Dennis Fargo to Speak at Write by the Rails Meeting May 15

Writer Dennis Fargo will be the speaker at the monthly meeting of Write by the Rails, the Prince William Chapter of the Virginia Writers Club, at 7 pm on Thursday, May 15 at Trinity Episcopal Church, 9325 West Street, Manassas.  Mr. Fargo served in five submarines during the heart of the Cold War, 1964-1991. His experiences included service as a Navy SCUBA diver, nuclear propulsion plant operator, strategic weapons officer, and attack submarine Commanding Officer. Mr. Fargo will relate two or three "sea stories" about submarine life.  

On the Agenda

Prince William Poet Laureate – The selection panel announcement at Bistro L’Hermitage, with special guest Sofia Starnes, Poet Laureate of Virginia, was covered by Prince William Living magazine, BristowBeat.com and El Imparcial newspaper; nominations closed May 10 and June Forte will give an update on the selection process at the May 15 meeting. SAVE THE DATE: June 14 announcement of the first Prince William Poet Laureate will take place at Tackett’s Mill Lakeside with these special features:

Family Arts Festival presented by Edgemoor Art Studio 12pm - 4pm June 14 

Bring the entire family out for a fun-filled afternoon of family friendly activities. Join local merchants, food vendors and beer/wine garden while enjoying the beauty of Tackett's Mill Lakeside.

·         Grand Opening and Ribbon Cutting of Edgemoor Art Studio 12:05pm

·         Live music entertainment 

·         Kids craft artwork workshops and face painting.

·         Basketball shooting challenge

·         Tackett's Mill Lakeside professional photo booth

Poetry & Jazz on the Lake: Prince William County Poet Laureate 3pm - 6pm June 14 

Hosted by: Guy Lambert WPGC Radio        Featuring Live Music

Join us for an evening of poetry, community and jazz on the lake. Celebrating the selection of Prince William County's Poet Laureate, Poetry & Jazz On The Lake is our celebration of the arts community to recognize talented poets in our area.

·         Live poetry readings accompanied by the sounds of professional jazz.

·         Book signings from local authors

·         Meet exhibitors from local businesses and organizations

·         Tackett's Mill Lakeside professional photo booth

·         Plenty of food, wine and beer to pair with the beautiful atmosphere of Tackett's Mill Center

Community Partnerships.  Write by the Rails is now a member of both the Inter-Service Club Council of Greater Manassas www.iscc-manassas.org and the Prince William Chamber of Commerce www.pwchamber.org. We hope to increase our visibility and mutually benefit from these community partnerships by taking an active role in each.

ARTS ALIVE! at the Hylton Performing Arts Center - thank you to those writers who participated at the book tables, readings and workshops on May 3: Cindy Brookshire, Ellen Butler, Garrett Carlson, John DeDakis, Joe Geraci and his wife Terry, Leigh Giza, Katherine Gotthardt, Marv Josaitis, Stacia Kelly and Nick Kelly, Nancy Kyme, Belinda Miller and her husband Gary, Ron Rauss, Jan Rayl, Tamela Ritter, Janda Sample, Stuart Schadt and Dan Verner.

Advanced Title and Settlements has awarded Write by the Rails $928.60 through their “Advance Your Community Giveback Campaign.”  Our chapter was one of 15 local not-for-profits competing for votes in the campaign. In addition to the funds raised, PotomacLocal.com has agreed to donate 30 consecutive days of complimentary banner advertising on the website’s sidebar to each of the non-profit organizations who participated in the event. The offer amounts to a $300 value to each of the organizations involved.

Next Rising Young Writers Workshop: Thank you! An anonymous donor has given $500 to Write by the Rails for the next Rising Young Writers Workshop. A committee of at least 10 writers is in the process of forming to plan that workshop in 2014-2015.

Virginia Writers Club Symposium is Aug. 2. Early bird registration to the Fourth Annual Symposium, Navigating Your Writing Life: Finding Your Way is open for all active Virginia Writers Club members. The Symposium will be held on Saturday, August 2, 8:30am to 3:30pm at The Dickinson Fine & Performing Arts Center at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville. The keynote speaker is Kathryn Erskine, author of Mockingbird, the winner of the 2010 National Book Award. Symposium participants will find presentations and panels including how to format an i-book; publishing and marketing your work; getting feedback; craft sessions on poetry, the short story, young adult fiction, mysteries and thrillers, and non-fiction; and memoirs and journaling. Early bird registration extends to June 15. The fee is $60, with lunch included. After June 16, the fee rises to $75. Please go to the home page on the website and follow the links to the registration form. Click on Early Bird Special and enter G4SFPFAQ. Don't miss out on the discount. We look forward to seeing you at the Symposium.  If you have any questions, please contact Sara Robinson, Symposium chair, or Betsy Ashton, president. (Note, Write by the Rails doesn’t charge chapter dues, but to be a member of the Virginia Writers Club, you need to go to the website and join ($15 for the first year) at www.virginiawritersclub.org.  Our bylaws state that in order to be a chapter, at least five of our chapter members must be VWC members, and we meet that requirement.)

Lunch and Learn in Occoquan. Writer Elizabeth Marine is interested in organizing a “Lunch and Learn” in Occoquan at Rockledge Mansion with box lunches by Georgetown Caterers sometime this summer. If you are interested in helping Elizabeth organize this venture, which will require a fee to participate, please send an email to writebytherails@gmail.com with “Lunch and Learn in Occoquan” in the message line.

Write by the Rails: A Poem by Steven Dorsey

I decided one day to see if I could
write right right by rails,
so I set a up lawn chair
right by the rails
and commenced writing
only to find that the distraction of
hundreds of tons of blurred freight train
whipping by within feet of my writing spot
was causing me to write wrong right by the rails–
I should have known better than trying to
write right right by the rails, right?

Sheyna Burt, PWC Arts Council, on Arts Alive 2014

Arts Alive 2014 was a roaring success; I am so proud of this extraordinary collaboration between the Prince William County Arts Council and the Hylton Performing Arts Center.  

This year’s Festival had more than thirty performances on four different stages, literary and craft workshops, jazz and tango Masterclasses, fine art displays from local artists and participants in Action in Community Through Service, an open air market, plenty of art creation opportunities for kids, and gorgeous weather.  We ended the day with an exciting performance featuring the Donna Brown Jazz Trio and QuinTango, both accompanied by the Arts Alive Orchestra – it was impossible for the audience to avoid some serious chair dancing!  The Arts Alive Festival is about bringing the community together and we look forward to doing it even bigger and better next year on May 2, 2015.  

For those who can’t wait that long for their next dose of Prince William County culture, we invite everyone to join the Arts Council at Tackett’s Mill from 3:00 – 6:00 PM on June 14, 2014, for the presentation of the Commonwealth’s first ever County Poet Laureate.  

For more information about the Prince William County Arts Council and the upcoming events of it and its members, we encourage everyone to visit www.pwcartscouncil.org.

 

Who Will Decide Prince William’s First Poet Laureate? Here’s the Answer!

The Prince William Poet Laureate Selection Panel was introduced to the media at a reception at Bistro L’ Hermitage, 12724 Occoquan Road in Woodbridge, Virginia on April 29 by representatives of the Prince William County Arts Council - June Forte, steering committee chair, Write by the Rails; Nancy Kyme, representing the program’s corporate sponsor Tackett’s Mill Lakeside; and Sheyna Burt, PWC Arts Council Chair.

The selection panel includes eleven (11) prominent poets, scholars and business leaders in the Prince William community. Selection panel members are:

1.      Alirio Aleman, poet, novelist and Spanish-language journalist;

2.      Lindsey Barszcy, student, Center for the Fine and Performing Arts, Woodbridge Senior High School;

3.      Carlos Castro, entrepreneur and founder of Todos Supermarkets;

4.      Dr. Constance Gilman, Director, Prince William Public Library System;

5.      Cathy Hailey, creative writing teacher, Center for the Fine and Performing Arts, Woodbridge Senior High School;

6.      Marie Khalili Nasiri, author and business owner (State Farm Insurance, Manassas), daughter of Khalilullah Khalili (historian, poet, philosopher and statesman of Afghanistan);

7.      Sergeant Major Michael Mack, Wounded Warrior Regiment, Marine Corps Base Quantico;

8.      Alice Mergler, English and drama teacher, Parkside Middle School;

9.      Eric Pankey, poet, professor of English and Heritage Chair in Writing, George Mason University;

10.  Mark Shaaber, Chief Executive Officer, SCS Integrated Support Solutions, Manassas, and Founder and Chairman, Prince William Veterans Council; and

11.  LeeAnn Thomas, poet, Assistant Professor of English, Northern Virginia Community College’s Woodbridge Campus and board member of the Northern Virginia Review.

Special guest Sofia Starnes, Poet Laureate of Virginia, spoke, as she often does around the Commonwealth, about the importance of poetry in community life and read a selection of her poems. Starnes, a Williamsburg resident whose term ends in 2014, discussed her Poet Laureate project, The Nearest Poem Anthology, which is a compilation of readers’ responses from around the state to poems that have touched them deeply. The essays of two Write by the Rails members, Kristy Feltenberger Gillespie, a school guidance counselor at Marstellar Middle School in Bristow, and June Forte, a lecturer at Northern Virginia Community College’s Woodbridge Campus, are featured in the book.

The deadline for nominations for the Prince William Poet Laureate position is May 10. Nomination guidance and forms are available on the Prince William County Arts Council website at www.pwcartscouncil.org (click on “news”).  

The election panel will meet in late May at Northern Virginia Community College, Woodbridge Campus, to select the Prince William Poet Laureate.  The announcement of the first Prince William Poet Laureate will be made on June 14 at Tackett’s Mill Lakeside.

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Media contact: June Forte, Prince William Poet Laureate Committee Chair, at home1270@msn.com.