Can an author tell a complete story in just 100 words? John Sheirer answers that question as he reads from and discusses his new book, For Now: One Hundred 100-Word Stories. These stories combine humor, depth, meaning, love, loss, and connection–all in exactly 100 words each. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
“Here, in these finely wrought tales, is a universal current of humanity that connects us all.” – Robert Scotellaro, author of Ways to Read the World. “Unsettling in their precise focus, Sheirer’s brief and crystalline works sharpen the reader’s awareness of the irrevocable. – Gina Barreca, author of They Used to Call Me Snow White, but I Drifted. “With so many big stories in such compact spaces, John Sheirer will titillate and delight you.” – Joshua Michael Stewart, author of Love Something.
Author Bio: John Sheirer lives in Western Massachusetts and is in his 31st year of teaching at Asnuntuck Community College in Northern Connecticut. He writes a monthly column for The Daily Hampshire Gazette. His most recent books are For Now: One Hundred 100-Word Stories and Stumbling Through Adulthood: Linked Stories. Find him at JohnSheirer.com.
One day last February Carolyn woke up with these words in her head: What if I listened to the landscape and wrote what I heard?
So she did. She pulled on her boots, gathered a 5 x 7 notebook and a pen, and set off on her usual Easthampton walk: past the library, cutting through the football field, over the bike path, by the factory, and into the cemetery by the pond. Nothing usual happened but she listened and looked and wrote as she walked. Her perception widened. The everyday happenings of our small city became extraordinary in their aliveness and in their reflection of our changing climate.
Carolyn will read poems written on these walks and talk about her inspirations and creative practice.
This presentation will inaugurate a series of Walking and Writing sessions with Carolyn on Saturday mornings leaving from the library at 8:30am and convening back there at 9:30 am to share what the landscape said to us.
Three Saturdays, March 2nd, 9th and 23rd, 8:30am meet outside the library to begin walk, 9:30am reconvene inside the library.
Meet on the steps of the library at 8:30am. A map of the “official route” will be provided that you may follow or adapt to your own needs and interests. Our time of walking and writing is followed by a library meet up with this structure:
9:30-9:45 am: Chat about how the writing and walking went
At 9:45am: Anyone who wants to read from their notebook for up to 3 minutes may
Closing: A go around where people are invited to voice an intention about further developing or sharing their writing from the walk
All of these activities are optional. People who have walked at other points in the week are welcome to join for the sharing.
This event is weather dependent. If it is too wet for our notebooks (i.e. steady rain or snow) we will not go. If it is too icy to walk we will not go.
Three Saturdays, March 2nd, 9th and 23rd, 8:30am meet outside the library to begin walk, 9:30am reconvene inside the library.
Meet on the steps of the library at 8:30am. A map of the “official route” will be provided that you may follow or adapt to your own needs and interests. Our time of walking and writing is followed by a library meet up with this structure:
9:30-9:45 am: Chat about how the writing and walking went
At 9:45am: Anyone who wants to read from their notebook for up to 3 minutes may
Closing: A go around where people are invited to voice an intention about further developing or sharing their writing from the walk
All of these activities are optional. People who have walked at other points in the week are welcome to join for the sharing.
This event is weather dependent. If it is too wet for our notebooks (i.e. steady rain or snow) we will not go. If it is too icy to walk we will not go.
Due to forecasted weather, this is cancelled.
Three Saturdays, March 2nd, 9th and 23rd, 8:30am meet outside the library to begin walk, 9:30am reconvene inside the library.
Meet on the steps of the library at 8:30am. A map of the “official route” will be provided that you may follow or adapt to your own needs and interests. Our time of walking and writing is followed by a library meet up with this structure:
9:30-9:45 am: Chat about how the writing and walking went
At 9:45am: Anyone who wants to read from their notebook for up to 3 minutes may
Closing: A go around where people are invited to voice an intention about further developing or sharing their writing from the walk
All of these activities are optional. People who have walked at other points in the week are welcome to join for the sharing.
This event is weather dependent. If it is too wet for our notebooks (i.e. steady rain or snow) we will not go. If it is too icy to walk we will not go.