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CAP was founded in 1990 to act as an advocate for the arts, serve the public by providing services and resources for county artists and arts organizations, and encourage collaboration among arts, education, business, civic and government organizations.Learn more
Published: April 4, 2010
April
15, 2010 (ITHACA, NY)- Writers, readers, and book-lovers will all be busy
May 7th through the 9th, as the Community Arts
Partnership (CAP) presents Spring (W)rites, the inaugural Finger Lakes Literary
Festival. Partially supported with grant funding from the New York State
Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the weekend-long festival features a constellation
of 18 literary themed events, from workshops and panel discussions for writers
to readings and performances by local poets, playwrights, essayists and
novelists. A full schedule of events is online at www.SpringWrites.org.
According
to Brett Bossard, Executive Director of CAP, it's no accident that the festival
coincides with the first weekend of the Friends of the Library Book Sale. "We
knew that the Book Sale attracts a literary, book-loving audience of thousands
of people every year," says Bossard, "so the Friends of the Library were among
the first people we spoke to when planning the festival." Bossard has also been
pleasantly surprised by the eagerness of the growing list of local participants
in the fest. "We started with a small amount of NYSCA funding, so the initial
plan was to coordinate a strong, but manageable, first year, with a slate of
eight or ten events," says Bossard. "But once word spread that the festival was
happening, it really blossomed into something much bigger, with a great deal of
grassroots support from the literary community in and around Tompkins County."
Partnering organizations and businesses include the Tompkins County Public
Library and the Friends of the Library Book Sale, Buffalo Street Books, Ithaca
College, the Community School of Music and Arts, Cornell University, Barnes
& Noble, State of the Art Gallery, Cinemapolis, the Shop, the Family
Reading Partnership, the Ithaca Shakespeare Company, the Wolf's Mouth Theatre
Collective, the Ithaca Community Orchestra and WSKG's "Off the Page" program.
The
weekend begins at 4pm on Friday, with a recording of "Off the Page" at the
Borg-Warner Room of the Tompkins County Public Library. Host Bill Jaker has
invited a number of local authors to discuss how the Finger Lakes area inspires
and influences their work. The festival culminates on Sunday at 4pm with "The
Sound of Words," the Ithaca Community Orchestra's Spring Concert, which
features original compositions written to complement the poetry of Tompkins
County Poet Laureate Jay Leeming and poetry competition winner Amy Li.
Sandwiched
between those two events are more than a dozen readings, discussions, and
workshops to suit the needs of writers and readers alike:
Friday
May 7th
4:00
pm at Tompkins County Public Library - Host Bill Jaker welcomes Michelle
Courtney Berry, J. Robert Lennon, Beth Saulnier, and Michael Turback for a live
recording of WSKG's "Off the Page."
5:30
pm at Buffalo Street Books - Amy Dickinson will read from her book The
Mighty Queens of Freeville, to celebrate its recent publication in
paperback.
8:00
pm at CSMA - George Sapio presents a staged reading of his new script Better
than Nothing, which was commissioned in part by a NYSCA grant.
Saturday
May 8th
7:00
am at the Friends of the Library Book Sale - Actors from the Ithaca
Shakespeare Company will serve as troubadours, reciting the works of The Bard
for the eager book shoppers waiting for the sale to open its doors.
10:00
am at Ithaca College's Emerson Suites - Broome County Poet Laureate,
Andrei Guruianu will lead a workshop on poetry writing.
12
noon on the Commons (or in Center Ithaca, weather dependent) - The Family
Reading Partnership invites families for stories told from the Big Red Chair.
1:30
pm at Ithaca College's Emerson Suites - Representatives from the Wolf's
Mouth Theatre Collective and other peer critique groups will lead a panel
discussion on the ins and outs of forming your own writers group.
2:00
pm at Barnes & Noble - Representatives from the Killer Coffee Club and
other local book groups will lead a forum on creating reading groups.
2:30
pm at the CAP ArtSpace in Center Ithaca - Local author Irene Zahava will
lead her art // REACTion workshop, encouraging participants to write their
personal responses to the visual art of Amanda Vella, which will be on exhibit
in the ArtSpace from May 3 to May 31.
3:00
pm at the State of the Art Gallery - Essays and Fictions, a literary
journal published in Ithaca, celebrates the launch of Volume VI with readings
by contributors Bob Proehl and Stephen Poleskie.
4:00
pm at Ithaca College's Emerson Suites - Cornell's University
Librarian, Anne R. Kenney will facilitate a panel discussion examining
the enduring value of books in the digital age. Panelists will include Charles
Brittain, Chair of the Classics Department at Cornell; Katherine Reagan,
Curator of Rare Books at Cornell; and Dean Krafft, Chief Technology Strategist
at Cornell University Library.
4:00
pm at Buffalo Street Books - Michael Kammen will read from his latest book Digging
up the Dead, A History of Notable American Reburials.
6:00
pm at Cinemapolis - A group reading celebrating the poets of the Finger
Lakes will feature all three past Tompkins County Poets Laureate-Kathryn Howd Machan,
Michelle Courtney Berry and Paul Hamill-as well as current laureate Jay Leeming
and Broome County Laureate, Andrei Guruianu.
8:00
pm at CSMA - The Wolf's Mouth Theatre Collective presents their latest 10
minute play festival, featuring staged readings of five brand new scripts.
9:30
pm at The Shop - Writers, readers, and poets of all kinds are welcome to
join the Festival at a late-night open mic / poetry slam event at the Shop, 312
East Seneca St.
Sunday,
May 9th
12
noon at Buffalo Street Books - Michele Brown, Book Conservator at Cornell
University, will explain how to preserve books in your home library. She will
discuss proper handling, environment, storage, and demonstrate simple repairs.
2:00
pm at Buffalo Street Books - Buffalo Street Books presents the fourth in
its series of Works in Progress readings, featuring 10 local authors with
excerpts from their latest, unpublished works.
4:00
pm at St. Paul's Methodist Church - The Ithaca Community Orchestra presents
"The Sound of Words," their spring concert, featuring original poems by Jay
Leeming and Amy Li, along with original compositions by Tom Schneller and
Zachary Wadsworth.
Spring
(W)rites, the 2010 Finger Lakes Literary Festival, is a program of the
Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County (CAP). CAP was founded in 1990 to
serve as the arts council of Tompkins County, providing technical assistance,
grant opportunities, and professional services and information to artists and
arts organizations, as well as public programs that celebrate and support the
arts community in the county. For the past 19 years, CAP has helped to
distribute more than $2 million to artists and arts organizations in the
community. For more information on the Community Arts Partnership and its
programs and services, visit www.artspartner.org
or call Program Director, Robin Schwartz at (607) 273-5072.
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