staged production. The writers will also provide examples from some of their other works during the forum, which have been produced at various theatres and festivals in New York State as well as other regions, both nationally and internationally. walkingonwaterproductions.org to join their mailing list!
Make Your Writing Sing: A Writer’s Practice for Reading Aloud
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Story House Ithaca Presents: Writers are often called upon to read their work in public. Yet for many, reading aloud can be a nerve-racking experience. Join poet and performer Jaime Warburton and multi-instrumentalist Em Ludek to learn how to prepare yourself and your writing for performance, using a method of musical notation that brings your writing to life with sonic and rhythmic awareness that catches your audience's ear and heart. For novice and experienced writers/storytellers in all genres. No music reading necessary. StoryHouseIthaca.org
The Femmiliar Art of Profit Making Passions
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This Zoom discussion highlighted how women of diverse backgrounds nurture their unique passions to attract opportunities that can create profits. What if you could make money doing what you love to do most? And how does one find their passion and turn it into a profit? In this discussion we will also explore the different processes and praxis that are commonly incorporated when turning a simple passion to a successful profit. This all women discussion panel brought together three entrepreneurs, including the host of similar yet very diverse industries who will dive into conversation. Poetic Black Gurl, Chioma Ugwu, J. Rose, and Kyara Perkins.
Group Reading: Poet Laureate's Favorites
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Current and former Poet Laureates shared poems that their readers and listeners have said are favorites at this Zoom event. Laureates read personal favorites from their published work. Current Poet Laureate Janie E. Bibbie and former Poet Laureates Jack Hopper, Jay Leeming, Katharyn Howd Machan, Gail Holst-Warhaft, Michelle Courtney Berry and Melissa Tuckey.
Pe
rformance: Senior Theatre Troupe of Lifelong: Jobs
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For 23 years, the Senior Theatre Troupe of Lifelong has been performing stories from our lives as choral theater. Each writer tells his/her story with the troupe acting as chorus and providing dramatic emphasis. Stories may be humorous, sad, inspirational or ridiculous. The theme for this group of stories is Jobs. Performers are: Jean Senegas, Deirdre Silverman, Paula Twomey, Mary Ann Sumner, Patricia Frazier, Mark Silverman and Emily Rhoads Johnson. Taped live at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY
Panel: Writing About Grief
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(sorry about the sound. It's not good.)
Everyone experiences grief, yet, when we do, many of us are taken by surprise at the intensity of our feelings. We turn to books, music, and friends, seeking navigable paths through our sorrow. Writers, though, do what makes sense to them - they write. Writing about grief can be tricky because it is a universal experience. No one wants to write the book that someone starts to read but then puts down because they can't relate to the writer's experience. So the first thing writers grapple with is how to write about something universal. They search for new ways to describe grief and suffering. They carefully interrogate their feelings then reach for creative, non-cliched ways to express their truths. Join moderator Rachel Dickinson and panelists nonfiction writers Nancy Dafoe and Alison Fromme, and poet Eric Machan Howd. Taped live at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca, NY
Storytelling: From the River of Stories
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Storytelling is a river with many tributaries, and thee Ithaca storytellers performed works from different parts of that river, including creative nonfiction and work from world storytelling traditions. Storytellers Steve Paling, Lee-Ellen Marvin, and Julia Ellis each brought their own perspective to their telling. Some of the stories will contain a bit of magic, others will be told from real life. And all will show deep empathy for the characters. Taped live at the Tompkins Center for History and Culture in Ithaca, NY
Workshop: Making Myths: Creating Our Own Myths
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Peter Rabbit, Pandora, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Medusa - Myths have long been a part of the fabric of human civilization. Myths teach us in story form something about the human condition and experience. Have you ever felt like there isn't a story to match your experience? Or that a myth you know could use some updating? Learn about the Hero's Journey, Joseph Campbell's Four Functions of Myth, and workshop a short story about a new myth or updating an existing myth with Astrologer, writer, and myth-enthusiast West Fox. Taped live at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca, NY
Group Reading: The Persistence of the Flower in Contemporary Poetry
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This is a group theme-based reading. Jerry Mirskin, Cory Brown, Mary Gilliland, Roger Hecht, David Weiss and Daniel Rosenberg will read from their original poetry. Taped live at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca, NY
Group Reading: Join Seven Local Writers
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Aiden Nelson, (memoir about grief, the body, healing, and community), Sorayya Khan (multicultural memoir about loss and belonging), Kris Haines-Sharp (excerpt from her draft memoir, "Three Points of Contact"), Christa Núñez (a poem about nature and womanhood), Raul Palma (excerpt from short story on Latinx family and inheritance), Aishvarya Arora (poetry about friendship, desire, gender, and grief.) Taped live at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca, NY
Ithaca College Writing Senior Project
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Four Ithaca College seniors will read their creative writing senior projects. Mathew Gardener (short essay about commercialism, Collin Ryer (excerpt from coming of age novel), Julia Dath (excerpt from science fiction story focusing on feminism), and Nora Marcus-Hecht (memoir essays about Jewish stereotypes in America). Taped live at the Tompkins Center for History and Culture in Ithaca, NY
Let the Land Speak: Hodinǫhsǫ́:nih / Haudenosaunee Voices
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A Zoom poetry reading with four writers from Hodinǫhsǫ́:nih (Haudenosaunee) Nations: Kenzie Allen, Oneida; Monty Campbell, Gayogohó:nǫˀ (Cayuga); Kahsenniyo Kick, Mohawk; and James Thomas Stevens, Akwesasne Mohawk.
Stewards, for over 10,000 years, of lands from the Hudson Valley to Niagara and from Lake Ontario to northern Pennsylvania, Hodinǫhsǫ́:nih people were violently and fraudulently displaced and dispersed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Despite two hundred years of genocidal suppression of their culture, they were and are resilient. They will present a range of voices – conflicted, messy, modern, mixed – very much of the present but also deeply connected to their cultures and lands. Their live Zoom readings will be supplemented with video of some of the participants, recorded earlier at a beautiful rural setting on ancestral Gayogohó:nǫˀ land. Help to celebrate Hodinǫhsǫ́:nih people - vibrant, living, and totally contemporary - on the lands that have nurtured them since the last Ice Age. Artist Ben Altman, who lives on stolen land in nearby Danby, will moderate.
Group Reading: Join Seven Local Writers
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A Zoom event: Rachel Dickinson (memoir about loss, grief, and running away from home), Carolyn Clark (poems blending nature, mythology, friendship & family, pets included), Jon Raimon (poems related to teens, fatherhood, coming of age, and gender), India Sada (poems about black spirits memory-leaking, sounding and superimposing), Cai Quirk (short story story about gender, spirituality, and community healing), David Guaspari (excerpt from "The MIddle-aged Man and the Sea," a comedy of travels to and from Alaska)
Performative Reading: Without Shame, Stigma, or Fear: Older Women Read
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featured performative stories about love, loss, and mothers, written and performed by Yvonne Fisher, Leigh Keeley and Sue Perlgut, and a play/reading about abortion by Sue Perlgut and performed by Sue, Yvonne and Leigh. Taped live at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca, NY
Panel: Stages of Life Intergenerational Plays
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Taped from Zoom. Join the participants in Story House Ithaca’s first intergenerational playwriting class as they talk about the process of getting to know one another through theater. Inspired by the New York Theatre Workshop’s “Mind the Gap” program, “Stages of Life” brought together teens and elders in a series of weekly encounters in which they learned about each other’s lives and created short plays based on what struck them. The experience culminated in a public reading by professional actors at the Kitchen Theatre Company. We’ll show video excerpts of the performance and hear from participants and workshop leaders Sara Stamatiades and Carley Robinson. Lesley Greene will moderate. StoryHouseIthaca.org
Disability: It's Not Just a Buzz Word
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with Daley Downing. Whether it's physical or intellectual, genetic or the result of an unexpected life occurrence, adults and children everywhere are disabled, just trying to live their lives, and in many cases, share their stories. Mainstream media has often presented inaccurate and possibly hurtful portrayals of disabilities, leading to further marginalizing certain groups and perpetuating stereotypes among the general population. In this workshop, disabled author Jaclyn Smith (Daley Downing) will address some of the tropes in this niche genre, how to identify them as a reader, and hopefully not only avoid them but subvert them as a writer.
daleydowning.wordpress.com