Litarary Journals Topic at Berkshire Writers Room09:28AM / Wednesday, November 07, 2007
PITTSFIELD - The Berkshire Writers Room and Berkshire Community College Forum Committee's next "Creative Experience" will be held Thursday, Nov. 15, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the student lounge at the Susan B. Anthony Building at Berkshire Community College.
With people reading less and less, and with all the new technology around us, the question is often asked, "why write, why publish?" Vivian Dorsel, author, editor and publisher of upstreet, a Berkshire literary publication, will attempt to answer some of those questions.
The Writers Room member will discuss why literary journals are important, how she came to start her own publication, what is involved in producing and marketing a literary magazine, and how beginning writers should go about trying to get their work into print.
Following her lecture, there will be a question-and-answer period as well as a short hands-on exercise.
To close the evening, Dorsel will present three Berkshire authors whose work has appeared in upstreet — poets Aaron M. Beatty and Lisken Van Pelt Dus, and creative nonfiction writer Frank Tempone. They will read their works.
Dorsel, a Pittsfield native, earned her associate's degree in liberal studies from BCC, a bachelor's in psychology from Williams College, an master's in psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and an master of fine arts in writing from Vermont College in Montpelier.
She was managing editor of The Berkshire Review for eight years, and her work has appeared in Connecticut River Review, The Mind’s Eye, Pif, The Artful Mind and The Women’s Times. She was a writing course coordinator and an advisory board member for Word Street and now teaches adult writing workshops at the Norman Rockwell Museum and after-school creative writing workshops at Taconic High School, where she also is editorial consultant to the student literary magazine, The Double-Edged Sword. She lives in Richmond.
Beatty, of Becket, holds a bachelor's in English and psychology from Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., and is creative coordinator for KB Toys. Formerly the poetry editor for The Berkshire Review, he is an advisory board member for Word Street, the drop-in tutoring and writing center on North Street. His poetry also has appeared in The Berkshire Review and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize this year.
Van Pelt Dus holds a bachelor's in religion from Williams and an master's in comparative literature from UMass at Amherst. From 2003 to 2005, she taught throughout Berkshire County as a Poet-in-the-Schools, and, since 2005, she has taught English, French and Latin at Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington. Her poetry can be found in Conduit, Main Street Rag, The South Carolina Review, Ellipsis, and other journals, and has earned awards from The Comstock Review, Atlanta Review and Writing the River: the 2004 Word Street Writing Contest. She lives in Pittsfield.
Tempone, founder and director of Word Street, holds a bachelor's in English from State University of New York at Stony Brook and a master of fine art in writing from Vermont College. A public school English teacher for 13 years, he began teaching at Miss Hall's School this fall. His fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, 580 Split, and other publications. He has been a Pushcart Prize nominee three times, and was nominated for "The Best Creative Nonfiction" anthology this year. Formerly the creative nonfiction editor for The Berkshire Review, he was fiction editor for upstreet No. 1, prose editor for No. 2, and conducted the author interview for both issues. He lives in Dalton. |
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