Sunday, April 14th
As a preview for the annual Wrightwood Literary Festival (September 28th & 29th), and to help support the new Wrightwood Arts Center, the monthly Rattle Reading Series is moving up to mountains for a special event this April!
We’ll feature two poets from our spring issue, and each of them will be holding a free writing workshop beforehand. After the reading, we’ll turn the stage at the Community Center over to the annual Wrightwood’s Got Talent Show—stay and watch local young people compete for a $1,000 scholarship.
10 a.m. – Noon | Writing Workshops | Wrightwood Arts Center
Space is limited. Choose one of the two workshops and RSVP to tim@dreamsites.io (free)
1 p.m. | Poetry Reading & Open Mic | Wrightwood Community Center
Featuring Jim Gustafson & Jennifer Perrine, open mic sign-up at the door (free)
3 p.m. | Wrightwood’s Got Talent Show | Wrightwood Community Center
Hosted by the Wrightwood Blues Society ($20 cover, visit wrightwoodblues.org)
Wrightwood Arts Center
6020 Park Drive #5
Wrightwood Community Center
1275 Highway 2
Note: Several people have already mentioned an interest in carpooling to Wrightwood for the day. If you’re interested in driving or getting a ride, see the comments section on our Facebook Events page to connect with others who are coming up.
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Jim Gustafson is the author of three books of poetry: Friar Fred’s Diary (Big Table 2018), Unassisted Living (Big Table 2017), and Driving Home (Aldrich Press 2013). He holds an M. Div. from Garrett Theological Seminary at Northwestern University and an MFA from the University of Tampa. He teaches Creative Writing at Florida Gulf Coast University. Jim and his wife Connie live in Fort Myers, Florida. For more information, visit jimgustafson.com.
Workshop: “The Four Temperaments in Poetry”
Based on the essay by Gregory Orr of the same title. Jim has trained salespeople to spot four different personality styles of prospects. In Orr’s essay, he discovered that by helping a poet identify their personality style, he can show them areas in which revision will enhance their poem. Participatants will take a personality profile, and write/revise one poem over the two hour workshop.
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Jennifer Perrine is the author of three books of poetry: No Confession, No Mass, winner of the 2016 Publishing Triangle Audre Lorde Award and the 2014 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry; In the Human Zoo, recipient of the 2010 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize; and The Body Is No Machine, winner of the 2008 Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award in Poetry. She is a 2019 Oregon Literary Fellowship recipient in poetry. For more information, visit jenniferperrine.org.
Workshop: “Under Pressure: Extreme Experiments in Writing”
What happens when someone puts severe restrictions on the way you write? What if Edgar Allen Poe wanted to write “The Raven,” but couldn’t use the letter E? What if Shakespeare had to compose his sonnets using only rhymes someone else had picked out for him? Participants will look at poems and prose created under these kinds of extreme constraints, and write to learn what happens when accepting such outrageous challenges.