Greetings Y’all Poets, Bards, n TroubadoursSKIPPING STONES Vol VI [covering 2008 and 2009] is off to the printers. As soon as we have a delivery date (hoping for two weeks or earlier), I’ll post it online and let everyone know.  That’s the good news. It pains me to alert all that production costs, like everything else, have gone up, leaving me no other alternative but to charge the authors and artists/photogs $5 for their author’s copy.  Additional copies will be available through the end of December at $10 each. On January 1, 2010 they will cost $12.50 directly from me (add in postage and handling if not directly hand-to-hand) and $15 on the area commercial  market (Prince Books, Iris Art, Pfac, etc). Across the Hampton Roads community, regardless where or when, authors will be able to receive their author’s copy for $5, typically at one of a series of Release Receptions I plan to host over the coming months, sandwiched in among the many public readings, writers’ conferences, and book festivals that fill the spring season.  I intend to host such receptions in each of the “7 Cities”, York/Poquoson, Williamsburg, Richmond, and other settings as they come up. Stay tuned in and know when a Book Release Reception will land in your neighborhood.

On to Skipping Stones Vol VII (2010). Right now we have too few submissions to select and publish the following edition of Skipping Stones. I am re-opening the submission deadline to February 28 – don’t let it get away from you. I know there are many distractions like contests and festivals and conferences coming up. Remember $5 entitles you to submit up to ten poems or unlimited photos or drawings (or even poems and pix). Before submitting be sure to check the ChesBayPoets website to know the format and requirements for submission.

Next High Viz slow response is the Ekphrastic Poetry event at the Olde Towne Art Gallery at 525 High St in downtown Portsmouth. From Norfolk, you can take the ferry across to the High Street Landing and walk (or bike) straight down High Street about 4 short blocks to the gallery. Be sure to check their hours on their website www.oldetowneart.com. (and when you’re done, there are several really good restaurants near by). They will accept poems submitted until Friday January 5. The show opens Friday February 5, and they need time to select and prepare poems to post with the pictures for the short. It isn’t that far off, and it does take some considerable time and effort to set things into place. So let’s ya’all poets get your tails shakin’ and go check it out so you can write some poems for this. Footnote: please do not write poems from pictures found on the participating artists’ websites since the gallery can’t adequately manage the logistics of pictures posted somewhere else (sometimes in a competing gallery). You really want to be composing from seeing the paintings at the Olde Towne Gallery. To submit your poems send to director@oldetowneart.hrcoxmailcom.  Questions for the gallery, call 757-673-2667 or check the website www.oldetowneart.com

Tomorrow evening Cassie is hosting an open reading at Elliott’s Fair Grounds on Colley Ave at 7:30.

Tuesday evening @ the VB HEC 7 o’clock in Rm 210 Daniel Pravda is presenting a workshop on writing poems on the Ordinary. If you expect to be there please alert Paula @ pjustice@odu.edu. Also Tuesday evening on the Peninsula it’s the 2nd Tuesday, hence Word-4-Word Poets step forth and sound off at Aroma’s Coffeehouse in the Newport News Oyster Point City Center.

Thursday Writers on Thursday meet at the Phoebus Coffee House at 33 E. Mellem St, Hampton.  And on the Southside it’s R Open Mic at the Venue at 35th in Norfolk.

Note that this week there is NO reading Friday evening at the Book Owl in Portsmouth’s Churchland Shopping Plaza.  On the other hand you can probably find Ebenezer Scrooge carrying on at the Venue at 35th in Norfolk. Some say he looks a lot like D.D. Delaney.
He’s there again Saturday, too, and a Sunday Matinee.

Finally, I am starting conceptual work on a major project involving art and poetry, maybe engaging music and dance into the mix as well.  Begin thinking about and writing poems about woman, all aspects: who is she…the goddess…mother…daughter…sister…wife…lover… witch…boss…worker…care taker…care giver…angel…demon…saint…nurse…librarian…teacher… waitress…laundress…soldier…cop…siren…victim…victor…vixen…crone…eternal grandmother… eternal…temporal.  Then write poems on woman.  Collect them.  As this thing moves from concept to event, you will have a collection of a few or many poems on Woman, and Virginia will never be the same.  Be moved.  Write of Woman.

Here I typically admonish you to read if you aren’t writing or write if you aren’t reading. This time, and for a time to come, I charge you to write poems of Woman.  One a day, one a week, one a month. All of us…each of us can write a poem every month.  I am confident most of us can write a poem every week. Now we have our topic. Now, get busy.

And tell your artist friends to challenge themselves and create art addressing Woman.

Hoo ahhhhhhhhhh
pete