Program:

12:30 p.m.—Poetry Reading / Featured Poet Sharon Israel

 

1:00 p.m.—Publishing Panel / Group Discussion Addressing the Latest News and Trends in Publishing

 

Panelists include authors Leslie T. Sharpe and Anique Taylor, and publisher Dayl Wise from Post Traumatic Press. Moderated by Simona David.

 

1:30 p.m.—Keynote Address “The Art and Craft of the Biography” with Holly George-Warren

 

2:30 p.m.—New Release with Leslie T. Sharpe, author of The Quarry Fox and Other Critters of the Wild Catskills 

 

3:00 p.m.—Fiction: Roots and Branches with Nina Shengold  

 

3:30 p.m.—Illustrators’ Moment

 

Illustrators Durga Yael Bernhard and Will Lytle, cookbook editor Carrie Bradley Neves, and art writer Simona David will talk about the ins and outs of illustrated books.

 

4:00 p.m. —The Bounty of Books Raffle, with a prize of ten selected book titles, will be awarded (come early, tickets are limited!), and the winner of the Best Cover Contest will be announced.

 

Keynote Speaker: 

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Holly George-Warren is a two-time Grammy nominee and an award-winning writer named one of the top women music critics “you need to read” by Flavorwire.com. She is the author or co-author of fifteen books, including A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, from the Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man; Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry; and the forthcoming biography of Janis Joplin, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2018. She co-wrote the New York Times bestseller The Road to Woodstock (with Michael Lang), as well as John Varvatos: Rock in Fashion (with Varvatos) and It’s Not Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (with Jenny Boyd). Among her other works are The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: The First 25 Years; Punk 365; Grateful Dead 365; Bonnaroo: What, Which, This, That, the Other; How the West Was Worn (with Michelle Freedman); Cowboy! How Hollywood Invented the Wild West; and the nonfiction children’s books Honky-Tonk Heroes and Hillbilly Angels: The Pioneers of Country & Western Music; Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll; and The Cowgirl Way.

 

Poetry Reading:

 

Sharon Israel / Featured Poet

Sharon Israel hosts the radio program, Planet Poet-Words in Space, an edition of the Writer's Voice, on WIOX FM and is on the board of Writers in the Mountains. Her chapbook, Voice Lesson, was recently published by Post Traumatic Press.

Publishing Panel:
 

Leslie T. Sharpe is a writer, editor, and educator. A member of PEN American Center, she is the author of Editing Fact and Fiction: A Concise Guide to Book Editing (Cambridge University Press, 1994), which is regarded as a “modern editing classic” and “On Writing Smart: Tips and Tidbits,” featured in The Business of Writing (Allworth, 2012).  Her new book, The Quarry Fox and Other Critters of the Wild Catskills, published by The Overlook Press in March 2017, is a lyric narrative look at the wild animals of the Catskill Mountains.

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Anique Taylor holds an MFA in Poetry from Drew University, and an MFA in Drawing from Pratt Institute as well as a Diplome from Sorbonne University in Paris, France. She’s co-authored works for HBO, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, a three-act play performed at Playwrights Horizons. She’s given featured readings at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Dixon Place, the Speakeasy, Cedar Tavern, and group readings at What Happens Next, Tompkin’s Square, Charas, The Knitting Factory. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Common Ground Review, Stillwater Review, The World (St. Mark’s Poetry Project), Adanna, Cover Magazine, Cheap Review, Southern Poetry Review, Earth’s Daughters. She’s been anthologized in Veils Halos & Shackles, Pain & Memory. She’s published a chapbook Poems (Unimproved Editions Inc). Her chapbook Where Space Bends was chosen Finalist by both Minerva Rising’s and also in Blue Light Press’ Chapbook Contests. Her chapbook Under the Ice Moon was chosen Finalist by Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest.

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Dayl Wise was drafted into the US Army in 1969 with service in Viet Nam and Cambodia, 1970 and returned with a different mission in 1993 delivering medical supplies the form of reconciliation. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, and is the author of Poems and Other Stuff (PTP, 2004) and Basic Load (PTP, 2009). Dayl lives Woodstock, NY with his wife, the poet Alison Koffler, and is co-founder of Post Traumatic Press.

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Fiction:

Nina Shengold writes in many genres. Her books include the novel Clearcut (Anchor Books), a Book Sense Notable Selection; River of Words: Portraits of Hudson Valley Writers, with photographer Jennifer May (SUNY Press); and 13 theatre anthologies for Vintage Books and Viking Penguin. Shengold won the Writers Guild Award for her teleplay Labor of Love, starring Marcia Gay Harden, and the ABC Playwright Award for Homesteaders. 

Illustration:

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Durga Yael Bernhard is the illustrator of over three dozen children’s books – all of which she designed except for one – including fiction and non-fiction, natural science titles and multicultural folktales. She has also written several unique concept books for children. Her illustrated books include A Ride on Mother’s Back (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); While You Are Sleeping (Charlesbridge Publishing); In the Fiddle is a Song (Chronicle Books); and Never Say a Mean Word Again (Wisdom Tales Press). Most recently, she has published a calendar of fine art paintings titled The Jewish Eye. Bernhard’s work encompasses several different styles, and has been published on everything from book, magazine and CD covers, to business logos, brochures, websites, corporate promotional materials, and publicity for religious and ecological causes. 

Simona David is a writer and media consultant living in the Catskills. Her latest book How Art Is Made: In the Catskills, released earlier this year, pays homage to the place where American art was born through a series of conversations with some of the world’s most accomplished artists who live and work in the region.

Will Lytle (illustrator) grew up in the Catskill Mountains, where, after years abroad as a hitchhiking, train-hopping vagabond, he returned to build a small house with wood from his family’s lumber mill. Lytle is the creator of the guerilla-style Thorneater Comics series.

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Carrie Bradley Neves is an Upstate New York native who grew up outside Albany and returned to the area a little over a decade ago. She has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Williams College, where she also studied playwriting and poetry; and a master’s degree in fiction writing from the University of New Hampshire, where she studied fiction writing and poetry. For the last twenty-five years, Carrie has focused many of her writing goals on writing lyrics, making records, performing, and touring as a singer-songwriter and violinist. Her work-for-pay life is as a copy editor, specializing in cookbooks. 

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Authors:

Lloyd Barnhart was born and raised in Roscoe, NY in the beautiful Beaverkill Valley.   Educated at SUNY Brockport and Springfield College, he enjoyed a 35 year career as a College Physical Educator, with specialties in health, fitness, outdoor recreation and dance. Now retired, he spends his time hunting, fishing and playing Grandpa. His written work has appeared in The American Rifleman, Parks & Recreation, JOHPER, JUCO REVIEW, Fur-Fish-Game, Kaatskill Life and has been collected in TAILINGS...RAMBLING ON...and RAMBLING OUTDOORS.

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Dollar Bill Caruba – author of The Art of Folding Money

 

Ginnah Howard's work has appeared in Water~Stone Review, Permafrost, Portland Review, Descant 145, The Tusculum Review, and elsewhere. Her novel, Night Navigation (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2009), was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Doing Time Outside, her second novel, was published by Standing Stone Books in 2013. The final book of the trilogy, Rope & Bone: A Novel in Stories, was published by Illume in July, 2014. It was chosen as one of the "best of the best Indie books in 2015" by Publishers Weekly.

 

Lissa Kiernan is the founding director of the Poetry Barn in West Hurley. Her first full-length volume of poetry, Two Faint Lines in the Violet, was a 2014 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award finalist, as well as a finalist for the Julie Suk Award for Best Poetry Book by an Independent Press. Her first book of prose, Glass Needles & Goose Quills: Elementary Lessons in Atomic Properties, Nuclear Families & Radical Poetics will be published later this month. Ms. Kiernan holds an MA from the New School and an MFA from the Stonecoast Creative Writing program, and she teaches for Writers in the Mountains It’s Elemental: The Art of Revision in Poetry.

 

Jana Martin is a fiction and nonfiction writer and the author of Russian Lover and Other Stories, a critically acclaimed collection, as well as Great Inventions / Good Intentions, an NEA- awarded history of American design. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Village Voice, Marie Claire, Glimmer Train, the Mississippi Review, Fish & Game Quarterly, New World Writing, and other publications. 

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Melissa Holbrook Pierson has been writing, professionally and otherwise, for so long she can’t think back that far. After receiving her MA in English Literature she went freelance as a film and book critic; she published her first book, The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles, in 1997. Four others followed, all from W. W. Norton. She contributes reviews and essays to many publications, and is beginning a proposed work that will combine history and memoir.

 

Nina Shengold's books include the novel Clearcut (Anchor Books), River of Words: Portraits of Hudson Valley Writers (SUNY Press), and a dozen theatre anthologies for Vintage and Viking Penguin with co-editor Eric Lane.  She won the Writers Guild Award for her teleplay Labor of Love, starring Marcia Gay Harden.  A longtime books editor at Chronogram, she teaches writing at WIM, Word Cafe, and Omega.

 

Robert Burke Warren is a writer, performer, and musician. His work has appeared in Salon, Texas Music, Brooklyn Parent, The Woodstock Times, The Weeklings, Vulture, Paste, The Rumpus, Chronogram, and the Da Capo anthology The Show I 'll Never Forget. He's ghost written for Gregg Allman and his liner notes appear on the award-winning CD Live at Caffe Lena. His 2016 debut novel, Perfectly Broken, is published by the Story Plant.

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Publishers:

 

The Andes Gazette features regular monthly columns on wildlife, gardening, and personal observation as well as book reviews; it often profiles shops, galleries and eateries in Andes and nearby communities.

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Post Traumatic Press - Dayl Wise was drafted into the US Army in 1969 with service in Viet Nam and Cambodia, 1970 and returned with a different mission in 1993 delivering medical supplies the form of reconciliation. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, and is the author of Poems and Other Stuff (PTP, 2004) and Basic Load (PTP, 2009). Dayl lives Woodstock, NY with his wife, the poet Alison Koffler, and is co-founder of Post Traumatic Press.

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Sponsors:

Arkville Bread and Breakfast 

Cassie’s Café

Freshtown

Hookline Fish Company 

Margaretville Liquor Store

Numann Technology Center 

Phoenicia Diner

Picnic

Roxbury General 

The Roxbury Motel 

Stockade Capital 

Tennis Everyone

Union Grove Distillery  

Wildflowers Florist 

Bonnie Walker and Jeanne Ellsworth