December 2003

Year-end greetings from Inkberry!

The frenzy of fall is dying away, and things here are slowing down a little. Our annual fund- and membership-drive went out last month, and we’ve now entered that happy period in which every day’s mail brings more returns. I’m pleased to say that the response so far has been encouraging. We rely on income from this annual appeal to carry us through the next several months, so please keep those checks coming! (It’s a measure of how far I’ve come, since co-founding Inkberry, that I no longer have the slightest qualms about begging on the organization’s behalf.)

Also last month we had a lovely reading of fiction and memoir by Jacqueline Sheehan and Genie Zeiger, which rounded out our reading series for 2003. The reading series is my own personal baby, and it makes me prouder year by year. I’m already well underway with booking readings for 2004, and we’ve got some great people coming to our podium next year — including graphic novelist Howard Cruse, novelist and memoirist Maureen Howard, and an assembly of excellent up-and-coming poets — so I hope you’ll make a point of catching those events.

Our last workshop of 2003 is one I’m teaching myself, called “Bringing a Character to Life.” It meets for three weeks, beginning this Thursday (December 4) at 7pm, and will take students through a series of exercises designed to deepen their knowledge and understanding of their fictional characters, to help them write characters who have the psychological and emotional complexity of real people. This class is almost full, but I’ve still got room for one or two more students, so if you’d like to join us, please contact Inkberry this week to reserve your space: 664-0775.

I’ll also quickly mention that gift certificates to Inkberry workshops are always available, and they make fantastic holiday gifts. So, for that matter, do Inkberry memberships, or Inkberry t-shirts — all of which can be bought anytime here at our Main Street space (or by mail), and which will soon be purchase-able through our website. So if you’re looking for that perfect present for the writerly one in your life, and you’d like to support a terrific community arts organization to boot, get in touch with us and we’ll take good care of you.

Inkberry is going through some big changes behind the scenes these days, so I’ve got a handful of announcements to make regarding those. First of all, I’d like to extend hearty thanks to Sarah Johnson and Graeme Biervliet-Schranz, who have been interns here since September. Both are Williams students who have been giving us one afternoon a week, plus the occasional odd hours here and there, and both have been utterly fantastic to have around. Usually we invite interns to introduce themselves in Inkmail, but this fall we’ve had so much help that we just haven’t had time to get to everybody. So don’t think that just because you haven’t heard from them personally, they’ve been unappreciated. All of our interns and volunteers are stupendous, and deserving of much glory. We’d never have achieved this fall’s many successes without them.

Also, I’m delighted to announce that Inkberry has taken on a new Associate Director! The talented and charming Tom Bernard has accepted the post, and will hit the ground running this month, as he tries to learn all there is to know about Inkberry in the next four weeks. I’m sure you’ll hear more about him in time, and probably more from him as well, so I won’t say too much. Except that we’re delighted to have him on board, and are sure that he’ll help Inkberry to new heights in the coming year.

The biggest change ahead — well, it’s the biggest one for ME, at least — is that I’m stepping back from Inkberry at the end of this year. (Those of you who were wondering why Tom has only four weeks to learn the ropes, now you know.) I’ll still be on Inkberry’s board of directors, and I’ll still book the readings series and teach workshops, so I’m not leaving entirely. But I won’t be running things day-to-day; won’t be putting the calendar together, or updating the website, or paying bills, or vaccuuming the rug, or doing any of the other myriad things that get done to keep Inkberry going. Rachel and Tom will be (heroically) running the show from here on, while I see if I can’t finish my novel by the end of 2004.

It’s been a long and fascinating few years with Inkberry, and my decision to step back was not an easy one. And while I’m looking forward to a lot of uninterrupted writing time, I’m definitely going to miss the ups and downs of this little start-up that could. I’m tremendously proud of the organization that Rachel, Sandy, and I built — and as a writer in the north Berkshires, I’m grateful that there’s a place in the area where I can take workshops, attend readings, and meet other writers. In the last couple years, quite a few people have wandered into Inkberry and told us that they had only recently moved to North Adams or environs, and that discovering that there was a literary organization in town made them really excited about their new home. They took it as a sign that this town welcomes artists and writers, that there are opportunities here to get involved with the arts, and that there’s a vibrant arts community here that doesn’t just revolve around the huge museums and summer festivals. It’s always gratifying when somebody says this sort of thing to us, and now that my role is evolving into “audience member,” I know exactly how they feel. I love living in this area; it’s beautiful, it’s affordable, the people are friendly, I have good friends here. But Inkberry makes this even more the place where I want to live. And it’s a great feeling to know I had a hand in making it that way.

Three years ago, in our very first Inkmail, I all but inadvertently ushered in a tradition by ending my letter with a book recommendation. This is my last Inkmail, but I see no reason to stop a good thing. So I’ll sign off here with a plug for The Book of Illusions, by Paul Auster. This novel tells the story of David Zimmer, a writer who’s recently lost his wife and two sons, who works through his grief by writing a book about the little-known silent-film comedian Hector Mann. Mann disappeared in 1929 and is assumed to be long-dead, but after his book comes out Zimmer gets a letter from someone claiming to be Mann’s wife, saying that Mann would like to meet him. To reveal any more about the plot would ruin the surprises that follow — but what I loved about this book was not its elegant plotting. Rather it was the way it made me think about life and art and love, the things we create and the things we leave behind us. I’ve been an Auster fan for a long time, and this is my favorite of his novels so far. It has all his usual thoughtfulness and subtlety, suffused with a warmth that his earlier work often lacks. It would be an excellent book to curl up with on a cold winter night.

And that’s all for me. Many thanks to all those of you who have supported Inkberry over the years, to everyone who’s written to tell us you like what we’re doing, and even to those of you who have written in to correct my grammar. Keep following the news from Inkberry, as there will be great things coming in the next year. Happy and peaceful holidays to you all.

— Emily