Tag: safta

The SAFTA Reading Series Presents Christopher Petruccelli, Stephanie Phillips, & Luke Marinac

July 26th at 3:00PM

Birdhouse Knoxville

800 N 4th Ave, Knoxville, Tennessee 37917

Sundress Academy for the Arts is proud to present this very special SAFTA Reading Series event featuring three former SAFTA staff members who will be leaving Knoxville to pursue their Master’s in Creative Writing in Alaska, Mississippi, and Ohio! Join us in celebrating the works of Chris Petruccelli, Stephanie Phillips, and Luke Marinac for One Last Night in Knoxville

Chris11713597_10152982407747514_1559030247_n Petruccelli is the author of the chapbook Action at a Distance, available at etchingspress.org. His poetry has appeared in Blast Furnace, Connotation Press, Gingerbread House, Rappahannock Review, and elsewhere. In his free time, Chris likes to drink whisky and smoke cigarettes with older women.

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Stephanie Lee Phillips is a writer, photographer, and graduate student who can’t seem to stop being a barista in Knoxville, Tennessee. In the two years since graduating from UT, she has worked with Sundress Academy for the Arts and swiftly avoided questions about her future from her parent’s friends. She is pleased to finally get to say that she will be studying fiction at the University of Southern Mississippi this fall where she will finally try crawfish.

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Luke Marinac studies and works at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His poetry has appeared in Polaris, The Siren, Unlikely 2.0, and North Central Review. He believes bike repair belongs in the living room, and enjoys the gamboling through the wild countryside of the Smokey Mountains.

Free beverages (adult and otherwise) and snacks!

The SAFTA Reading Series is free and open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there!

The Confluence of Rhythms Begins: Mapping the Sounds of Your Poems

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Saturday, June 27 1:00pm – 4:00pm
Sundress Academy for the Arts
195 Tobby Hollow Ln,
Knoxville, Tennessee 37931

“Soon, soon the flesh / The grave cave ate will be / At home on me.”

Sylvia Plath’s images in “Lady Lazarus” are haunting, but they are propelled into nightmare through her expert sense of sound and rhythm. Think about the last poem that pulled you beneath its rhythmic tide. Did it chime with beauty like Elizabeth Bishop’s lines in “At the Fishhouses”:

“It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: / dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free”?

If you are wondering how to further develop the natural tempos and patterns in your poems to enhance your poems’ images and narrative, this innovative music-poetics workshop is for you.

To combat the old struggles of writing and counting metrical lines, you will learn fresh methods like sound mapping, beat-tuning, and creating nonce forms to follow the sound of your poems to their crescendos. These methods will boost sound play in both free verse and metrical poems.

If you have always wanted to incorporate slant rhyme or alliteration but it seems wooden, this workshop is for you. In this 3 hour course, we will explore contemporary poets’ rhythmic techniques and you will learn to create evolving and enlivening music within your poems. Bring a couple of drafts-in-progress (at any stage) to revise. We will also write at least one new sound-driven piece in workshop. In addition to personalized feedback from the instructor and a helpful list of further readings, there will be a discussion of where and how to place sensual, sound-driven poetry for publication.

Purchase your tickets here!

10959347_832705225537_8697748533403976874_nSandy Marchetti is the author of Confluence, a debut full-length poetry collection forthcoming from Sundress Publications, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry from George Mason University. Eating Dog Press also published an illustrated edition of her essays and poetry, A Detail in the Landscape, and her first volume, The Canopy, won Midwest Writing Center’s Mississippi Valley Chapbook Contest. Her work appears in The Journal, Subtropics, The Hollins Critic, Sugar House Review, Mid-American Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Green Mountains Review, South Dakota Review, Phoebe, and elsewhere. She currently works as a writing teacher and freelance creative manuscript editor in her hometown of Chicago.

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SAFTA Reading Series Presents Darren Jackson and Andra Watkins

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June 21, 2015 at 3:00PM

Birdhouse Knoxville

800 N 4th Ave, Knoxville, Tennessee 37917

Knoxville, TN– Sundress Academy for the Arts is proud to present the June edition of the award-winning SAFTA Reading Series featuring visiting writers Darren Jackson and Andra Watkins!

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Darren Jackson’s recent poems have appeared in The Pinch, The Laurel Review, The Offending Adam, Bluestem, and other journals. He has also translated Life in the Folds by Henri Michaux (Wakefield P, forthcoming Fall 2016); “The White Globe,” an essay by Bertrand Westphal, included in the The Planetary Turn: Art, Dialogue, and Geoaesthetics in the 21st-Century (Northwestern UP, 2015); and, with Marilyn Kallet and J. Bradford Anderson, Chantal Bizzini’s Disenchanted City (Black Widow Press, 2015). He was nominated for a Pushcart for fiction in 2015 and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Tennessee.

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Andra Watkins is the author of the memoir Not Without My Father: One Woman’s 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace, nominated for the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Her other works include her debut novel To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis and the photography collection Natchez Trace: Tracks in Time.

The SAFTA Reading Series is free and open to the public! We look forward to seeing you there!

SAFTA Reading Series Presents Meagan Cass & Shannon Hardwick

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KNOXVILLE, TN – Sundress Academy for the Arts is pleased to announce a fantastic summer reading by Meagan Cass and Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick! This installment of the award-winning SAFTA Reading Series will be held at the Birdhouse (800 North 4th Avenue, Knoxville, TN 37917) on Thursday, May 28th at 7:00 PM. Join Sundress Academy for the Arts in welcoming these wonderful writers to the stage for a night of reading and entertainment.

Meagan CassMeagan Cass is the author of Range of Motion (Magic Helicopter Press), and her fiction has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Pinch, DIAGRAM, Washington Square, and Puerto del Sol. Meagan Cass is an assistant Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Springfield, where she teaches courses in creative writing, publishing, literature, and composition. She founded the Shelterbelt Reading Series at UIS and serves as an assistant editor at Sundress Publications, coordinating fiction for the Best of the Net anthology. Over the last ten years, she has done editorial work for a range of national literary journals, including Stirring, Harpur Palate, and Rougarou, of which she is a founding editor.

Shannon Elizabeth HardwickShannon Elizabeth Hardwick received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her manuscript was a finalist for the Levis Prize in poetry and her chapbook was recently released by Thrush Press. She is an associate poetry editor for The Boiler Journal. Her work has appeared in collections such as 3:AM Magazine, Night Train, Versal, Sugar House Review, Four Way Review, among others.

All interested parties are encouraged to attend this latest installment of the engaging, award-winning SAFTA Reading Series. This will not be an event to miss! SAFTA welcomes everyone to the Birdhouse for this fantastic early summer reading!

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The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is an artists’ residency program on a 45-acre farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, that hosts workshops, retreats, and residencies for writers, actors, filmmakers, and visual artists. All events are guided by professional instructors from a variety of creative disciplines who are dedicated to cultivating the arts in Eastern Tennessee.

Web: http://www.sundresspublications.com                      Twitter: SundressPub

Email: safta@sundresspublications.com                            Facebook: SundressPublications

SAFTA to Host National Poetry Month Festival

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Sundress Academy for the Arts and Friends Present
2015 National Poetry Month Festival

Join the Sundress Academy for the Arts and other local poetry organizations for a day-long festival that will feature readings, writing workshops, a children’s story hour, open mic, and more, all to celebrate National Poetry Month! The event will be held at the Knoxville Barnes & Noble Booksellers at 8029 Kingston Pike from 10:00AM to 6:00PM on April 25, 2015.

Writers and performers from the Knoxville Poetry Slam, Poets and Po Boys, the 5th Woman Poetry Slam, and the University of Tennessee Creative Writing Program will join SAFTA for the poetry readings, which are scheduled throughout the day. Come join the best of Knoxville’s passionate poets and writers to celebrate and support the arts in East Tennessee with Sundress Publications!

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The schedule is as follows:
10-11: Meet & Greet with SAFTA Staff
11-12: Children’s Story Hour (Stuck by Oliver Jeffers)
12-1: Teen Workshop
1-2: UT Creative Writing Program Reading
2-3: Knoxville Poetry Slam Event
3-4: Open Poetry Workshop
4-5: Poets and Po Boys & 5th Women Poetry Slam Reading
5-6: Sundress Academy for the Arts Reading & Open Mic

A percentage of Barnes and Noble sales for the day will be donated to Sundress Publications, a local 501(c)3 literary publisher and the parent organization for the Sundress Academy for the Arts.

SAFTA To Host Script-Writing Workshop with Harrison Young

 

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Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present  the “Words Aren’t Everything,” workshop, which will be directed by playwright Harrison Young! This workshop will be held from 1PM-3PM on Sunday, March 15th at Sundress Academy for the Arts’s Firefly Farms (195 Tobby Hollow Lane, Knoxville, TN).

Words are great, but not when they get in the way! This wonderful workshop is designed to teach participants how to utilize improvisation-techniques to isolate how structure and relationships allow them to better focus on their stories. Participants are encouraged to bring up to four pages of their latest material to review with the class. Each participant will work on their personal piece with the guidance and instruction of playwright Harrison Young.

Harrison Young is a Theatre graduate from the University of Tennessee. His produced writing includes Online Fighting (Featured by the Brick Theater, Peoples Improv Theater, Tennessee Stage Company, Wild Thyme Players, and Pandora’s Dream Productions), A Cocaine Comedy (Featured by the People’s Improv Theater and Tennessee Stage Company), and the Secret Disclosures series (Featured by the Treehouse Theater). His performing credits include world premieres like Michael’s Story (Performed with the Treehouse Theater), The Hungry Heart (Performed with the Carpetbag Theatre), and Hoppy’s Trunk (Performed with the Tennessee Stage Company). Young lives in New York City, where he is a house team member of the improv group Vice Cream.

Attendance at this workshop is limited, so secure your chance to work with a published playwright by reserving your spot today! You can do so at our website, HERE!

SAFTA Presents.. Monsterworks: A Writing Workshop on Revision

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Sundress Academy for the Arts is holding a new writing workshop in February for both beginning and advanced writers. Hosted by Sundress Publications authors Sarah Ann Winn and M. Mack, “Monsterworks: Hybrid Genres and Revision” focuses on creatively revising unfinished work and promises to send participants home with more than a few Franken-pieces to be proud of.

The success of this workshop depends on how much “body” you bring to work with and how creative you are with slicing up your work and reinventing it! Besides bringing some writing in need of revision and re-imagining, the only requirements for this workshop is that participants bring a journal, pen, scissors, glue/tape. Creativity is also a plus, but if you lack that or lack pages of your own writing to work with, there will be plenty of spare parts to go around.

Sarah Ann Winn lives in Fairfax Virginia. Her poems have appeared or will appear in Bayou Magazine, [d]ecember, Massachusetts Review, Quarterly West, and RHINO among others. Her chapbook, Portage, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications this winter. Her life as a poet-free-range-librarian-workshop-leader is a hybrid work in progress.

M. Mack is a genderqueer poet, editor, and fiber artist in Virginia. Mack is the author of the chapbooks Traveling (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2015) and Imaginary Kansas (dancing girl press, 2015). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fence, Gargoyle, Menacing Hedge, Finery, The Queer South (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014), and elsewhere. Mack holds an MFA from George Mason University and is a founding co-editor of Gazing Grain Press, an explicitly inclusive feminist chapbook press. Theater of Parts is hir debut collection and will be released in 2016 from Sundress Publications.

This workshop is for writers of any genre or experience level who want to have fun with words and see their writing in a new light. Monsterworks will cost $25 to attend. Paying early is always recommended to reserve a spot, as they will start to fill up the closer it gets to the event. It will The workshop will be on Saturday, February 7, from 1PM – 4PM at Firefly Farms located at 195 Tobby Hollow Lane, Knoxville TN 37931.

Sign up at the SAFTA website or our online store!

OUTSpoken Opens 2015 Workshop Registration for LGBTQ+ Writers

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OUTSpoken is a second-year program from the Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) that will take place in Summer 2015. Our goal is to create a platform for the LGBTQ+ community of Knoxville, Tennessee, and its surrounding areas to record and perform the experiences of sex- and gender-diverse individuals in the South.

Registration for the OUTSpoken workshop series is now open. On-site participants will be a part of three workshops over the course of three months in order to create, edit, and produce a piece of art to be performed during SAFTA’s OUTSpoken events in Summer 2015. Workshop attendees will work with professionals in performance, prose, and poetry to compose and tell their own stories.

Workshops will be held on January 17th, February 21st, and March 28th, 2015 and run from 1PM to 3PM at the Sundress Academy for the Arts. Cost for the workshop is $25 for one, $45 for two, or $60 for all three. (Participants who attend at least two on-site workshops will be eligible to perform their piece at the OUTSpoken events later in the year.) Scholarship applications are also available on our website.

As LGBTQ issues gain greater visibility, it is crucial that we explore the complexities of sex and gender diversity respectfully. That said, we realize that unity cannot and must not be silent, and that in order to create a meaningful dialogue, we must acknowledge and listen to the stories, experiences, grievances, arguments, and counterarguments of all sex- and gender-diverse persons.

Register today!

Literary Gender-Swap Calendars Are Here!

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Our 2015 Sundress/SAFTA Calendar is now on sale! This year’s edition features 12 gender-swapped literary characters: Theodore of Oz, Herlock Holmes, Alex in Wonderland, Esther Dent, Captain Jane Hook, Henrietta Potter, Little Ted Riding Hood, Kenderella, Tomi Sawyer, Attica Finch, and more!
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Models include T.A. Noonan, Katie Manning,Chris Pettrucelli, Shastina Parahoo, Adam Crandall, Emily Cappatini, Chris Johnson, Randy King, Lyric Dunagan, Rhonda Lott, Jennifer McClendon, and more.

Calendars are only $20 and can be purchased in our store.

All proceeds go to support Sundress Publications and the Sundress Academy for the Arts, a 501(c)3 nonprofit in Knoxville, TN!

 

Jewelry-Making and Product Photography Workshop

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Sundress Academy for the Arts will host their second Crafting for the Holidays workshop. This year’s event will include jewelry-making and product photography workshop led by University of Tennessee lecturers Carrie Sheffield and T.A. Noonan on December 6, 2014 from 1PM-4 PM at Firefly Farms (195 Tobby Hollow Ln. Knoxville, TN 37931).

Participants will practice several fundamental techniques used to produce earrings and pendants, perfect for holiday gift giving, and learn how to take photos for online galleries and marketplaces.

All jewelry-making materials will be provided, and tools will be available for use during the workshop. Bringing a digital camera to use during the photography workshop is recommended.

All participants will be able to take home what they make!

The workshop cost is $25 and can be purchased online at: http://mkt.com/sundress-publications/crafting-for-the-holidays-workshop

Hurry! Space is extremely limited.