Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to host visiting poet Darren C. Demaree to lead the workshop “Ugh: Writing a Love Poem Worth Reading,” an exploration of the successful traits of a contemporary love poem. The event will be held at Firefly Farms in Knoxville from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, September 17th. Tickets are only $25 and can be purchased at www.sundresspublications.com.
This workshop will provide an informal setting to discus and develop the ideas and inspirations of creative romantic poetry. Subjects covered to include: the history and common mistakes of the genre, new ways of conceptualizing the love poem, and new approaches to crafting one. Participants are encouraged to bring their own work, and come prepared to write some new things as well.
Dannen C. Demaree is the author of three poetry collections, As We Refer to Our Bodies (2013, 8th House), Temporary Champions (2014, Main Street Rag), and Not For Art Nor Prayer (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. Beyond his own work, Demaree is the founding editor of AltOhio and Ovenbird Poetry, as well as a member of the Sundress Publications editorial board.
Before the Sundress Academy for the Arts can welcome new resident artists in October, we need to spruce up the farmhouse with a fresh coat of paint. In order to raise money for this project, we have initiated our own bucket challenge—a Paint Bucket Challenge!
As comical as it might be, we are not asking you to dump a bucket of (potentially very toxic) paint over your head; we just need your financial support and time to make this happen! It will cost about $1,000 to buy the paint, primer, brushes, sandpaper, and volunteer refreshments, and we still need $500 with five days left to go.
Here are some ways you can help:
Please, if you are able, consider donating to our cause. Even a small amount puts us a little bit closer to a fresh and shiny farmhouse!
After you donate, make a video to challenge your friends to do the same! All donations go directly to SAFTA, a non-profit organization, and help to promote art in East Tennessee.
If you are local and would like to donate your time, sign up to help paint on September 20th from 10 AM to 8 PM. Volunteers can sign up on our website or on our Facebook event!
The SAFTA Reading Series is an award-winning literary reading series that is held monthly at The Birdhouse Community Center on the corner of Fourth and Gill.
Writers from all over the country are invited to visit and read from their work. Past performers have included Nick McRae, Emilia Phillips, Karen Skolfield, Amy Wright, Alan May, Jan LaPerle, Marilyn Kallet, T.A. Noonan, Darren C. Demaree, Joseph Bathanti, Kevin Brown, Leigh Anne Hornfeldt, and Sarah Einstein.
This month will feature a dynamic reading from Matthew Haughton and Eric Scott Sutherland.
Matthew Haughton’s latest book of poetry is Stand in the Stillness of Woods (WordTech Editions). His chapbook, Bee-coursing Box (Accents Publications), was nominated for the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Poetry Book of the Year. His poems have appeared in many journals including Appalachian Heritage, Now & Then, The Four Way Review, Still, Stirring, Border Crossing, and The Louisville Review. He is currently a student at the Bread Loaf School of English, where he is on a generous fellowship from the C.E. and S. Foundation. Haughton works as a school teacher in his native Kentucky.
Known for his high-energy readings, Eric Scott Sutherland is the epitome of a working class poet. He is an ISA Certified Arborist, a community/event organizer, and author of two chapbooks and two full length collections: incommunicado and his latest, pendulum. He is the creator and host of Holler Poets Series, a monthly celebration of literature and music since 2008. In 2011, he was officially proclaimed Poet Laureate of Al’s Bar, the home venue for Holler. Eric makes his home in the heart of Lexington, Kentucky.
Support the literary arts in Knoxville at this free event on Sunday, September 7th from 3PM to 4:30PM at The Birdhouse!
Introducing a creative extension to our award-winning reading series!
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present poet Laura Madeline Wiseman and local artist Chris Johnson in “Art, Myth, and Martians,” the first installment of Holler Salon, an extension of the award winning SAFTA reading series. The event will be held at Firefly Farms in Knoxville at 4 p.m. on Sunday, August 17th. Holler Salon is an occasional salon series featuring local and national writers and artists. Hosted at Firefly Farms in Knoxville, each salon will provide an intimate setting conducive to discussing and developing the ideas and inspirations of creative individuals from a variety of disciplines.
Laura Madeline Wiseman is the author of more than a dozen books and chapbooks and the editor of Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). She holds a doctorate from the University of Nebraska and has received an Academy of American Poets award and the Wurlitzer Foundation Fellowship. Her work is imaginative and provocative and has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, Margie, and Feminist Studies.
For Holler Salon, Wiseman will discuss her playful sci-fi book, American Galactic, as well as selections from Some Fatal Effects of Curiosity and Disobedience, her unique, romantic take on the classic Bluebeard myth.
Chris Johnson is a local, self-taught visual artist with Gallery 133. His work is edgy and engaging and hangs in both public galleries and private collections. For Holler Salon, Johnson will feature his paintings “A Study on Berserk”—an homage to his favorite graffiti artist, Berserk—and “The Madness Vase”—based on the Andrea Gibson chapbook The Nutritionist.
Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Sandra Marchetti and Sarah Einstein as a part of their July Reading Series. The event will take place at The Birdhouse, 800 N 4th Ave in Knoxville, on July 20 at 3:00PM.
Sandra Marchetti’s debut full-length collection of poems, Confluence, will be published in Gold Wake Press’ 2014 Print Series. An illustrated fine press edition of her essays and poetry entitled, A Detail in the Landscape, is also forthcoming from Eating Dog Press. Sandy is the author of a chapbook, The Canopy, available from Midwest Writing Center Press, and has served as the Guest Editor of Stirring: A Literary Collection. She won Second Prize in Prick of the Spindle’s 2014 Poetry Open and her poems appear in The Journal, Subtropics, The Hollins Critic, Sugar House Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Green Mountains Review, Prairie Gold: An Anthology of the American Heartland and elsewhere.
Sarah Einstein lives in Athens, OH, where she is a PhD student in Creative Nonfiction at Ohio University. Her work has previously appeared in Ninth Letter, Fringe Magazine, PANK, and other journals, and has been awarded a Pushcart Prize. Her micro-collection, Remnants of Passion, was published by Shebooks on June 25th. She was recently announced as this year’s winner of the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize for her manuscript, Mot: A Memoir.
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Flyer by our wonderful graphic design intern, Megan Magray!
We are thrilled and honored to be the South Regional Winner of the 2014 LitBridge Reading Series Contest!
Judged entirely on nominations from readers and supporters, the SAFTA Reading Series topped those of literary organizations across seventeen southern states to win this prestigious award. In addition to being publicly recognized by the online LitBridge community, SAFTA received a monetary prize of $150 to help continue their artistic involvement in the Knoxville area and beyond.
The SAFTA Reading Series was established in November, 2013 and has since hosted a succession of noteworthy performers from across the United States including Marilyn Kallet, T.A. Noonan, Jan LaPerle, Kevin Brown, and many more. Currently, the series is held monthly at The Birdhouse, a Victorian-era home turned Neighborhood Center in Knoxville’s charming Fourth and Gill neighborhood.
Reviewers of the SAFTA Reading Series said it was “one of the best readings I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot,” and “readings at The Birdhouse are fun and engaging—I’ve loved every reader that has come!”
LitBridge is an online literary association that aims to promote and develop the professionalization of members of the collective writing community. Their Reading Series Contest honors new reading series that display excellence and maintain high ratings from readers and attendees.
In May, I had decided to quit writing poetry; told both my wife and Erin Elizabeth Smith that I was “out of the game.” Over the last two years, my focus was on pedagogy, a tenure portfolio and an endless stream of freshman comp papers. My creative energies were centered on finding new ways to scribble “thesis,” “I’m not sure what you mean here” and “citation needed” into the margins of student essays. At the end of the workday, there was nothing in the tank to make me sit down and think about drafting new work, let alone sending out any submissions.
And yet, because I would be in Knoxville on vacation anyway, I found myself going to SAFTA’s first undergraduate poetry retreat and camping trip. At the very least, I could offer an extra pair of arms to tote food, gear and supplies up from the farmhouse to the mountain-top campground. I could make runs to the nearby Ingles grocery store. That sort of stuff. My participation was going to be limited, and I liked that.
Then, two nights before it began, Erin sent out a copy of the weekend’s schedule; the 9:30am Saturday slot read “Writing Exercise with Dr. Scott Fynboe.” I protested the next day, as we worked on straightening up the farmhouse. “I told you, I’m out. I quit writing.” Her response was a one-note laugh, followed by “Tough. You’re doing it.”
So I sketched out an exercise that night and promptly turned my efforts to lending a hand at every turn. I met our guests on Friday evening, worked to make them feel welcome, helped give tours of the farm, and drove my SUV into the hills loaded down with three people’s camping gear – all the things I’d promised. But when the group settled in with their first writing prompts, just before dinner, I sat away from the campfire, not participating.
When the sun came out Saturday morning, I did my thing and led the group in a discussion of narrative poetry. Then I gave them two sets of prompts, and, for appearances sake more than anything else, drafted poems alongside them. My first piece was just okay. It felt stilted and dull. The second one was better. Its ending was more punchline than gut punch, but the rust was beginning to break off. I looked down at the legal pad, thinking “okay, this can be reworked. It has potential.”
Something snapped after lunch, though and as the day progressed, I felt invigorated. Prompted by Dr. Darren Jackson to write about “your mother’s tits” (taking after Robert Haas), I filled two pages, exploring deep fears about my parents’ advancing ages. Later, while I did not actively write during Dr. T.A. Noonan’s exercise that evening, I made a note on my phone of ways to crack open a piece I first drafted fifteen months prior. And come sundown, I found myself longing by the fire with a bottle of Mexican Coke, offering submissions advice and giving one-on-one thoughts about how to streamline a sci-fi novel. I was a part, not apart.
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Before camp broke the next morning, Erin gathered all of us around the fire one last time to write about our weekend experience. “What is one thing you learned from this?” she asked and I set to compose my own “Ashokan Farewell.”* Last to read, I wrote that all of us – the SAFTA staff and the guests – should learn the words of John Denver’s “Poems, Prayers and Promises”** as he described, in four minutes, everything that had occurred over the weekend. Campfires, personal reflection, deep thoughts, gathering with friends (old or new), it’s all in there.
And that’s one way to think about the retreat. Campfires, tents and sleeping bags mixed with conversations, talk and s’mores. Another way is to think of it as meeting new people, learning new skills. Still another is the more traditional idea of the “writer’s getaway” – a chance to change surroundings and find some privacy to write.
The weekend with SAFTA was all of these things, sure, but for me, the “retreat” was a return. A return to something I had forgotten in the stacks of 500 to 750 word, double-spaced, MLA formatted pages and I deal with in sixteen-week bursts twice a year – that feeling of being back in grad school, drinking and smoking unhealthy amounts with a group of writing friends, sharing our work in dank bars and discussing how each of us would set the literary world ablaze.
Suffice to say, I’ve stopped telling people that I’ve quit.
* Best known as the theme music to Ken Bruns’ The Civil War, “Ashokan Farewell” was originally composed as a musical “goodbye” to campers at the annual Ashokan Fiddle and Dance camp in New Paltz, New York.
** And here’s the song:
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Scott Fynboe is the Host and Coordinator of the weekly SAFTAcast.
Things Scott C has done:
– DJed at WHRW-Binghamton for seven years, hosting a variety of music, game, and talk shows – Mobile DJed weddings, proms, reunions, karaoke nights, and at least one bar mitzvah – Performed improv comedy as a member of The Pappy Parker Players – Acted in both musical and not-musical theater – Written and published some poems– Shopped for a futon – Taught English at a Florida college
Things Scott C has not done:
– Visited Europe – Worn denim to a black-tie event – Owned a hammock or a gazebo – Studied dentistry – Vomited on a retired postal worker – Woken up before he go-go’d – Some other stuff
It’s good to be a part of something dynamic and exciting again. When I was an undergrad at the University of Tennessee, I liked to keep myself busy. I got involved with environmentalists, progressive activists, artists, musicians, and writers. I discovered acting, and became a performer. This, while double majoring in Anthropology and English. I wanted to do everything, be everything for everyone. So, I had no free time. It was a great- I’d recommend it to anyone. True, I made plenty of mistakes while I was at it; there were times I fell flat on my face or stuck my foot in my mouth. I was taught some difficult lessons. But I learned, and I got better. I was giving myself a future. I didn’t know it, though: I just wanted to DO stuff.
I graduated in 2013. I was anxious. Not surprising—I had been taught to be fearful of the real world, often by trusted advisers with good intentions. But now I know I needn’t have been intimidated. Because I knew what I wanted, I knew what made me happy. I had a passion for performing, for storytelling. It was inside of me, in an embryonic state, but very there and very real, all the same. I may be a cynic by conditioning, but I am romantic at heart, and romantics don’t give up on what they love, even in spite of the warning signs, and all the obstacles, all the ghosts chasing after you in the form of “good advice”. You ignore all that. You just do it.
And I did it. I kept performing. I persisted with blind faith, and my loyalty is paying off. I know what I am: a working actor, regularly performing with local film and theatre companies who have kindly let me be a part of what they do. And, I know what’s next: I’ve been given a chance to be involved with a group that advocates and nurtures the things that I love, in a community that I love.
Thank you, SAFTA. Now, enough about me, let’s get this show on the road…
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Erik Schiller is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where he received his BA in Anthropology and English, with a minor in Theatre. He has been performing in live stage and film productions in Knoxville since 2009, working with local companies that include the Clarence Brown Theatre, Yellow Rose Productions, and Badland Pictures. In addition, he has served as Secretary for All Campus Theatre at UTK, is a founding member of the guerilla theatre troop Shakespeare Unauthorized, and has had poetry published in the Phoenix Literary Arts Magazine
We are excited to announce the premiere of OUTSpoken, a theatrical review written and performed by the local LGBTQ community and its allies.
OUTSpoken began with a series of writing workshops, where community members developed their experiences into poems, monologues, narratives, or other literary forms. We also received many submissions online from writers and artists around the country, which were then revised and transformed into performance pieces.
Some participants worked with local actors to bring their writing to life, while others will be performing their writing themselves. It is our sincerest hope that this project will help create a platform to record, perform, and illuminate the experiences and struggles of the Southern LGBTQ community, as well as celebrate sex- and gender-diversity in East Tennessee and beyond.
The event will include performances by Adam Crandall, Donald Rickels, Molly Kessler, Sean Kelley, Amber Autrey, and Raven Mason, and will feature the writing of T.A. Noonan, Erin Elizabeth Smith, Andrew Emitt, and more!
OUTSpoken will take place on Saturday, June 28th, at 7:30pm at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Tickets can be purchased in advance from the SAFTA website for $10 or at the door for $15. A percentage of the proceeds will go to support the East Tennessee Chapter of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network).
Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents Steampunk Storytime
Knoxville, TN—The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA), an artists’ colony on a 29-acre farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, is pleased to be a part of the Second-Annual Steampunk Carnivale, taking place on June 7, 2014. Due to popular demand, the event will be having longer hours and more kid-friendly events for families to enjoy.
Actors and performers from the Knoxville area will be reading Steampunk spins on classic tales, every hour on the hour from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Steampunk Storytime will conclude with a final tale at 10:00 PM, just before the evening’s adult festivities.
1:00 PM – “The Four Skillful Brothers” by Larkin Grimm – Four brothers travel the world and learn very different trades, each of which proves valuable in rescuing a princess from a mechanical dragon—but whose skill is most valuable?
2:00 PM – “The Machinist” by Darren Jackson – In a desperate attempt to secure his daughter’s future, a father’s wild lie puts his daughter in an impossible situation. She is saved by a technological marvel, but the price of salvation is higher than she expected.
3:00 PM – “Candy Heaven” by Larkin Grimm – Two children discover a candy store in the heart of the city. From the outside, it looks abandoned; inside, they find a world that is not quite as sweet as it seems.
4:00 PM – “The Clockwork Girl” by T.A. Noonan – Fashioned by a master craftsman, the clockwork girl dreams of becoming real. The journey, though, will take her places she never dreamed and teach her things she never expected.
5:00 PM – “Tiger’s Bride” by Angela Carter – After being lost by her father in a game of cards, a woman becomes the captive of a mysterious beast-man known as “Milord.” What neither of them knows is that each is the other’s perfect mate.
10:00 PM – “Little Red Fascinator and The Wolf on Her Tail” by Larkin Grimm – A milliner’s granddaughter receives advice and a gift that seem to contradict one another, and it’s up to her to decide which is more her style.
In May, I had decided to quit writing poetry; told both my wife and Erin Elizabeth Smith that I was “out of the game.” Over the last two years, my focus was on pedagogy, a tenure portfolio and an endless stream of freshman comp papers. My creative energies were centered on finding new ways to scribble “thesis,” “I’m not sure what you mean here” and “citation needed” into the margins of student essays. At the end of the workday, there was nothing in the tank to make me sit down and think about drafting new work, let alone sending out any submissions.
