A Q&A with Solstice Low-Residency MFA’s Founding Director

In this Q&A, we spoke with Meg Kearney, Founding Director, and Quintin Collins, Assistant Director, at Solstice Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program.

What exactly is a Master of Fine Arts degree, and why do I need one?

It’s the terminal degree necessary for those who wish to teach at the college level. Most of our students want to earn an MFA for three reasons: community, networking opportunities, and—this is the main one—to become the strongest writers they can be.

What concentrations do you offer?

Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and writing for young people. We are also building a cohort to start our comics & graphic narratives concentration in summer/fall 2021.

What does “low-residency” mean, and what are the benefits of a low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program?

It means you don’t need to move to Boston to earn your degree. Our students want to learn not only the craft of writing but also how to make writing and reading a regular practice alongside life’s other obligations. During our two-year program, students attend five 10-day residencies, then work 1:1 with a mentor each semester. By graduation, they have a craft foundation, an understanding of how to publish their work, and a supportive community of fellow writers, many of whom become lifelong friends.

What makes the Solstice MFA Program different from other low-residency programs out there?

Our community. You’d be hard-pressed to find a friendlier, more supportive group. And from our founding in 2006, we’ve been dedicated to a diverse faculty of world-class writers who love to teach—in a setting intimate enough to have real conversations. We’ve found that intimacy exists even when our residencies are virtual because of COVID! Our Pedagogy Track also sets us apart. There’s more—writers should contact us to learn more.

Say more about how you encourage cross-genre work.

We certainly encourage students to take craft classes across genres during our residencies. Also, students may focus on a completely different genre in semester two than they did in semester one. Writers who have an MFA can check out our Post-Grad Programs to study in another genre.

You say you support diverse voices. How?

By featuring a diverse faculty. Solstice also offers Fellowships and our Writers Helping Writers Scholarships. Plus, our flexible schedule enables students to complete our program at a pace best suited to them.

What is a typical residency like/how is it structured?

Virtual or on-campus, the basic schedule is the same: students spend three hours a day in workshop. They fill the rest of the time with craft classes, elective sessions (including publishing-related events), and readings. By day seven, students receive mentor assignments and begin creating their semester plans.

Because of COVID-19, you held a virtual residency in July 2020. How did that go? Will you go virtual again this winter 2021?

We went virtual, and we waived our application fee because of the economic stress most are under. The virtual residency went smoothly; we were all surprised by how intimate Zoom can feel. We ensured that everyone felt comfortable with the technology. So yes, we’ll be virtual again this winter; it’s best for everyone’s health and safety.

How much contact do I have with my mentors?

Quite a lot. Often, they are your workshop leaders. When on campus, students and faculty typically share meals and attend readings and social events together. Students and mentors then exchange packets once a month. By the end of the semester, students have a treasure-trove of written feedback.

So students send five packets to their mentor during each semester—please say more about that?

Year one, packets are a combination of the students’ creative work plus short craft essays based on what they’re reading. During semester three, students write a critical thesis, also craft-based—or pedagogy based if the student is in our Pedagogy Track. In semester four, students complete their creative thesis—say, a full-length collection of poems or short stories or the first 130 to 150 polished pages of a novel or memoir.

That’s the second mention you’ve made of the Pedagogy Track. What is that, exactly?

The Pedagogy Track gives students training to teach at the college level—at no extra charge. As one of the few low-residency programs to offer this Track, Solstice gives its grads a leg up as they seek work in higher education.

How would you describe the typical Solstice MFA Program student?

They hail from 15 different states and beyond and range in age from 22 to 60-plus. Their backgrounds are as various as their geographic locations! But they all share a passion for the written word and seek a community that is friendly, open-minded, and supportive.

How do you support students financially?

Through Fellowships and our Writers Helping Writers Scholarships, which are need-based. And we keep our tuition and fees low—Solstice is quite competitive in that regard compared to most other low-residency MFA programs.

How do you support students academically?

Our community is purposely small; students get lots of individual attention. Workshops are kept to ten or fewer; our student-to-mentor ratio is 5:1. And we offer students myriad resources. Again, writers should contact us to learn more.

How do you support your alumni?

We love our alums, and they love us, too! We write them monthly, feature an alumni event at every residency, crow about them in our e-newsletter and on social media, and offer a “grad buddy” program to help see new alums through those first post-graduation months. Our alumni also organize a reading at every annual AWP conference.

You mentioned a post-grad program and a certificates—say a bit more?

People take advantage of our Post-Grad Semester when they’re working to complete a manuscript. Our Post-Grad Certificate enables writers to study for one year on a genre other than the one they concentrated on as students. Both are open to anyone with an MFA.

How do your alumni fare in the publishing and academic job market?

While a number of them are landing teaching jobs, 30 percent have published at least one book since graduation. That amazing statistic covers many genres: books of poetry, memoirs, short story collections, and novels for adults and for young people.

Is there anything new in the works that you’d like to mention?

We’re excited about the Writing Social Justice Track launching in 2021. It’s going to be like nothing else, and we can’t think of a more crucial time to offer this sort of programming.

To find out more, visit Solstice MFA’s site.

Contact: Meg Kearney, Founding Director & Quintin Collins, Assistant Director

Email: mfa@pmc.edu

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Game Over Books: 2020 Titles & Projects

Game Over Books is a small Boston-based press run by nerdy artists. Our mission? Print unique books from diverse voices that push creative writing forward into the Next Level. From acceptance to publication, we give continual guidance to emerging writers as they continue to gain experience points, grow their craft, and navigate the world of publishing.

We are so excited to be a part of the 2020 Boston Book Festival and want to thank the festival staff for hosting this necessary virtual space! 

I Wish I Wasn’t Royalty: A Playable Chapbook

I Wish I Wasn’t Royalty is a poetic and artistic collaboration among four bipolar poets and a bipolar poet/illustrator resulting in a functional 52-card playing card deck. A standard card deck (ex: the classic Bicycle Poker Deck) contains four suits: hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds. I Wish I Wasn’t Royalty follows the same format. Each of the four poets is given a suit in which their poem is written across. 

All of the cards and deck boxes will be sized like standard poker cards: 2.5″ x 3.5″.

The cards are printed in color on both sides and feature custom artwork from Catherine Weiss. The backs of the cards will all be uniform, but the faces of the cards are individually designed with an illustration and one line from a featured poet’s poem. 

Living with bipolar disorder is often full of surprising juxtapositions. Mania can cause thoughts to make unexpected connections. Depression can bring confusion and a sense of distant unreality. Every line of every poem in I Wish I Wasn’t Royalty is designed to be a stand-alone thought or image, read as part of its whole poem, or combined in unexpected ways with cards from other suits. Playing a game of cards with this deck creates opportunities for poetic fragments to offer up an ever-shifting found poem, which echoes the experience of living with extreme mood-states.

Any game you can play with a standard 52-card deck, you will be able to play with I Wish I Wasn’t Royalty. For more information, click here.

Sana Sana by Ariana Brown

“I am thankful to once again be witness to these poems that welcome and make space for the people who most need it. And for how Ariana Brown sets a lens on the world that is critical, but always caring.” —Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Fortune for Your Disaster

After ten years of performing her spoken word poetry, Ariana Brown gathers her favorite poems to return to in her chapbook Sana Sana. With a tender and critical voice, she explores Black girlhood, the possibilities of queerness, finding your people, and trying to survive capitalism. All are explored as acts of different kinds of love—for self, for lovers, for family, for community. Brown’s collection refuses singularity, insisting on the specificity of her own life and studies. As she writes toward her own healing, Brown asks readers to participate in the ceremony by serving as witnesses. Sana Sana, colita de rana, si no sana hoy, sana en la mañana.

 For more information, click here.

Cut Woman by Dena Igusti 

“Dena Igusti is a poet of undying urgency – this is a bold, heart-shattering chapbook debut.” —George Abraham, author of Birthright (Button Poetry)

In a post-colonial world shaped by what is and what will be lost, what is there left to celebrate? In Dena Igusti’s debut collection CUT WOMAN, Dena is overwhelmed by the loss of her people. The loss includes but is not limited to: the deaths of Muslims around the world due to xenophobia and Islamophobia; the deaths of Indonesians as a result of post-colonialism, state violence, environmental racism, and overall media negligence due to the world prioritizing white people over her own; the mortality of friends, lovers, and family from economic disparity and gentrification in New York City; the loss of her body that could’ve been her body if she didn’t undergo female genital mutilation. She knows that one day, her time will be up too. Rather than stay in mourning, however, She tries to turn these wakes, both current and future, into the biggest celebrations of her life. 

For more information, click here.

Big Feelings by Gigi Bella 

“we get to meet bodega cats, and Ariana Grande, her family and her loves, but most importantly we get to meet gigi: wholly human and wholly herself. this book is as tender as it is fierce, and will be opened like a gift by the hearts of so many.”  —Andrea Gibson, author of Pansy and Take Me With You

Big Feelings is a grand tour of love and loss, femininity, and the nuances inherent in the simple messiness of just being alive. Bella masterfully works within the ambiguity of feelings that do not ever truly end, of what it feels like to be a ghost within those feelings, and she guides the reader through the origin point of every haunting. She navigates the tragedies of heartbreak, the experience of brown girlhood, the loneliness ingrained within artists, and the courage it takes to get back up again even when it feels like you have already died many times before. With compassion and much needed humor, Big Feelings allows us the necessary space to be alone with one another.

For more information, click here. 

Heavier Than Wait by Ilyus Evander

“Yet this is a collection wrought, too, with something like hope—something, at least, like the belief that new names might grow in the old one’s place.” —Franny Choi, author of Soft Science

Heavier Than Wait is a tender guide to a queer experience in mental illness. Evander challenges the idea that apathy equals stability through her exploration of dysmorphia and dissociation in mental health. Here, the body is not just a thing of flesh, but a being filled with possibility and bound by tangibility. Using hypertext, memory, and interrogation of truth, Evander showcases the pains and hopes of healing.

For more information, click here.

The Visible Planets by Aly Pierce

“These poems circle the unknown until we recognize it as already part of us. I read them & feel smaller than I realized I was, but what a gift to find the known universe granular as it travels through Pierce’s lens, at once exploding & perfected by attention. Here, the vocabulary of particle physics, of math, of medicine, of humility, of grief, of orbit, is a limitless love language we all have in common.” —Emily O’Neill, author of a falling knife has no handle

The Visible Planets is a celebration and a eulogy of galactic proportions. Simultaneously an exploration of universal joy and the mourning of a lost sister, Aly Pierce’s The Visible Planets is a reminder of all the beauty in this fleeting life. Utilizing the cosmos and its celestial bodies, Pierce exposes the juxtaposing starlight and black holes inherent in every human. Along the way the reader will meet a colorful cast of characters including Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, and Phobos who all have their own flaws, insecurities, and desires just like any body in this universe would. The Visible Planets request the reader to love as deeply as they can while they have the time and space because eventually every star must fade no matter how bright it is.

For more information, click here.

You can find all of our titles and projects at gameoverbooks.com. If you are a bookseller, librarian, or an educator, you can contact SPD Books (johnny@spdbooks.org) for information on ordering and discounts. 

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Weave Me a Wreath of White Roses: 30 Years of Publishing Anna Akhmatova in English

Today’s blog post was contributed by Leora Zeitlin, co-director of Zephyr Press.

 

Towards the end of her life, Anna Akhmatova wrote:

What is lurking in the mirror? Grief.

What is stirring beyond the wall? Calamity.

Having lived through the violent upheavals of the Russian Revolution, two world wars, and the Stalinist terror, she had chronicled both her personal grief and calamities, and those of Russia, in more than eight hundred poems. Her early poems, often expressing anguished love, inspired a generation of Russians in the years before World War I. Later, refusing to leave the Soviet Union, she gave voice to the suffering of all of Russia.

Seventeen years after her death in 1966, a proposal to publish her complete poems arrived at the fledgling Zephyr Press in Somerville, Massachusetts. Poet Judith Hemschemeyer had already spent a decade translating Akhmatova’s poems before her friend and colleague Susan Gubernat—one of five editors then at Zephyr—presented them to us. We were young and audacious enough to think we could undertake this massive task: publish what would become a 1,600-page, two-volume, bilingual edition that would be the first of its kind in either Russian or English.

No one imagined that preparing the first edition would take seven years. Zephyr editor Ed Hogan spearheaded the project, coordinating myriad details to create, finance, and design the encyclopedic edition. We enlisted Dr. Roberta Reeder, a scholar at Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Center, who became the book’s overall editor, wrote a 160-page introduction, and compiled notes to the poems. British philosopher and historian Isaiah Berlin gave us permission to reprint his famous essay about his few but fateful conversations with Akhmatova between 1945 and 1965. Two of Akhmatova’s protégés, Dmitry Bobyshev and Anatoly Naiman, provided invaluable feedback on the manuscript and information about the poet. Numerous others were involved. In March 1990, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova was published to immediate acclaim. Two years later, we published an English-only, single-volume edition.

Several tragedies befell the project, most notably the death of Ed Hogan in 1997. Diverse factors sustained it. Thirty years later, the book remains in print and Akhmatova’s fame as one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets continues to grow. To honor our book’s 30th anniversary, Zephyr Press has planned two events in one weekend:

  • Saturday, October 17, 1:30 EDT: As part of the Boston Book Festival, Zephyr co-editors Jim Kates and Leora Zeitlin, and former editor Susan Gubernat, will present a reading of Akhmatova’s poems—chosen by translator Judith Hemschemeyer —and a discussion about The Complete Poems. 
  • Sunday, October 18 (time TBA): Zephyr will present a dramatic reading online of The Akhmatova Journals, a play by Ginger Lazarus based on the journals kept by Akhmatova’s associate, Lydia Chukovskaya. Through conversations between the two women and poems—notably from Akhmatova’s monumental “Requiem”—the play dramatizes the terror, anguish, poverty, and losses they experienced under Stalin. Actresses Lisa Bostnar and Gillian Mackay-Smith will perform. Full details will be posted at zephyrpress.org.
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December’s Fall/Winter 2020 Issue

december’s Fall/Winter 2020 issue (Vol. 31.2) is in production and we can’t wait to share the contents with the Boston Book Festival! The new issue will be out in early November — you can pre-order now or save money with a subscription! Here are a few of the highlights, with order details afterward:

Interview with Marvin Bell
Veteran journalist/emerging poet Robert Lowes interviews Bell, author of more than two dozen volumes of poetry and essays. Referring to Bell as a mash-up of Walt Whitman, comedian Larry David, and your favorite uncle telling dinnertime yarns, this interview provides details of Bell’s philosophies of poetry and life.

Curt Johnson Prose Award Winners

Don’t miss the winning stories and essays from the 2020 Curt Johnson Prose Awards, judged by Dorothy Allison (fiction) and Brittney Cooper (nonfiction).

New Fiction

Alverdia lived with her mother at the end of Buck Run Road.

Alverdia would bring her mother a paper towel-lined Tupperware of fried turtle. When

Alverdia lifted the turtle out of the plastic, she could see through the yellowed paper towel

because of all the oil.

If her mother hadn’t smoked in two days, she’d eat the turtle with her thin hands. She’d

ask what Alverdia learned in school, and Alverdia would tell her mother that it was summer and she wasn’t in school.

  • From “For Fear of Thin” by award-winning writer Noah Davis

New Poetry

Run your blade along the lines

that keep the head intact, then down

                         the back,

like slicing a watermelon—

  • From “To Kill a Chicken” by emerging Indonesian poet Jeddie Sophronius

This

evening we will sleep 

flush against the soft summer

ground with the scattering of 

helium globes so far above us.

­— From “Abecedarian at Summer Camp” by emerging poet Emma Harrington

Visit us at https://decembermag.org to buy single issues, subscriptions, or some of our great merchandise! We can’t wait to meet you — virtually for now, in-person soon!

 

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New Titles from Black Lawrence Press

We at Black Lawrence Press are so delighted to participate in the 2020 Virtual Boston Book Fest! Although we can’t be there in person this year, we’d like to celebrate our new and forthcoming titles by authors in the Boston area.

The Actual World by Jason Tandon (Farmington)

If you’d like to know how to hold the wide world in your heart, this book is a beginning. Jason Tandon does not offer broad brushstrokes to explain our days, but sharply cut lyrics. I love his sensibility. I love his spirit. —Richard Jones

When My Body Was A Clinched Fist by Enzo Silon Surin (Lynn)

In this full-length debut, Enzo Silon Surin traverses the turns of coming of age in the New York of the 1990s. In these sonically-packed stanzas, Surin draws scenes where hip hop and Haiti flow through the borough of Queens. He elegizes a friend named Frankie, and interrogates how masculinity is so often flexed like the knuckles of an ever-ready fist, even when vulnerability pulses underneath. —Tara Betts

Women in the Waiting Room by Kirun Kapur (Amesbury)

In astonishing lyrics that give us more than intimate negotiations of memory, the poems in Women in the Waiting Room work an entrancing weave of Hindu mythology, ravishing songs, and the language of crisis hotlines as a means of limning the fate of women’s bodies and psychological distress.. I call this life on the page, one you’ll be happy to encounter. —Major Jackson

Fingerspell by Lindsay Illich (Milton)

Lindsay Illich’s Fingerspell is not only a book of elegy, motherhood, and eros; it’s also a book of astonishing, idiosyncratic seeing—in which knee caps are like “stone fruit,” the city of Washington DC represents “the remains of an idea,” grief is an accumulation of snow “into which / the heart sinks,” the act of waiting is “a splint // my body’s wrapped against,” and the sound of a running vacuum is evidence of love. —Wayne Miller

The Shape of the Keyhole by Denise Bergman (Cambridge)

In 1650, in Massachusetts, a woman was falsely accused of killing her friend’s child. She was immediately tried and soon hanged. The Shape of the Keyhole examines a community’s fear-driven silence and envisions the innocent woman’s days as she awaits her execution.

Lost Letters and Other Animals by Carrie Bennett (Somerville)

“Bennett’s touch is light but cuts deeply into the impermanence that marks our lives. A beautiful collection.” —Barbara Hamby

Are you looking for a good home for your manuscript? We’re currently accepting submissions for The Black River Chapbook Competition. And we’ll hold our next open reading period in November.

Do you have a manuscript that could use an expert eye? Check out our consultation program for fiction and poetry.

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Massachusetts Libraries’ Upcoming Events

Check Out Massachusetts Libraries’ Upcoming Events!

We know this is a difficult time for everyone. In addition to everything else you do, you’ve had to become teachers and chefs, you haven’t been able to go to the gym or take your kids to the playground, and you’ve had to adjust to a life at home. You might be an essential worker who has to continue going to work and worry about childcare and what your kids are doing while you are not there. The world has been turned upside down, and everyone is looking for some sense of normalcy.

Since March, we have been working to create online resources for the services you love and expect from your library, directly for you, the library user, while library doors are closed. It has all been made possible by the hardworking librarians across the Commonwealth who have continued serving their cities and towns in new and creative ways to make sure that books are delivered, programs are put on, and reference questions are answered. Libraries miss their residents as much as residents miss their libraries!

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners has partnered with the Massachusetts Library System, the Automated Library Sharing Networks, and the Boston Public Library to bring you online digital resources you can access from home. These include the Online Calendar of Virtual Library Events, the Massachusetts Video Library, and the LEA eBook and audiobook program.

Right now, libraries are taking into mind the safety and health of staff and their users and doing what is best for their community, which means not all libraries are offering the same in person services right now. Some are doing curbside pickup, while others are still closed to the public. Contact your local library to see what they are doing now, and take advantage of the digital resources below.

Online Library Events Calendars

The library events that you love haven’t stopped while library buildings are closed, they have just moved online. Librarians, performers, and speakers have continued presenting the programming that you love virtually for free. Since there are so many events happening that are accessible to anyone with an internet connection, we have created the Online Library Events Calendars that are searchable by Network to see what events are happening around the state that you can attend even if they aren’t hosted by your local library. Some upcoming events include:

Tarot Card Readings with Sally Cragin

Host/Venue: Bigelow Free Public Library
Start: Oct 14th 6:30 PM

End: Oct 14th 8:00 PM

Virtual Tour of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

Host/Venue: Hyannis Public Library
Start: Oct 14th 6:00 PM

Virtual Yoga Class

Host/Venue: Lynnfield Public Library
Start: Oct 15th 12:00 PM

End: Oct 15th 1:00 PM

Family Singalong with Ed Morgan

Host/Venue: Concord Free Public Library
Start: Oct 16th 10:00 AM

End: Oct 16th 10:30 AM

Massachusetts Video Library

Working with the First Lady of the Commonwealth, Lauren Baker and public libraries across the state, we created the Video Library with fun and educational videos to make home-learning a bit easier for kids and parents. These videos have been created by library staff and volunteers and feature story times, sing-a-longs, art projects and more. Mrs. Baker even recorded a story time with the book “Sleepy Mr. Sloth” by Paul Kennedy.

Library eBooks and audiobooks (LEA)

Massachusetts Library Networks are collaborating to bring you LEA, a new and innovative way to gain access to more eBooks and audiobooks. Powered by OverDrive, LEA makes it possible for you to borrow eContent in all Networks regardless of your home library. With LEA, you can access eBooks, audiobooks, and more from libraries across the Commonwealth using your phone, tablet, or eReader. There are 345 partnering libraries with an estimated collection of over 350,000 eBooks and audiobooks.

These are only some of the great things that are happening as we speak at libraries in Massachusetts. Just because the doors are closed, doesn’t mean the services have ended. We hope that you will check out some of the free fun that is being offered, and that when libraries reopen to the public, we can’t wait to see you inside one of the 370 libraries in the Commonwealth borrowing books, using a computer, attending a program, or just stopping by to say hi!

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#BBFBookHunt: Our City-Wide Book Scavenger Hunt is Going Regional!

The annual scavenger hunt will extend from Boston to the Berkshires.

The Boston Book Festival will hold its annual book scavenger hunt on Thursday, October 1, and Friday, October 2, with some new twists. Just like the 2020 festival, the citywide scavenger hunt will extend beyond its Boston borders. Volunteers from across the Boston area will be hiding books by authors featured at this year’s virtual festival, but we’ve also enlisted some of the region’s literary giants to help bring the BBF Book Hunt to new places!

We’ve also enlisted some of the region’s literary giants to help bring the BBF Book Hunt to new places!

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be joined by the Walden Woods Project in Lincoln, Mass., Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in Concord, Mass., the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Mass; the the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Hadley, Mass.; Herman Melville’s Arrowhead in Pittsfield, Mass., Edith Wharton’s The Mount in Lenox, Mass., and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Conn.

The expansion means that BBF fans from across the region can take part in our outdoor festival fun this year, and then tune in to our online programming all throughout October. “This year’s virtual format has helped us think about the festival and its reach in new and creative ways,” says Norah Piehl, BBF’s executive director. “We’re thrilled to celebrate the rich literary history of our region in this fun participatory event. It’s always a fun way to kick off BBF weekend, and we’re happy to be able to keep the tradition going and expand it even more.”  

Everyone is invited to join in the fun! Follow Boston Book Festival on Twitter (@bostonbookfest) and on Instagram #BBFBookHunt and #BBF2020.

On October 1-2, we’ll take over social media with clues as to where the books are hidden throughout the city and on the properties of these historical homes and centers. Everyone is invited to join in the fun! Follow Boston Book Festival on Twitter (@bostonbookfest) and on Instagram #BBFBookHunt and #BBF2020. The prize is finding a book and being able to keep it (and, of course, celebrating the win over social media!).

We also invite you to follow our partners to play along and stay in touch with all they are doing to keep our region’s literary history alive.

Follow these Twitter accounts to follow the fun clues!
Walden Woods Project, Orchard House, Emily Dickinson Museum, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Eric Carle Museum, Melville’s Arrowhead, and The Mount.

Learn more about Boston Book Festival’s Annual Book Hunt.

Sign up here to get all the news about BBF 2020 in your inbox!

 

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Thank you to Shelf Help Supporter KPMG

The Boston Book Festival would like to give a special thank you to KPMG LLP for their generous donation to our 2019 Shelf Help program! Their gift will go towards helping Orchard Gardens Pilot School, one of this year’s partner schools (alongside our second partner, Tech Boston Academy). 

Through their award-winning distribution channel, First Book, KPMG LLP will be able to donate one book to each student at the school. This contribution means that Orchard Gardens is one step closer to attaining the books on its wish list.

We would not be able to have programs like Shelf Help without the help of other organizations such as KPMG LLP helping us spread the love for reading and writing. 

Even though this generous gift will benefit Orchard Gardens immensely, we still need your help to complete both wishlists.

Featuring books like All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Untwine by Edwidge Danticat (both past BBF presenters), TechBoston’s list will provide students with a wide variety of literary options, as well as showcasing past Boston Book Festival authors! They are also asking for novels such as Beloved, Song of Solomon, and Tar Baby; all wonderful works written by late author Toni Morrison. 

Here are some ways you can help both schools reach their goal:

  • Peruse each school’s wish list online (for Orchard Garden’s go HERE and TechBoston’s go HERE). Then, donate a book directly to the school library (click the blue “Donate Now” button and then choose “Donate books”).
  • Contribute funds directly to the Shelf Help project by visiting each school’s donations page and selecting a dollar amount. Or, stop by the merchandise booth at BBF 2019 on October 19th (in Copley Square) and October 20th (in Roxbury) and donate on-site!
  • Spread the word about Orchard Gardens’ library, TechBoston’s library, and Shelf Help by sharing this post on social media, using the hashtag #ShelfHelp and tagging @bostonbookfest. Please tag Orchard Gardens—@BPSOGPSK8—and TechBoston—@TBAboston—as well!

You can learn more about Orchard Gardens Pilot School here and TechBoston Academy here.

Please consider donating books and funds, as well as sharing this project! Help us spread the power of words with the generations to come.

 

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Join Us in Celebrating and Supporting our 2019 Shelf Help Partner Schools

Happy September! The Boston Book Festival’s annual Shelf Help program, which brings brand-new donated books to Boston-area schools, is in full swing—but, this year there’s something new. Through a competitive application process, we’ve chosen not one but two schools for our program: Orchard Gardens Pilot School in Roxbury for grades K–8 and TechBoston Academy in Dorchester for grades 6–12. As in years past, we’re teaming up with the nonprofit organization Wondermore to bring BBF presenters (Charlotte Nicole Davis and another author TBD) for school visits before BBF’s annual festival on October 19th and 20th. You can learn more about Orchard Gardens Pilot School here and about TechBoston Academy here.

Participating publishers have started to fill the shelves but there’s still a long way to go, and that’s where you come in! We’re asking friends and fans of the BBF to join us in donating brand-new books and funds to stock library shelves at Orchard Gardens and TechBoston. Focusing primarily on a diverse collection of award-winning books, these schools’ online wish lists will make thousands of young readers very happy.

Here are some ways you can get involved:

  • Peruse each school’s wish list online (for Orchard Garden’s go HERE and for TechBoston’s go HERE). Then, donate a book directly to the school library (click the blue “Donate Now” button and then choose “Donate books”).
  • Contribute funds directly to the Shelf Help project by visiting each school’s donations page and selecting a dollar amount. Or, stop by the merchandise booth at BBF 2019 on October 19th (in Copley Square) and October 20th (in Roxbury) and donate on-site!
  • Spread the word about Orchard Garden’s library, TechBoston’s library, and Shelf Help by sharing this post on social media, using the hashtag #ShelfHelp and tagging @bostonbookfest. Please tag Orchard Gardens—@BPSOGPSK8—and TechBoston—@TBAboston—as well!

Books bring hope to young readers—so we’d like to thank YOU for bringing much-needed hope to the youth of Boston!

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Guest Post by 1C1S Author Ciera Burch

Last week, we were pleased to announce that this year’s One City One Story is “Yvonne” by Emerson MFA student Ciera Burch. You’ll be able to find your copy of Ciera’s story around Greater Boston starting in early September, but in the meantime, we’ve asked Ciera to write a guest post for our blog about the origins of her story and what led her to submit it for consideration as a 1C1S selection. Enjoy!

For me, writing “Yvonne” was an attempt to explore not only my own relationship with my grandmother, who passed away suddenly three years ago, but also the relationship between a grandparent and grandchild without the existence of the ‘3rd party’ of the parent.

Parental-child relationships are something that have fascinated me for most of my life—since my mom was a teenager when she had me, we got to grow up with each other, which allowed me to always see her as a person in her own right first and as my mother second. After my grandmother passed, I realized that there had always been a difference between her relationship with my mom and her relationship with me. She was more closed off when it came to my mom, more easily prone to anger, whereas with me she was constantly bubbly, always cooking me something or teaching me to cook for myself.

I don’t plan out my short stories, I usually just start writing, and “Yvonne” came together for me all at once: with the smells of a nursing home and an odd, anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach reserved for meeting new people. As I wrote, Celeste and Yvonne led me to the paths they needed to go down while showing me the paths that had led them to where we meet them on the first page. The connection between the two women is immensely important to me because there’s so much complexity to their feelings for one another. They’re family but they’re still figuring out what that means to them, now and going forward.

I chose this story to submit to the Boston Book Festival because in pop culture portrayals of Boston people of color are often excluded. Despite the existence of New Edition (Roxbury natives), little attention is paid to, and often little credit is given to, Boston’s nonwhite residents. With this story, my hope was that I could put black, and in Celeste’s case queer, people at the center of a narrative with universal appeal. In some way or another, I hope that people are able not only to empathize with but also relate to Yvonne and Celeste, because regardless of the different facets of their identities, they’re human with human problems and they love and hurt and worry just as deeply as anyone else.

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