Brattleboro Literary Festival October 11-14, 2018

I attended one event at the Brattleboro Lit Fest in 2017. I was new(ish) to the area but had heard about the Festival the year before and had every intention of attending as many events as possible but circumstances at home (insecure boyfriend) led to my deciding not to attend. In an effort not to let myself be the type of person who gives in to the manipulation of a loved one I rebelled and attended the one event because I wanted to hear what that author had to say about certain things that had happened in her personal life that she uses for her writings.

It’s just occurred to me that may have been the actual beginning to my unraveling romance and plans to move out of a home where I wasn’t supported emotionally or in my own writing. Hmm. I’ll have to take a few moments to reflect on that later. For now let’s talk about 2018’s Festival and the many, many events I attended.

 

Before I was able to obtain a copy of the schedule in booklet form (above) I found all the information I needed online at www.brattleboroliteraryfestival.org. I copied lots of the information to a document I could use as I attended the events I was interested in. There were photos of the authors along with descriptions of what they’d be talking about. There were fifty authors and forty events. So much to choose from. This year I couldn’t attend Thursday and Friday due to my work schedule so taking those two days out of the equation was a help except those days were light in events and a few of them looked interesting. Yes, I’ve already noted to myself to take a few vacation days next year.

Trying to figure out the rest of the weekend proved to be almost impossible until I gave in to impulse and convinced myself to wing it and attend events I might not attend if I were to keep myself in the box of comfort. In reading the author blurbs, though, I was all over the place with my interests. There were talks involving sports, politics, poetry, women’s rights, photography, etc. Where would I start? Well, I kind of hate to say this but I started with a picture of an author and worked my way out from there.

Her face struck me. I immediately thought she could have lived centuries ago and been influential to kings and queens. She looked regal, beautiful and sure of herself while almost begging for a hug. I didn’t care what her topic was. I wanted to hear what she had to say about anything.

The talks took place in several buildings in town. I decided to stick to one or two buildings a day to assure I had good seating, wouldn’t run late for anything and, honestly because I can be pretty darn lazy sometimes and didn’t want to walk all day.

From that one author’s talk I scheduled myself for talks in the same building most of Sunday. For Saturday I knew I wanted to attend Short Stories/Happy Hour in the evening so I chose to reside in that building for the day. Variety is a good thing. You learn so much about what you might like but not have given a chance. It can also introduce a person to such boredom, too, as I found out.

I scheduled myself to attend the first talk at 12:45pm Saturday knowing full well I’d probably be too tired to attend – my work day ends around 4am Saturday mornings. I did miss that first one, but once I woke up, had my coffee and a bite to eat I was ready to go.

Parking in Brattleboro might seem annoying but go into it with the attitude that things are the way they are, suck it up, park in the garage and pump the machine full of spare nickels and dimes. At present Sundays are free).

For my set up here, listing names and what each person wrote is an option, but seeing as how I sat through a couple dozen folks I think we’d be here for days - this is over twenty five hundred words. Too many! I’ll limit this to showing  you who I heard and a few notes I jotted down as I sat listening.

Anything in “double quotation” is direct from the speaker and ‘single quotations’ are my paraphrasing what was said or the speaker repeating something. I have identified the differences of the single quotations. Also – I apologize for the cell phone photos. I didn’t want to distract people with my camera.

10/13/2018 - Saturday

Tom Sleigh, Poet - In reference to how he wrote about refugees while having come from a poetry background he said he likes to “register texture.” He’s quite longwinded but I did like how he talked about details such as a southern accent from an English person living in Kenya.

“The place has got to imprint on my nervous system.” He needs to visit a place several times over time to feel he can write about a place where he ‘doesn’t belong.’

“What would an American be in her terms?” he asked referring to a girl from another country who had spoken to him. ‘Ideological formation as an American.’

Alia Malek, Journalist - She says she’s “blessed with exposure” and she repeated something someone had said to her - ‘to have a writer in the family is like having an assassin nearby.’

Considering complexity of feeling she said, “I find it effective to blend personal and political.” She paraphrased, ‘Charisma ties in the flaws of the character.’

Beowulf Sheehan, Photographer w/Tom Bodett, Humorist - Paraphrasing Beowulf - ‘Key to a portrait is to have sensitivity to that person.’

Tom spoke about how as an author he’s generally in sweat pants and not groomed but he will clean it up when being photographed. He imagines most writers are the same way.

            Beowulf says reading the authors work, doing research on them helps him in preparing for the photo shoot. His photos are great and if you yourself know the background of the subject you can see more than someone else.

            He says he “makes the photo the client needs – the safe one” but then he shoots other, more personal images for magazines, etc. “life is a beautiful thing when we open our hearts to each other.”

            “I want to celebrate people. To celebrate you.”

            The play between the guys is fun. Beowulf says “Bro-mance is real.” The audience could feel the genuine friendship the two have with each other.

            Beowulf showed some photos from his book The Portraits of Beowulf Sheehan. In one quick photo eyes were dark and Mr. Sheehan lamented this but sees it as good for certain photos to highlight their darkness.

            He gets emotional at the end talking about a person he photographed who got emotional. He truly appreciates his opportunity to do this job. “What a beautiful world we can have if we just help each other.”

Short Stories/Happy Hour

Noy Holland, Novelist - she had her story memorized – speaks dramatically (a little much). Then she read a story. The audience now learns that first part was actually just some silliness on her part so the over the top drama makes sense. Funny story!!

Dariel Suarez, Author - essay form – read story about a cold front affecting patients in a psychiatric hospital lacking supplies.

Joan Silber, Author - really boring high school lovers break, reunite when one’s spouse passes.

Ben Marcus, Author - Excellent writing. Funny. Real. “When they were first married ‘whenever ago’.”

Need to read his stuff! “Hindsight was a foul drug.”

Sigred Nunez, Author - funny - straight writing on realness of problem sister “frantic despair to ordinary” Story moral - be careful what you ask for / grass is always greener kind of thing.

10/14/2018 – Sunday

In the parking garage on this second day I met author Katharine Weber.  We had each parked in good spots next to each other at the same time.

Me: “ya gotta love getting to a parking garage early on a Sunday.”

She responded something to the effect that she wasn’t early enough because she was speaking in twenty minutes. I had planned to hear a few others in a different space but I told her I’d go hear her. She said she didn’t want me to not hear who I wanted and I explained my roundabout method of having chosen who to listen to, showed her the schedule I’d worked up and assured her the change was a good thing. We talked as we walked half a block up the hill to 118 Elliot. A nice person, she is.

Inside Beowulf Sheehan was flitting around photographing the readers – apparently he hit up all of the venues that weekend. That’s some energy!

Sigred Nunez, Author - another funny story – rolling, rhythmic. Her reading is rusted, though. This is nice but seems choppy. The story was obviously thoroughly researched. I don’t know if it was the story or my attention but things veered off. Might have been a bit too much ‘medical paper’ for me.

Katharine Weber, Author - much detail, good writing. Story is of a paraplegic getting a helper monkey. Animal stories aren’t my thing. The main character is dependent upon others - depressing. Well written, though. Funny moments.

Sigred Nunez and Katharine Weber

Getting back to my schedule I walked over to 100 Flat St / New England Youth Theatre. Due to it being a theatre it’s not a particularly great place to write because of the dark and squished seating. After the first two readings I moved to the balcony, spread out and took control of a stool to use as a table. Some might have thought I was a bit pretentious but I think most thought I was writing a review of the events. It made me feel important and for a tiny moment I regretted not having enough chutzpah to have been a go-getter journalist.

General observation: attendees appear to be mostly 50 years old – well some 50-60 with most 60 or older. One has the sense they have an abundance of time on their hands but also had had full, learned lives - time and money to burn. Somehow I feel I’m on the outside looking in, but I need to remember that’s the writer in me, not the unequal some pompous folks would want me to feel sometimes. There’s always an insecure person or two like that. I need to remember we’re all different, yet the same and equal as humans.

I wonder if the powers that be cater to the younger people for attendance. Or maybe my newbie-ness is showing and these type of Festivals are for the reading old folk as opposed to the writing young or old folk. Crap. I’m old folk either way.

Note to self: next time bring snacks & ibuprofen – also all the events have been pretty much packed full. It’s very nice to see the efforts of the organizers aren’t in vain.

George Howe Colt, Author – he opened with what seemed to be a history lesson more than a reading; he’s very passionate about Harvard football (I’m a baseball fan, myself). 1968 “it was a horrifying year.” (um…hello. That was the year I was born). He interviewed 54 of the players of the game to research his book about the big Yale / Harvard game of 1968. By a show of hands we learned a few people in the audience attended the game. One sat beside me and the other was just in front of me. When everyone was getting up to leave those two men were talking with each other and by virtue of our placement in the chairs they brought me into the conversation. I let them know I was just about three weeks old when the game was played.  They were amused by that. Peer conversation with people old enough to be my parent is always enjoyable to me.

Eileen McNamara, Author & Journalist - She’s nervously passionate about the subject of Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

She did lots of research. “It’s too easy to write women out of history and I wanted to write this one back in.”

Anne Fadiman, Author & Essayist - ‘a part of a life - slices of lives.’

Researched vocabulary of wine, opening wine, etc.; letters, writings - lots and lots to get bits and pieces - collect a lot, boil it down - compared research to sugaring and icebergs.

 ‘Readers need to know how to spell, pronunciate and define words on the cover.’

Nice prose, detail of historical reference evokes emotion.

She says the best way to write is to “subtract” - i.e. technology, distractions, tv, internet. Excellent advice.

Anne Fadiman

Stephen Greenblatt, Author - He complained to a friend about elections and his friend told him to do something about it and he said “what can I do?” and his being an author was the answer - write about it! ‘In the course of writing you discover new things.’

This isn’t a novel with a story - more of an inflated essay highlighting Shakespeare characters of political actions. Admittedly I’m not a Shakespeare reader.

Shakespeare used his plays to speak out as most people couldn’t publically during his time. He’d have the king character say stuff against the real king while in a mad argument. In this way Greenblatt has inadvertently compared himself to Shakespeare in standing up for what he believes in.

Ramie Targoff, Author – She had the least attendance of all those I attended which was a bummer because people missed out on some important tactics to writing.

For her book Renaissance Woman She went to the archives at The Vatican and other places in Italy - needed to translate from Latin and Italian - she likens it to being an Archeologist and sometimes a detective.

She is working on translating love sonnets and it will publish next year.

Beowulf Sheehan speaking with Ramie Targoff before he took posed photos of her

Genna Rose Nethercott, Narrative Poet – I must tell you this wasn’t on my original schedule and I hadn’t read up on her so I was taken aback by the set up. She was quite energetic and the audience seemed to love her and the story.

There’s a crank puppet theatre. She recites the story and cranks to show the story once in a while. Prosey, poetry, fantastical.

On the surface I enjoy it – as an audience member, but as a writer I can’t help but look beneath the surface and know that to present you need to rehearse, practice, need the inner core connection to a passion for theatre. I might be able to write something that could be interpreted this way but not be the actor involved.

Laundry; Personal Narrative

            Several people read personal writings focusing on personal abuses – a timely topic and widely received by the audience.

I look forward to attending the Festival October of 2019. I will, however take my time in choosing events to attend, do some research on the authors, read a piece or two beforehand and take the full four days to take it all in. I hope you’ll give it a chance. Brattleboro is a lively little artsy town.