Community Listings
Picturing America: Making Tracks
In 1876, fewer than fifty years after the first railroad lines were laid in North America, Walt Whitman composed a poem—“To a Locomotive in Winter”—that captured the power and energy of the train, the machine that Whitman hailed as the “Type of the modern—emblem of motion and power-pulse of the continent.” The images in Picturing America suggest ways in which the railway transformed the American landscape and helped determine where settlements and industry would develop.
The readings selected for Making Tracks include an account of the construction of the transcontinental railroad (Nothing Like It in the World). Rising from the Rails explores the stories of the black men—and ultimately women—whose work as Pullman porters not only shaped the quality of train travel in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century but also shaped the black middle class. The cluster of poems by nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets offers views of trains and from trains. And in the graphic novel that closes the series (Kings in Disguise), telling the story of an adolescent railway runaway illustrates the Depression, sharing the images of workers strikes and economic hardship from another generation.
This Let's Talk About It! series is hosted by the Ada Community Library. All of the programs are free and book sets will be available to borrow from the library in August.
Dates: Please click on the link for dates and times: Lets Talk About It: Making Tracks
Location: Ada Community Library,10664 W. Victory Rd., Boise
Cost: Free and open to the public.
For more information call Diane Rice at 362-0181.
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators
Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators is holding a conference for readers, writers, and teachers of children's literature.
Speakers for the conference are:
Cheryl Klein, senior editor at Scholastic
Jill Corcoran, agent at the Herman Agency
Chris Crutcher, author, educator and family therapist known for his realistic fiction. Some of his books are Running Lose, The Crazy Horse Electric Game, and The Sledding Hill
Kelly Milner Halls, a nonfiction writer for young readers. Books include Dinosaur Parade, Saving the Baghdad Zoo, and Dinosaur Mummies
Amy Allgeyer Cook, debut novel The Invisible Sister
Syndey Salter, author of My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters, Jungle Crossing, and Swoon at Your Own Risk, regional advisor for Utah/Southern Idaho SCBWI
Laura Bingham, author of Älvor
Sarah Tregay, debut novel Love and Leftovers will be published by Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins
Features include a book signing by authors on Friday evening, September 10 at Rediscovered Bookshop from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM, 180 N. 8th Street and manuscript and first page critiques by an editor or agent.
Date: September 11, Saturday
Where: Boise State University, 1910 University Dr., Boise, ID 83725 at the Student Union Building, Jordan C Ballroom
Time: 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM
For more information, click here.
Borderline Publishing's Free Four-Part Writing Workshop
Borderline Publishing will host a writing series to be held throughout the Treasure Valley. Each class is on a Saturday from 10:00 AM to noon. An accompanying workbook will be offered for $10. Author and Borderline Editor Angela Meuser will instruct the classes along with a variety of guest authors. Ms. Meuser's experience includes studying journalism at the University of Oregon, an assortment of nationally published articles, and two upcoming novels.
Date: July 24 at Borders Books: The Not-So-Basics of Novel Writing
Date: August 14 at North Star Books: Plot and Structure
Date: September 18 at Fairview Hastings: From Good to Great
Date: October 16 at A Novel Adventure: Hook and Brand
For more information, visit www.borderlinepublishing.com or call 475-4950.
Write by the River
Register now for the third annual "Write by the River" writers' retreat in Garden Valley only one hour north of Boise. Join speakers Anthony Doerr, internationally acclaimed author and former Writer-in-Residence for the State of Idaho; Alan Heathcock, BSU fiction instructor, author and recipient of the 2010 Literature Fellowship; Gretchen Anderson, award-winning humor columnist; Amanda Turner, radio producer and host, writer and social network expert; and Elaine Ambrose, award- winning author and owner of Mill Park Publishing.
Date: September 17 - 19, 2010
Location: At the cabin of Elaine Ambrose in Southfork Landing next to the river in Garden Valley.
Cost: $125, $100 for members of the Idaho Writers Guild.
Register at www.elaineambrose.com or email elaineambrose1@aol.com for a brochure.
Revisiting Grammar - Poetry And Its Special Relationship With the Conventions of Language
Crank up the poetic engine with altered syntax, condensation, torqued diction, and a new eye to punction. Dare your reader's expectations. We will read and compose poetry that shows us a way to a new and improved grammar. And we will write,write, write.
Dates: Saturdays, September 25 thru Oct. 23
Location: On line class. Course structure and registration information can be found at www.kennethrodgers.com
Cost: $55
For more information email ken@kennethrodgers.com
The Boundaries of Conflict - Meditations on Hostility and the Lyric Essay
Study the essence of confrontation imagined and written in the concrete imagery of the lyric essay. We will ponder and articulate the phenomenon of violence, not in the conventional sense of the personal, meditative essay, but in the cannonball blast of the very short essay.
Dates: Saturdays, October 2 thru Oct. 30
Location: On line class. Course structure and registration information can be found at www.kennethrodgers.com
Cost: $55
For more information email ken@kennethrodgers.com
Literature for Lunch - Fall 2010
This semester the focus will be on the complex personal, political, and cultural dynamics of the refugee experience from different points of view across the globe.
Friday, September 3. Rose Tremain, The Road Home. Lev, an immigrant from Eastern Europe seeking work, finds London a strange but invigorating and challenging place in this novel full of both pathos and comedy.
Friday, October 1. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel. The memoir of a young Muslim woman who grows up in East Africa, emigrates to Holland to avoid an arranged marriage, and becomes part of the Dutch experiment in offering asylum to refugees.
Friday, November 5. Dave Eggers, What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. This fictionalized memoir tells the epic journey of a Sudenese civil war refugee from a "Lost Boy" in the camps of Ethiopia and Kenya to life in America.
Friday, December 3. Linda Grant, The Clothes on Their Back. The sensitive, bookish child of timid Hungarian refugee parents, Vivien Kovacs learns to navigate British society and, by forging a relationship with her criminal uncle, come to terms with her hidden heritage.
Book discussions are held at the Boise Public Library, 715 S. Capitol Blvd., from 12:10 to 1:00 PM, and are free and open to the public. No reservations required. Books are available at "A Novel Adventure," 906 W. Main Street (phone 344-8088), which will give a 20% discount, and at the BSU Bookstore, (phone 426-1362), which will give a 25% discount and validate 1/2 hour parking in the Administration Building lot. For more information, contact Boise State English Professors Cheryl Hindrichs, cherylhindrichs@boisestate.edu or Carol Martin, cmartin@boisestate.edu.
The Art of Being An Artist
An innovative six session workshop designed to help you discover yourself as an artist through self-exploration, exercises, lectures and discussions. Discussions will cover influence, inspriation, self-respect and self- confidence, fear, perseverance, barriers, finding and exploring artistic vision, and more. Through discussion topics and exercises, you will discover your reasons and background for creating art, be inspired to explore and experiment, explore and remove the barriers to creating your art, and learn ways to get your art out into the world for people to see and appreciate.
Workshop instructors are writer Ken Rodgers and photographer Mike Shipman. Ken has an MFA in Creative Writing and has taught on-line and in classrooms for the past 10 years. His newest book of poetry, Passenger Pigeons, published by Jaxon's Press will be released this fall. Mike is an award-winning freelance and fine art photographer who has been teaching photography and leading workshops since 1998.
Date: October 11 thru November 15
Time: 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Location: Idaho Botanical Gardens
Address: 2355 N Penitentiary Rd, Boise, ID
Cost: $150
For further information contact Ken Rodgers at ken@kennethrodgers.com.
