Spring Luncheon/Workshop
Saturday, May 5, 2012
We will meet at The Swift House Inn, 25 Stewart Lane, Middlebury, Vermont, off Route 7. We are happy to have Neil Shepard as our Workshop Critic (see his bio below). Workshop Chairperson will be Jane Wollmar. Readers will be Nancy Brunelle, Nancey Kinlin and Susan Turner.
The menu is as follows: Chicken piccata, spinach lasagne, sautéed seasonal vegetables, green salad with a choice of two dressings, bread, and for dessert, flourless chocolate cake with ice cream. Beverage includes coffee, water, hot or iced tea. The cost is $22.00, tax and tip included. Send you reservation slip to Nancey Kinlen 404 Peart Street #1W, Burlington, VT 05401, by April 24, 2012. If you want to come but cannot meet the deadline above, please email Nancey Kinlin immediately at nanceykinlin@yahoo.com to let her know you'll be coming; you can pay her at the luncheon/workshop. Also, if you find that this menu does not accommodate your dietary restrictions, again, please contact Nancey to let her know and she will see what can be done. Guests are always welcome!
Executive Council meets at 9:30 a.m., luncheon at noon, a brief business meeting, then the Workshop from about 1:30 p.m. to about 4:00 p.m. Bring your Second Call with you (blue sheets of paper with 18 poems)! Place your ballot, which you can print out here, in the ballot box when you arrive.
Ballot:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The selection of my favorite three poems are as follows:
First - # _____________________
Second - # ___________________
Third - # _____________________
Signed (optional): _____________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Directions to The Swift House Inn –
From the North: Enter Middlebury from Route 7. Stop at the first traffic light, with a Mobil Gas/Convenience Station on your right. Turn left at that light onto Stewart Lane. Drive halfway up Stewart Lane to the Inn's parking lot on your right. Walk from the lot to the Inn.
From the South: Stay on Route 7 into Middlebury, turning left around the roundabout, in front of the Middlebury Inn, then a sharp right, staying on Route 7 north. Drive 2 blocks north from there to a traffic light, with a Mobil Gas/Convenience Station on your left, adjacent from where you are at the light. Turn right at this light, onto Stewart Lane. Drive halfway up Stewart Lane to the Inn's parking lot on your right. Walk from the lot to the Inn.
Neil Shepard Bio
He has a BA from University of Vermont, MFA from Colorado State University, and Ph.D. from Ohio University. He has taught at Louisiana State University, Rider University (NJ) and, for many years, at Johnson State College (VT), from which he retired in 2009. He currently teaches in the low-residency MFA writing program at Wilkes University (PA), is Senior Editor of the literary magazine Green Mountains Review, and teaches poetry workshops at the Poets House in Manhattan (http://www.poetshouse.org/). Shepard also founded and directed for eight years the Writers Program at the Vermont Studio Center, the largest arts colony in America. He has published one offbeat chapbook and four books of poetry, the latest, (T)ravel/Un(T)ravel: poems (Mid-List Press, 2011), and his poems and essays have appeared in such numerous literary magazines as Antioch Review, AWP Chronicle, Boulevard, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, New American Writing, New England Review, North American Review, Ontario Review, Paris Review, Shenandoah, Small Press Reviews, Southern Review, and TriQuarterly. His poems have also been featured online at Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. Shepard has received States Arts Council grants from Vermont, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and he has been a fellow at the MacDowell Arts Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Shepard's first creative writing teacher was David Huddle, poet and short story writer at the University of Vermont. Shepard studied with Bill Tremblay for his Master's work at Colorado State University and with Stanley Plumly, Wayne Dodd, and Paul Nelson for his doctoral work at Ohio University.
Other influences on Shepard's poetry include his many years playing piano and guitar; his love of jazz (bebop and post‑bebop), soul, and classical music; world‑wide treks in the mountains, from China to New Zealand to Norway to Switzerland to the American Rockies; constant forays into the natural world; amateur birding; summers along the Maine coast; long residence in northern New England; year-long sojourns in Shanghai, China (1991), the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific (1993), and France (2003). Neil is a founding member of the poetry-jazz ensemble PoJazz.
His marriage to Kate Riley, linguistic anthropologist and fiction writer, introduced Shepard to the South Pacific, French language and French colonial culture. He accompanied Riley to the Marquesas Islands, where she conducted her fieldwork on language and culture, and eventually Shepard wrote the Marquesan poems that appear in his second book, I'm Here Because I Lost My Way.
The birth of his only daughter, Anna Riley‑Shepard (b. 1995), has also deeply affected his work. A section of poems called “Birth Announcements” appears in Shepard's third book, This Far from the Source. Neil lives in Vermont and New York City.
Scavenging the Country for a Heartbeat (First Book Award, Mid-List Press, 1993)
I’m Here Because I Lost My Way (Mid-List, 1998)
This Far from the Source (Mid-List, 2006) (“Editor’s Choice” at Notre Dame Review and a “Pick of the Month” from Small Press Reviews)
(T)ravel/Un(T)ravel: poems (Mid-List, 2011)
Vermont Exit Ramps (Pudding House Press, 2012) (Chapbook)