Islanders will have a say in selecting the first Martha’s Vineyard Poet Laureate.
Year-round poets must submit five poems of any genre, style or form. A jury of judges will read all submissions, and nominate five finalists. The winning five poets must be willing to participate in a public reading that will be videotaped and distributed on the Martha’s Vineyard Poetry Society’s Facebook page; MVTV; YouTube and through other Island media and agencies.
Joseph Sebarenzi, author of God Sleeps in Rwanda, is speaking at Howes House in West Tisbury on Saturday, August 6, at 5 p.m.
Mr. Sebarenzi’s book is a memoir of his life in Rwanda, including his service as President of the Rwandan Parliament, before and during the period of genocide experienced in Rwanda. Mr. Sebarenzi’s parents, three brothers, two sisters, and all their families were killed during this period.
“I really did spend my entire childhood watching television,” says Alexandra Styron, a claim that stands in stark contrast to her endlessly expansive vocabulary and carefully crafted storytelling.
Author Chip Bishop’s great-great-uncle, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, was a newspaper editor during the time of Theodore Roosevelt. One of the stories he covered was the construction of the Panama Canal, the transoceanic canal that today seems a foregone conclusion but at the time was considered by many to be a fool’s errand.
Paul Karasik is many things and an exhibit focusing on the whole man would include, but not be limited to, the following: Cartoonist extraordinaire (published in The New Yorker), development director for the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, author, graphic novelist, sweat lodge devotee, the list goes on and on. He is also one of the nicest, most interesting people you will ever meet.
Once the weather turns warmer and the grey, spring skies blow blue and clear the Vineyard beckons to one and all. Time and the grave cannot even thwart the faithful. Pearl Buck is headed our way.
That’s right, on June 1 at 7 p.m. Ms. Buck will be reading from her short story collection East and West at the Vineyard Haven Public Library. Okay, the legendary author of The Good Earth may bear a resemblance to the actress Diane Quaid, but the words will be her own.
The lavish book of photography and essays, Martha’s Vineyard – Now & Zen, has been selected the bronze medal winner of the 2011 Indie Excellence Award in the category of Northeast Regional Publications.
This, the book’s second national award, celebrates the highest achievements in independent press and self-publishing.
Detective Victoria Turnbull is at it once again, sleuthing out the latest Vineyard mystery in The Bee Balm Murders. The fictional character created by writer, activist and innkeeper Cynthia Riggs may be 92 years old, but she isn’t slowing down in the least.
On Sunday evenings for the last several years a group of writers has been gathering at the Cleaveland House in West Tisbury, the home of mystery writer Cynthia Riggs. The writers meet to share their work and help critique and inspire each other while traveling down that very solitary road of the creative process.
When Elizabeth Murray was 16 years old, she had already seen far too much of the unforgiving side of life, and she had begun to ask herself if what she knew was all there was. What she knew was that she’d recently buried her mother, who died of AIDS, in a donated pine box with her name misspelled on it. Mr. Murray’s addict father, who was suffering from AIDS himself in a homeless shelter elsewhere in New York city, could not attend. Ms. Murray herself had dropped out of high school and was homeless.
