WRUP Events Blog

Fall Hike with Kate Havelin

2011-07-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday October 22

Time to be announced

Sample Quatrain

2011-07-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

A qautrain is four line stanzas of any kind, rhymed, metered, or otherwise.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

From William Blake's "The Tyger"

Here is another sample quatrain from Emily Dickenson

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

Write a quatrain about one of the species of Prairie Grasses-

Here is a list-

Big bluestem
Canada wild rye
Indian grass
June grass
Little bluestem
Prairie cord grass
Prairie dropseed
Sand dropseed
Side-oats grama
Switch grass
Woodland brome

Submissions: Prairie Poetry Sampler

2011-06-17T04:05:00.001-07:00

Blue Gramma Grass

Genre- Quatrain

Subject Matter- Prairie Grasses

Submit: In body of email to writersrisingup@yahoo.com

Quantity- Four only

Publish- Only poems selected will be published in an online presentation

Include: Name, city and state

Work must not be published
Writer contains all rights

2010 Explore Your Roots Outdoor Discovery/Poetry with Marge Barrett

2010-03-17T15:08:00.002-07:00

2010 Explore Your Roots Outdoor Discovery/Poetry with Marge Barrett

Exlore Your Roots: Outdoor Discovery & Writing at the Arboretum with poet Marge Barrett
Walking Series at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum June 2010
Saturday June 26- 8:30AM to 9:30AM
20.00 members, 25.00 non-members
www.arboretum.umn.edu
(952) 443-1400

Explore your roots and express yourself. Thoreau wrote those who are successful at sauntering are equally at home everywhere. Whether your walking style is ambling, meandering or sauntering, explore your roots and write about our home away from home with a local poet as your guide. Registration includes submission fee for Writers Rising Up poetry contest ((http://www.writersrisingup.org/)

Marge Barrett has published prose and poetry in numerous magazines, most recently in Plains Song Review, SN Review, The Broome Review, Dust and Fire, and online with hotmetalbridge.org and hotmetalbridge.net. A lyrical essay was included in The Best of the Web Anthology 2009 by Dzanc books. A memoir story, “The Flood,” will be included in the Minnesota Historical Press anthology, The State We’re In, coming out in spring 2010. Marge was the former editor of River Images for the St. Croix ArtBarn and faculty advisor of Ivory Tower for the University of Minnesota. She has taught in various high schools and colleges. Earning an MFA from the University of Minnesota, she won the Marcella DeBourg Fellowship and Honorable Mention in the Gesell Award for Excellence in Poetry. She has received creative work awards from St. Catherine University and grants to writing programs in Prague and St. Petersburg. Currently she teaches at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Poetry Submissions-

How You Do This?
•Write About: exploring your roots in our nature home
•Send poetry submissions to Writers Rising Up at 16526 W 78th St #163, Eden Prairie, MN 55346
•Deadline one month after event. Work will not be returned.
•8x 11 computer generated, name on cover page only
•Page Limit no more than five pages
•Winning submission published online

Judges-
Victoria Pellar Price, Founder and Director of Writers Rising Up to Defend Place, is currently completing her MFA thesis at Hamline University
Mark Herwig, Editor Pheasants Forever, Quail Forever & Upland Tales magazines

2010- Inspired by Carol Bly: Write, Read & Dine with Us

2010-03-17T15:08:00.001-07:00

2010- Inspired by Carol Bly: Write, Read & Dine with Us

“Inspired by Carol Bly: Write, Read & Dine with Us”

Presented by Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Collaboration with Writers Rising Up
Saturday, September 25th 10am to 3:00pm Learning Center Building

70.00 Members, 85.00 non-Members
www.arboretum.umn.edu
(952) 443-1400

A lively, heart-warming day of reading, writing, walking, cooking and tasting with authors who are former colleagues of Minnesota's beloved Carol Bly. Carol's publishing partner, Cynthia Loveland, will explain the "Six Great Gifts of Story". Carol's colleague, author Patricia Kirkpatrick, leads a non-fiction writing workshop, "The Most Vitally Touching Things In Life, Including What's For Lunch". Enjoy an English country meal cooking class inspired by one of Carol's own stories. The Arboretum Chef will demonstrate how to prepare: Madeira, soup, sheep, fish, winter root vegetables, and trifle. Generous tasting portions will serve as your lunch AND afternoon brunch!. Registration includes the fee for participating in the Writers Rising Up short story-writing contest ((http://www.writersrisingup.org). Limit: 20.

Agenda:
10: 00 – 11:00 Cynthia Loveland
11:00 – 12:30 Patricia Kirkpatrick
12:30 – 3:00 – Cooking class

Instructor Bios-
Cynthia Loveland and Carol Bly established Bly & Loveland Press and together authored and published four books: THREE READINGS FOR REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS; STOPPING THE GALLOP TO EMPIRE; A SHOUT TO AMERICAN CLERGY; and AGAINST WORKSHOPPING MANUSCRIPTS. Now retired, Cynthia Loveland earned her MSW at the University of Minnesota, worked for nine years in county social service in rural Minnesota and for almost 30 years as a school social worker for the St. Paul Public Schools.

Patricia Kirkpatrick has published CENTURY’S ROAD (Holy Cow! Press), two poetry chapbooks, and books for young readers, including PLOWIE: A STORY FROM THE PRAIRIE (Harcourt), as well as essays, reviews, and interviews with prominent American writers. She is Poetry Editor for WATER-STONE REVIEW and teaches in the MFA program at Hamline University where, when teaching undergraduate composition, literature, and creative writing, she once shared an office with Carol Bly and was influenced greatly by her teaching and writing.

Carol Bly Short Story Contest-
How You Do This?
•Write about a place and the people that inhabit it
•Send short story submissions to Writers Rising Up at 16526 W 78th St #163, Eden Prairie, MN 55346
•Deadline one month after event. Work will not be returned.
•8x 11 computer generated, paginated, name on cover page only
•Word Limit-No more than 2,500 words
•Winning submission published online

Judges-
Victoria Pellar Price, Founder and Director of Writers Rising Up to Defend Place, is currently completing her MFA thesis at Hamline University
Mark Herwig, Editor Pheasants Forever, Quail Forever & Upland Tales magazines
Posted by WRUPBLOG

2010 Hiking at the Arb with Kate Havelin: Essay Submission

2010-03-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

2010 Hiking at the Arb with Kate Havelin: Essay Submission

Hiking Near Home: Learn about the Arboretum with Metro trail expert Kate Havelin
Saturday July 17th 8:30AM – 9:30AM

25.00 non members
20.00 members
www.arboretum.umn.edu
(952) 443-1400

Hike with trail expert, Kate Havelin, author The Best Hikes of the Twin Cities, Midwest Book Award Finalist. Be inspired along the way to create your submission to the Writers Rising Up essay contest (http://www.writersrisingup.org/) Registration includes essay contest entry fee.

Book Signing with Kate 11:00 to 12:00 noon at the Arboretum Store.
Free with Admission
Saturday, July 17th, 10AM – 11AM

Paul Gruchow Essay Contest-
How You Do This?
•Write about how nature affects your life.
•Send essay submissions to Writers Rising Up at 16526 W 78th St #163, Eden Prairie, MN 55346
•Deadline one month after event July 17th. Work will not be returned.
•8x 11 computer generated, paginated, name on cover page only
•Word Limit-No more than 2,000 words
•Winning submission published online

Judges-
Victoria Pellar Price, Founder and Director of Writers Rising Up to Defend Place, is currently completing her MFA thesis at Hamline University
Mark Herwig, Editor Pheasants Forever, Quail Forever & Upland Tales magazines

Holy Cow! Press at the Carol Bly Event

2009-10-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

Jim Perlman
Holy Cow! Press
Duluth, MN

Miriam Karmel Winner First Carol Bly Short Story Contest

2009-10-18T13:54:00.000-07:00

Miriam Karmel
Minneapolis, MN
Winner First Carol Bly Short Story Contest
2009

Previous Contest Winners/Hamline MFA Students

2009-10-18T13:47:00.000-07:00

Previous Writers Rising Up Winners and Honarable Mentions
And Hamline MFA Program Students
Remembering Carol Bly
Anderson Center, Red Wing, MN
October 17, 2009

Remembering Carol Bly Hamline's Patricia Kirkpatrick

2009-10-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

Patricia Kirkpatrick
Remembering Carol Bly
October 17th 2009
Anderson Center, Red Wing, MN

Speakers Patricia Kirkpatrick/Cynthia Loveland

2009-10-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

Patricia Kirkpatrick Far Left
Cynthia Loveland Far Right
Speakers October 17, 2009
Remembering Carol Bly
Anderson Center, Red Wing, MN

Winner 2009 Carol Bly Short Story Contest Miriam Karmel

2009-10-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

Miriam Karmel of Minneapolis won the first Writers Rising Up Carol Bly short story contest with her story, "Happy Chicken." Miriam will read her story on October 17th at the Anderson Center in Red Wing at an all day event Remembering Carol Bly, A time and place for solitude: writing below the surface. The event features Carol's writing partner Cynthia Loveland leading a seminar and friend and fellow writer Hamline Professor Patricia Kirkpatrick, who will conduct a workshop. Holy Cow! Press will feature Carol and Patricia's books and Milkweed Editions has contributed Carol's books for a raffle-

Event details can be found at www.eventful.com and at www.writersrisingup.org.

Miriam Karmel's fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications including Bellevue Literary Review, Dust & Fire, Sidewalks, Passage, Jewish Women’s Literary Annual and Water~Stone Review. She is the recipient of Minnesota Monthly’s Tamarack Award for her short story, The Queen of Love. In 2007, she received the Kate Braverman Short Story Prize and the Arthur Edelstein Prize for Short Fiction. Her story, The King of Marvin Gardens appears in Milkweed Edition’s Fiction on a Stick (2008). Nora’s Story, a collection of short stories which she worked on at Ragdale, was the May 2007 selection at www.bookwise.com. She recently completed a second book of linked stories, Being Esther.

2009-07-12T10:21:00.001-07:00

Patricia Kirkpatrick will lead a workshop from 1:00PM to 2PM

Patricia's Books-

"Century's Road"
"John Keats Voices in Poetry"
Maya Angelou, Voices in Poetry"
"Plowie: A Story from the Prairie"

A time and place for solitude: writing below the surface.
Spend the day in Red Wing with us.. remembering Carol Bly.

Saturday October 17, 2009

10:30 AM to 4:30PM
Holy Cow! Press Book Fair All Day

Milkweed Editions Donates Carol's books to raffle

10:30AM to 11:30PM-- 'Writing Below the Surface' seminar with Cynthia Loveland

11:30AM to 1:00 PM-- Lunch- Free Time to Sight See--Write

1:00 to 2:00PM- Patricia Kirkpatrick workshop

2:00 PM to 3:00 PM Carol Bly Short Story Contest
Selected Short Story Readings

3PM to 4 PM Book Raffle
Announcement of Winner(s)
Reception-Falconer Wine (Red Wing) and Poplar Hills Dairy (Scandia) Cheese Tasting

Anderson Center, Red Wing Minnesota
Sponsored by Writers Rising Up

2009-07-04T05:59:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail Excursions Summer 2009

August 29th and Sept 19th, 2009 TIMES POSTED AFTER THE 4TH HOLIDAY

With Cynthia Thomas

Cynthia Thomas is a practicing herbalist, educator, massage therapist and doula serving the Twin Cities area. She has been working with medicinal herbs for 20 years. She has a BS in Herbal Sciences from Bastyr University. Cynthia served seven years on the Board of Directors for the North Country Herbalist Guild, a local non-profit providing education and resources for the ethical and sustainable use of medicinal plants.

“I have been blessed with many teachers from diverse backgrounds, all of who have helped to instill a deep respect for nature and faith in our collective power to heal.”

Cynthia Thomas

2008-05-24T04:21:00.000-07:00

Carol Bly- April 16, 1930 – December 21, 2007- In Remembrance

Remarkably self-assured, insightful, not afraid to “rock-the-boat,” Carol was remembered for stories revealing the moral substance of small town Minnesotans, characters literally born on a family farm in the 1950’s and 60’s. She raised four children in Madison, known nationally as the "Lutefisk Capital” of Lac Qui Parle County. With no running water and a library filled with over 5,000 books, Carol and her husband, Robert Bly, now Poet Laureate of Minnesota wrote instead of watch television, to become two of the most important stakeholders in Minnesota literary history.

Carol’s stories did not skim the surface of country life’s mundane farm routines, coffee klatches and church socials; no, they revealed her penitent for frankness and an unswerving logical bent, scripted in extraordinarily hopeful prose. She was truly a navigator of ethical/moral thinking, reaching out to describe societal inequities…. the jerks, bullies, losses and ironies of country life.

Bly’s column for Minnesota Public Radio, A Letter from the Country, was eventually published as Letters from the Country in 1981. From “Lost Swede Towns“ to “Turning Ploughshares back into Swords,” Bly’s craft is a mix of secular, sociology and story.

In the chapter “Thinking Over Things at Christmas,” Carol describes a country household and what might happen when the man of the house comes home,” If men could succeed in recognizing that, they would win for themselves the old joy of quietly thinking about things. What happens, however, is that man returns home, excited by the shadow material that has been seen and said—he drives home really excited. The sodium lighted Main Street and the crescent –shaped pile of plowed snow around a car that wasn’t moved off before the plow came by and the gritted railroad tracks at the level crossing—all this feels like his own country and he is intact, in a glittering, frantic way. It is what is called having had a pretty good drunk.”

Carol’s exploration of this country couple’s interaction reveals a concealed reality, the universally accepted societal value that is immune from questioning: secreted abuse in a hidden vow of faithfulness. She wrote, “Then he arrives home and his wife, whether she spent the evening with him or waited at home, is snapped into her civilization holding stance. A drunk, idol-smashing man is a threat to civilization: he will uncover the one-third sacred subject she tries to suppress under family cheer; he will force her into thought instead of reverence. In a word she is terrified. She snaps at him…… If we are producing this scene over and over in our countryside we have a very mean side to our society. “

Interested in human underpinnings she peeled away surface layers to find out what lie underneath— describing those qualities in metaphor, moments when we truly become the best of our social, psychological frame, or lack of— what ultimately determines the existence of an ethical backbone. How do we act when we don’t have to, and how do we when we have no choice? Carol wrote it is in a” firing range, that a shooter’s aim is tested.”

Carol was a proponent of social psychology and in the forward of Changing the Bully Who Rules the World,” Reading & Thinking about Ethics, she assailed bullies, “For centuries bullies in high places have felt entitled to push other people around. They have felt entitled to cheat little people of their life earnings. Now that there is some technology for changing their behavior, I suggest we pick it up and use it. Perhaps, soon, white-collar bullying, like slavery, will not longer be acceptable.”

The introduction to Changing the Bully explains a new approach to a social science problem, by way of stories, essays and poems through ethical conversion. With atypical ironic humor Carol wrote, “Just when you realize you are having a moral feeling, and that it has filled your whole sail, it evaporates like small gusts of dusk.”

Her impassioned prose is instructional in that it never fails to point out the hard truths, leading us through memorable scenes which at their core reveal we are all part of a societal network fraught with what she termed “sacred-cowism” or “mere fluttering of feelings” rather than “actual thinking” upon which to take action. She wrote to morally engage us as readers. In a chapter of Changing the Bully, “Genuine Jerks and Genuine Jerk Organizations” Carol wrote, “As soon as we wake up ethically, nothing again is clean cut.”

Carol was a frequent speaker at events held by Writers Rising Up.

Victoria Pellar Price

Photo Credit- Earthday 2006 Workshop with Bill Holm, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Photo: Victoria Pellar Price

2007-12-05T05:07:00.000-08:00

Events at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum 2008-2009
Cosponsored by Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Writers Rising Up

Paul Gruchow Essay Contest Reception and Reading

With Joe and Nancy Paddock
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Fireplace Room or old Tea Room (both rooms booked)
2 to 5pm
Cosponsored by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Writers Rising Up
Admission- $5.00 plus $7.00 gate fee for non-Arboretum members
Essay Submission Information on Essay Link
Submission Guidelines on Essay Link
Deadline April 8, 2008

Schedule-Reception
Paul Gruchow Essay Contest Award Announcement
Readings by Winners
Readings by Joe and Nancy; Stories about Paul

Nancy Paddock
TRUST THE WILD HEART -Red Dragonfly Press

Joe Paddock
A SORT OF HONEY - Red Dragonfly Press
BOARS' DANCE - Holy Cow!
HANDFUL OF THUNDER - Anvil Press

Paul Gruchow
Grass Roots: The Universe of Home- Milkweed Editions
The Necessity of Empty Places- Milkweed Editions

Digging to the Roots: Poetic Form and the Natural World

With publisher Scott King of Red Dragonfly Press and Larry Gavin

Follow the wheel of the year with us in this four-workshop series. Each season, writers will meet to read classic and contemporary poems and do creative exercises, focusing on a different poetic form each time—odes and elegies; villanelles and sestinas; dramatic monologues; and sonnet—and exploring that form’s metaphoric equivalent in the arboretum: ephemerals, perennials, invasive species, and seeds. After having come full circle, writers will celebrate the chapbook, grown over our year together, with a reading and wine reception. Part of each workshop will be spent journaling outdoors; please wear weather appropriate clothing and bring a journal and favorite pen.

Dates:

Saturday- May 31, 2008- 9:30AM-12:30PM
Saturday- August 16, 2008- 9:30AM-12:30PM
Saturday- October 4, 2008- 9:30AM-12:30PM
Saturday- February 21, 2009- 9:30AM -12:30PM

Reading Chapbook Celebration to be scheduled 2009- Cost to participants included in price of workshop- Gate fee included.
Workshops and Submissions to culminate in a chap book published by Red Dragonfly Press.

$75.00 per person per workshop
Gate fee included.
Sign up for four workshops and gate fees included. $300.00

Please send checks to:
Indicate date of workshop session
Classes
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Indicate dates of workshop sessions
3675 Arboretum Drive
Chaska, MN 55318

Fee Schedule-$75.00 per workshop-gate fee included.
$300 for four workshops-gate fee included.
Reading Chapbook Celebration price included. Gate fee included

Digging to the Roots: Poetic Form and the Natural World
Submissions
For consideration in the Chapbook published by Red Dragonfly Press
Submissions $5.00 per poem. (for those who are not attending the workshop series, attendance is not required to submit work considered for publication)
Deadline-February 21, 2009

2007-12-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

EFEIT Programming 2008
Events our outdoors at the Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area, Eden Prairie
18700 Flying Cloud Drive
Eden Prairie, MN
1/6 mile past Lions Tap Restaurant
Each Event is $20.00 per person- Families with children $20.00 per family-
To pre-register send checks to:
Writers Rising Up (WRU)
16526 W. 78th St #163
Eden Prairie, MN 55346
Your donation is tax deductible. WRU is a 501-(C) (3) non-profit.

Saturday May 3- 10am-12 PM
Hiking the Maple Basswood Forest with Minnesota Native Plant Society's
Sean Jergens.
Learn about the trees and shrubs of the forest.

Saturday May 10th- 4pm - 6pm
Landscape Photography: spring through the camera's eye
Workshop Series with Eden Prairie Photographer Todd Nordquist

June 21- 10 to 11AM
Zoomobile, Minnesota Zoo. Meet some local critters.
Buggy Poetry Contest

Saturday June 28- 10 to 12Noon
Native Medicine: recognizing native plants and uses
Visit the Bottomland Forest, Big Woods, Sedge Meadow and Prairie Biomes with Yako Tahnahga, Native Ojibwa Herbalist

Saturday, October 4th- 10 to 12PM
Hiking the Prairie and Oak Savanna: Excursion on the Minnesota River Bluff
With Sean Jergens, Minnesota Native Plant Society

Saturday, Oct. 11th, 3pm-5pm
Landscape Photography: fall through the camera's eye
Workshop Series with Eden Prairie Photographer Todd Nordquist

Sunday, September 7th- 1 -3 PM
Leaf Pounding for Kids
Shirley Mah Kooyman, botanist Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Leafing Poetry Vicki Pellar Price

2007-10-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

Last EFEIT Event of 2007
Journaling and Hiking the EFEIT with Katrina Vandenberg, "Atlas" Milkweed Editions
10-07

2007-08-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

Photo Credit- Todd Nordquist

Last Two Events for 2007

September, 9th Sunday- 1 to 3PM - Nature’s Seed Mechanism: Fruits and Seeds- -Types of fruits, dry and fleshy; dispersal methods; flower structure /MN Landscape Arboretum Instructor, Shirley Mah Kooyman -$15.00 per person- Twenty Person Max

October 6th, Saturday, 2007- 9 to 12 Noon- Wilderness Writing Workshop with Katrina Vandenberg, "Atlas," Milkweed Editions,
-$30.00 per person- Twenty Person Max. Rain or Shine.

Explore the relationship between writing that tells the truth and mindfully walking the physical world. This journaling workshop includes brief readings by contemporary poets who were inspired by the physical, especially nature and the body; and a series of exercises to be contemplated and written over the course of the morning.

Bring a journal and favorite pen to the Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area, 18700 Flying Cloud Drive, 1/2 past Lions Tap Restaurant.

To pre-register send checks to:
Writers Rising Up,
16526 W. 78th St #163,
E.P. MN 55346.

2007-08-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

October 6th, Saturday, 2007- 9 to 12 Noon- Wilderness Writing Workshop with Katrina Vandenberg, "Atlas," Milkweed Editions-$30.00 per person- Twenty Person Max. Rain or Shine.

Explore the relationship between writing that tells the truth and mindfully walking the physical world. This journaling workshop includes brief readings by contemporary poets who were inspired by the physical, especially nature and the body; and a series of exercises to be contemplated and written over the course of the morning.

Bring a journal and favorite pen to the Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area, 18700 Flying Cloud Drive, 1/2 past Lions Tap Restaurant.

To pre-register send checks to:
Writers Rising Up,
16526 W. 78th St #163,
E.P. MN 55346.

For more information email: writersrisingup@comcast.net

2007-08-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

September 9th Sunday- 1 to 3PM
Nature’s Seed Mechanism: Fruits and Seeds-

How Does Nature Work?

Shirley Mah Kooyman

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum Botanist and Adult Education Coordinator

Learn about types of fruits, dry and fleshy; seed dispersal methods; flower structure with MN Landscape Arboretum Botanist, Shirley Mah Kooyman. Event Sponsored by Writers Rising Up

FEE: $15.00 per person- Twenty Person Max
WHERE: Richard T. Anderson Conservation Area, Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail
ADDRESS: 18700 Flying Cloud DriveEden Prairie, MN - 1/6 mile past Lions Tap Restaurant
PRE-REGISTER- Send a check for $15.00 to Writers Rising Up
16526 W. 78th St #163
Eden Prairie, MN 55346
Family entry fee is $15.00 per family.

Contact: writersrisingup@comcast.net