Literary Arts at Featherstone

05/25/2025

Poetry Reading and Book Signing with Rob Macaisa Colgate
Date: Monday, June 2nd
Time: 5:00 - 6:30PM
Location: Francine Kelly Gallery at Featherstone Center for the Arts
Fee: free
ASL interpretation will be provided
Please join us in celebrating the publication of HARDLY CREATURES, the debut poetry collection of 2024 Ruth Lily Fellow Rob Macaisa Colgate!
Called “Dazzling. . . . An extraordinary document in care, mutual aid, and access” by poet Claudia Rankine, Hardly Creatures takes the form—visually and metaphorically—of an accessible art museum. Through nine sections that act as gallery rooms, the book shepherds the reader through the radiance and mess of the disability community.
At the heart of the collection is an exploration and recognition of access intimacy. Marked with universal access symbols to guide the way, poems mimic sensory rooms, tactile replicas, benches for resting, and more; “the body of a poem” itself is reimagined through formal experimentation, as abecedarians are scrambled out of order and sestinas are pressurized into new sequences. These poems also play with pop culture allusions, social media posts, and the infinite possibilities within q***r love and deep friendships. With lyrical clarity and attention to language, Hardly Creatures reaches out and offers inventive, heartfelt insights for all readers, and celebrates the disability community through the lens of a visionary new voice in poetry.
The reading will take place in The Francine Kelly Gallery in Featherstone’s Art Barn followed by a Q&A and book signing. Books will be available for purchase from Edgartown Books.
Rob Macaisa Colgate is a disabled, bakla, Filipino American poet from Evanston, Illinois. He received an MFA in poetry and critical disability studies from UT Austin. Hardly Creatures (Tin House) is his debut collection. Poems from this collection appear or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Sewanee Review, Best New Poets, New England Review, The Margins, and elsewhere. A former Fulbright scholar, Rob currently serves as the managing poetry editor at Foglifter.

01/21/2025

We still have spots open for this Saturday’s workshop with Nancy Slonim Aronie! Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to work with one of the world’s most beloved writing teachers! All proceeds go to benefit the Literary Arts program at Featherstone Center for the Arts and scholarships are available. Link to register in the comments!

12/31/2024

And now, our first online workshop of 2025! These two are not only incredible writers but also pros in how to get your book out into the world! For writers from all genres! You do not want to miss this one!!

REGISTER: featherstoneart.org/writingworkshops

You’ve been toiling away on your book, and you’re almost ready to get it out into the world. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to get an agent and a publisher, or maybe you’ve decided to go the independent route and hybrid or self-publish. Either way, it’s unlikely there’s a marketing team standing by to help you, so how will anyone beyond your friends and family find out about your book? This workshop will help demystify and navigate the world of book publicity and will provide practical and creative advice for developing your book launch and marketing strategy. We may gently push you out of your comfort zone, but we promise it will be fun and valuable.

This interactive online workshop is for you if you’re a writer working in any genre on a book you plan to publish and sell. It’s never too soon and never too late to find your readers.
Participants will submit ahead of time: one brief paragraph describing their project and one brief paragraph with their writing-related bio. Participants will introduce themselves in the chat at the beginning of the class.
The format will combine information-sharing, tag-teamed between Kate and Elisa, and time for individual work, then sharing with the group. Templates will be provided ahead of time for identifying goals and objectives, finding your target audience, and brainstorming key foundational questions

Kate Feiffer is the author of eleven highly acclaimed books for children, including Henry the Dog with No Tail, and Double Pink. Morning Pages, her first novel for adults, was published in 2024 and was called a “winning adult debut” by Publisher’s Weekly. Kate is also an artist and the illustrator of the poetry/parody The Lamb Cycle. Kate has been the event producer for the annual Martha's Vineyard-based writers' festival Islanders Write since its inception in 2014. Her writing and illustrations have appeared in newspapers and magazines on Martha's Vineyard, on HNN, NPR, and in Literary Hub. Prior to writing for print publications, Kate was a television news and documentary film producer. [email protected], www.katefeiffer.com

​Oak Bluffs summer resident Elisa M. Speranza spent thirty-plus years in marketing and strategic communications before publishing her 2022 historical novel The Italian Prisoner, a finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. She’s been a featured author at the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, the Louisiana Book Festival, the Salem (MA) LitFest, and Islanders Write on Martha’s Vineyard, where she co-founded the Washashores Writers Collective. Elisa serves on the board of the New Orleans Writers Workshop and is an active literary citizen in New Orleans, Martha’s Vineyard, and elsewhere. [email protected], www.elisamariesperanza.com

12/31/2024

Announcing our first workshop of 2025! And it's with Nancy Aronie! And it's in person! AND it's a fundraiser!
Writing From The Heart: Finding Your Own Voice: A One-Day Workshop with Nancy Aronie
Date: Saturday, January 25
Time: 9:00AM - 2:00PM
Location: Featherstone Center for the Arts
Fee: $150 (full or partial scholarships are available) - All proceeds from this workshop will go directly to Literary Arts at Featherstone.

REGISTRATION: featherstoneart.org/writingworkshops

Nancy says she doesn’t teach writing: she just makes it safe so you can sound like YOU. Bring something to write with or on and your HEART!

Writing From The Heart: Finding Your Own Voice is a workshop that is nurturing for the beginning writer and a jump-start for the burnt-out professional. You will take home your powerful one-of-a-kind golden voice filled with self-esteem, honor and joy.

Bio: Nancy Slonim Aronie has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She was a Visiting Writer at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, wrote a monthly column in McCall’s magazine and was the recipient of the Eye of The Beholder Artist in Residence award at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Nancy won teacher of the year award for all three years she taught at Harvard University for Robert Coles. She is the founder of the Chilmark Writing Workshop. Her new book Seven Secrets to the Perfect Personal Essay: Crafting the Story Only You Can Write was released in October 2024. Learn more at: chilmarkwritingworkshop.com/nancy-aronie

08/24/2024

Join us on Sunday, August 25th at 4PM for a conversation between authors and professors Patricia Williams and Teju Cole as they discuss Williams’ newly released book The Miracle of the Black Leg: Notes on Race, Human Bodies, and the Spirit of the Law. Cole’s most recent novel Tremor (2023), was named a book of the year by Time, the Washington Post, New York Magazine, the Times (UK), and the Financial Times.
The event will begin with a welcome from Marc Favreau, Editorial Director of The New Press and will be followed by an audience Q&A. Edgartown Books will have books by both authors available and the event will be followed by a book signing.

08/07/2024

We are so excited to be hosting Alice Randall at Featherstone on Thursday, August 8th at 4 pm to celebrate her new book MY BLACK COUNTRY. Free and open to the public.

One week away! We are looking forward to hosting Alice Randall next Thursday, August 8th at 4PM in the Francine Kelly Gallery! Come celebrate her book MY BLACK COUNTRY and its companion album. Alice will be reading from her memoir and we will be playing the album featuring her compositions.

My Black Country book reading and music with Alice Randall
Thursday, August 8th at 4PM
Francine Kelly Gallery at Featherstone Center for the Arts
Free admission & refreshments!

featherstoneart.org/alicerandall

07/09/2024

We are so excited to announce that Elise Paschen’s reading from her new collection TALLCHIEF will now be accompanied by archival footage of her mother, Maria Tallchief - America’s first major prima ballerina and the first member of the Osage Nation to hold the rank and revolutionized ballet. The footage comes from the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, compiled by Caroline Cronson, Producer. Works and Process at the Guggenheim, with thanks to Curator, Linda Murray, and her staff, and to Kathryn Marshall, Program Manager, Works & Process.

This event is free and open to the public.

06/27/2024

IN PERSON SCREENWRITING WORKSHOP!
In this three-day workshop, each participant will write a short screenplay (3 -5 pages) using the process of ideation - a series of creative exercises designed to help you locate and identify your creative DNA. Ideation helps to pinpoint your original voice, aesthetic, and personal image system. Participants will learn to build stories by using striking images and character rants to deepen the work. You will also learn basic structure and the standard rules of screenplay formatting. These skills can be applied to writing long-form screenplays such as features and pilots. We will aim to create short screenplays for films that you can make, drawing on locations available to you.

Natasha Maidoff’s work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in the Brooklyn Museum. Her award-winning films have toured internationally, including screenings at the Guggenheim and Pecci Museums. She has received artist residencies to the Yaddo, Wexner Center for the Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A long-time resident of Venice, California. Maidoff currently teaches screenwriting and directing at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. She also runs a practice as a Creative Coach. Maidoff believes that visual storytelling is a way to transform insight and contemplation into a meaningful and abstracted dialogue about life.
Register: featherstoneart.org/writingworkshops

06/26/2024

02/18/2024

Damon Young remains one of the funniest and most honest voices out there right now. And maybe more impressive is his ability to teach others how to combine that humor with truth-telling in a way that makes readers stop and pay attention. If this sounds like a skill you'd like to add to your toolkit, then you'll be happy to know that there are still a few spots available in the Humor Writing with Damon Young online workshop!

According to Damon, everyone appreciates a funny story. Some of us can even tell one. But how do you write one? What makes a written story or essay funny? What are the rules of rhythms of writing humor? When is a laugh, embedded in an essay, appropriate, and who makes that judgment? How do you prepare and prime your audience for satire? What’s the difference between humor as a crutch, and humor as a heat-seeking cruise missile?

Damon Young, author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker - winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor - will answer these questions and more, during a four-session seminar on how to be almost as funny as he is.

Damon is also a founder of the culture blog VerySmartBrothas, and was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post Magazine, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, a columnist for GQ, and was the creator and host of the Crooked Media podcast "Stuck With Damon Young." Currently, he is the inaugural writer-in-residence at the University of Pittsburgh's David C. Frederick Honors College.

This course will take place online via Zoom on Mondays from 8:30-9:30 pm EST on February 19, 26 & March 4, 11.

The course starts tomorrow, February 19th, so please register today! featherstoneart.org/writingworkshops

02/14/2024

Tomorrow Night! Limited spots are still available. Register: featherstoneart.org/literaryarts