Creative

Original stories, songs, poems, and other creative pieces.

Rosefire Writing Circles Welcomes New Writers

by DLL | Creative

The Rosefire Writing Circle has been offering community and support for writers of all ages and abilities since 2016. Award-winning writer and veteran teacher Deborah Lee Luskin facilitates.

Deborah creates a safe and welcoming space where participants write to prompts designed to prime the creative pump. Writers focus and fly, spilling their words onto the page. Those who wish then read this new work, while others bear witness to these remarkable stories. The entire process enhances creativity; participants invariably write more, write better, and write with greater confidence.

Summer Woodworking Classes at HatchSpace

by HatchSpace | Creative

HatchSpace is offering several woodworking classes for both beginners and experienced woodworkers.

Mastering the Card Scraper with Tom Bodett: In this 2.5-hour workshop, Tom Bodett shares his passion for woodworking and especially the Card Scraper – a simple and effective tool for creating a beautiful finish on wood.   Tom will cover how to use the Card Scraper and how to keep it sharp.  Each participant will receive a card scraper and the tools to keep it sharp – a diamond stone and burnisher.  Offered on July 17 and August 14.

Intermediate Lathe Techniques: An introduction to face-turning techniques on the lathe, with master wood turner Jeff Bower.  This 3-hour direct learning experience focuses on tools and techniques to create a wide-variety of simple forms. Includes safety, setup, design, and tool selection to take the mystery out of turning and inspire your creativity.  Previous lathe experience is required.  Offered on July 25 and August 1.

HatchSpace Re-Opens with Summer Woodworking Programs

by HatchSpace | Creative

HatchSpace, a non-profit 501(c)(3) community organization, re-opens in its new location at 22 High Street in Brattleboro, Vermont starting in early June. Summer classes and workshops will include an intensive beginning woodworking course with Gail Grycel, along with workshops on making a tile top end table, a Shaker Bench with guest instructor Tim Clark, intermediate woodturning with guest instructor Jeff Bower, carving with Noriko Isogai, bending wood with steam with Blake Johnson, intro to CNC with Gail Fletcher, designing your vision, using a card scraper with HatchSpace founder Tom Bodett, along with many others. For more info, see the complete course list at hatchspace.org or email info@hatchspace.org

Blog88.org Is Up and Running!

by SK-B | Creative

Blog88.org is my last dance, for which death must stop and wait.

On May 29, 2021, at about the same time that my mother gave birth to me 76 years ago, my wish to give birth to my new baby, Blog88.org, was fulfilled. As promised, 4 new stories appeared, not previously included in the earlier “Sneak Preview” version:

1. Remembering Wally White and Faith Ministries, originally published in the Religion Section of the December 19-20 Weekend Brattleboro Reformer is our lead story.

Vermont Re-Making Jurassic Park – You Can Be A Part Of It

by cgrotke | Creative

There’s a project in Vermont this summer to re-create the film Jurassic Park, and you can be a part of it.

Crowdsourced Cinema VT is looking for Vermont filmmakers, videographers, artists, animators, musicians, and more to volunteer to re-make a scene from the dinosaur park movie. It’s a state-wide project and regional collaboration among media access centers.

Make A Snow Head Out of A Pile Of Snow, Win $100

by Rolf | Creative

See all those piles of snow all over Brattleboro? Those are really the heads of giant happy monsters, waiting for you to carve out.

This year, thanks to a grant from the Town Arts Fund, there are three $100 prizes available for the top three Snow Heads, Judged for 1) Goofiness, 2) Artistry, or 3) The level of delight that it causes. 

The Rosefire Writing Circle Offers Community and Support with Deborah Lee Luskin

by DLL | Creative
Deborah Lee Luskin

Beginning in January 2021, the Rosefire Writing Circle will meet virtually on Tuesdays from 5:30-7:30 in addition to Fridays from 1-3. Writers of any ability are welcome to join us. The writing circle allows writers to overcome the fear and loneliness of facing a blank page by providing the support of writing to the same prompt with others. This proven format creates a kind of writing magic from which everyone benefits. We write, we read, we have fun.

Last Night

by MarkTwain© | Creative

Did you every awaken from a dream, which inspires a poem?

For more, please hit the “Full Story” button.

For the Amusement of Petitioners

by Lise | Creative, Culture

Leafing through an old notebook, I found this poem by myself called Petitioning. It was written a long time ago in 2005 but despite the issues being 15 years out of date, it still made me laugh. If you’ve ever petitioned, you might get a chuckle too….

Primal Wounds

by MarkTwain© | Creative

Someday, all will be forgiven. We will be dead then.

Changed, Transformed, In Heaven. 

We won’t have to social distance any more. How many lovers who just want to hug each other have become stuck… one in Spain, the other in Georgia unable to fly?

You Are Doomed. Congratulations!

by cgrotke | Creative

Class of 2020, welcome to your virtual commencement address. Please mute your microphones.

You don’t need me to tell you that the Class of 2020 is like no other. A world locked down over a virus caused your senior year to go off the rails. 

Some of you were probably happy to get out of classes and in-person tests, but you were denied the reward that every other senior before you received for faithfully attending school for so many years – the joy of the final countdown to graduation.

Pandemic Quarrel

by MarkTwain© | Creative

True Bipartisan

For the good of all…

We ride together

But first, we must agree on the vehicle.

And then…

our destination!

The Moth’s Story

by MarkTwain© | Creative

The humans are talking, I understand every word. The cat eyes me like missile-guiding radar, interested but too far to pounce.

I know these humans — dumb that they are — cannot hear me, but I talk to them anyway. I have trained myself to understand the humans, so it is very frustrating that they have not done the same.

Reciprocation is a two-way street, you know!

Vermont Partnership For Fairness and Diversity and African American Heritage Trail Create Opportunities For Poets Of Color

by brattevents1 | Creative

Mount Island is excited to announce that the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity (VPFD) and Vermont African American Heritage Trail—an initiative of the VPFD— have donated a total of $150 toward the Lucy Terry Prince prize. Celebrated poet Major Jackson, who lives and teaches in Vermont, will serve as judge for the inaugural Lucy Terry Prince Prize. Major Jackson is the author of five books of poetry, including The Absurd Man (2020), Roll Deep (2015), Holding Company (2010), Hoops (2006) and Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. The donation will cover the $10 entry fee of 15 poets of color seeking to submit their work for consideration.

HatchSpace presents Woodturning Workshops in December

by HatchSpace | Creative

Hatchspace, 35 Frost St in Brattleboro, Vermont, is a non-profit dedicated to sharpening an appreciation for the work of human hands through the learning, practice, and teaching of woodworking.

Now one year old, Hatch serves the greater Brattleboro community with shared member workspace and classes for all levels of experience and interest.

Upcoming in December, instructor Blake Johnson offers a two part series in woodturning.

Today in Late October 2019

by Lise | Creative

A poem inspired by today’s world headlines.

spinning toward election
lawmakers reject proposal
fighters have left
forces captured
crisis turns violent
protesters pack square

What’s for Lunch?

by MarkTwain© | Creative

I had seen a 10 minute play which starts with a character complaining that when he tried to purchase a bottle of aspirin at a drug store, the clerk told him: “We don’t have that.”

It reminded me of a strange experience I had on Staten Island more than 30 years ago.