Friends of Soul Bone℠

Below find some links to friends of Soul Bone℠ who have supported our events as our festival guests and whom we want to support in turn. They are all doing amazing things in the world that you want to be part of and know about: workshops, festivals, living room craft talks, activism, and so much more. We recommend all of their offerings and hope you will take part in their creations, endeavors, and events!

Ellen Bass -
Living Room Craft Talks: the Sixth Series

Living Room Craft Talks
The 6th Series with Ellen Bass
and Guest Poets Billy Collins, Nikky Finney, Carolyn Forché, Maria Popova, Patricia Smith, & Arthur Sze

LIVE ONLINE VIA ZOOM
On March 1, 8, 15, 22, April 12 & April 19, 2024
at 12 – 2:15 pm ET | 11 am – 1:15 pm CT |
10 am – 12:15 pm MT | 9 am – 11:15 am PT`
And Recorded for Viewing through May 31, 2024

In these craft talks, poet Ellen Bass presents practical teachings that you’ll be able to put to use at whatever stage of development you’re at—whether you’re just beginning or are an experienced and published poet. Though these talks are focused on poetry, prose writers are welcome too. The topics for this Sixth Series are: Endings; Science and Poetry; The Things of This World;  Persona Poems; Location, Location, Location; and Juxaposition.

Ellen Bass’s poetry collections include Indigo, Like a Beggar, The Human Line, and Mules of Love. Among her awards are Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Lambda Literary Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. With Florence Howe, she co-edited the first major anthology of women’s poetry, No More Masks! and she co-authored the groundbreaking, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. A Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets, Bass founded poetry workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and the Santa Cruz jails, and teaches in Pacific University’s MFA program.

Carolyn Holbrook -
More Than a Single Story

More Than a Single Story is a series of panel discussions/public conversations where writers of color discuss issues of importance to them in their own voices and in their own words.

The series is loosely based on Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s powerful TED talk, The Danger Of a Single Story where she warns against fostering stereotypes by treating one story of a people as their only story

The project began in 2015 as the community project for a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant. That year we held three discussions at the Loft that were focused on Black women and female-identified queer writers from the African diaspora who are living in Minnesota. Learn More →

Carolyn Holbrook is founder and director of the Twin Cities-based conversation series, More Than a Single Story. She is a writer, educator, and an advocate for the healing power of the arts. Her memoir, Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify (Minn 2020), won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. She is co-editor with David Mura of the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World published by University of MN Press with More Than a Single Story (Minn2021). She is also co-author with Arleta Little of Dr. Josie Johnson’s memoir, Hope In the Struggle (Minn 2019). She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships. She won the Minnesota Book Awards Kay Sexton Award in 2010 and was a 50 over 50 honoree in 2016. She teaches at the Loft Literary Center and other community venues, and at Hamline University, where she won the exemplary teacher award in 2014. She is the mother of 5, grandmother of 8 and great grandmother of 2.

Learn more at carolynleeholbrook.com

Two Sylvias Press -
And the Weekly Muse

Two Sylvias Press is an independent press located in the Seattle area who publish poetry, memoir, essays, books on the craft of writing, and creativity tools. Created with the belief that great writing is good for the world, Two Sylvias Press mixes modern technology, classic style, and literary intellect with an eco-friendly heart. They draw their inspiration from the poetic literary talent of Sylvia Plath and the editorial business sense of Sylvia Beach. Located in the Seattle area, They publish the best-selling The Daily Poet and created The Poet Tarot, featured in O, The Oprah Magazine. Two Sylvias Press also released the first eBook anthology of women's poetry in 2011: Fire On Her Tongue. They offer a Chapbook Prize in the spring. The Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize is open to women over 50 years of age and is held annually in the fall. Two Sylvias Press also offers online poetry retreats for writers who would like to generate new work with daily poetry prompts and creative inspiration. Their inspiring newsletter is called Weekly Muse - highly worth subscribing to! Two Sylvias Press was founded in 2010 by poets Kelli  Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy because great writing is good for the world!

Click here to see all of the Two Sylvia Press books/products.

Poetry of Resilience - Finding the Sacred in the Everyday
with Danusha Laméris & James Crews

Poetry of Resilience is founded and directed by poets Danusha Laméris and James Crews, who offer courses that help to uplift us all. They often host special guests that include poets, thinkers, and philosophers. Their events help us to stay open-hearted and present to whatever arises in our everyday experience.

Poetry of Resilience began with the intention of bringing poetry back to its rightful, sacred place in our daily lives. Poetry of Resilence uses poetry as a lens for staying resilient and tapping into the deeper truths in each of us–what Jane Hirshfield has called our own “mineral knowledges.” But these sessions are for anyone–poet or not–with an interest in deepening their attention to the world around us. 

They also offer self-guided courses Tending the Heart and Wisdom of the Body, Sacred Everyday, Voices of Nature, The Blessing of the Ordinary, and Our Mineral Knowledges. You can find out more here.

Danusha Laméris - Workshops, Courses & Retreats

Are you an Innovator? A Soul Keeper? There are so many ways to write poems. And so many kinds of poems to read.  Sometimes, it’s easy to think there's a right way to write, or a wrong way. Or just that we don't–––and can’t–– relate to certain types of poems. What if there were a way to hold all the different styles without judgment, to see what a poem has to offer and what it offers the same way we might study an animal in its own biome?

Here and below you can find Danusha Laméris’ offerings, her website with courses, workshops, and retreats.

James Crews -
Returning Poetry & Writing to Their Sacred Place in Everyday Life

The Montly Pause is a writing community with James Crews and Friends. Each week, James Crews will send you poems, writing prompts, and other inspirations to help you slow down and savor the world around you. He also shares links to new books, courses, and readings to help you stay connected to your creative self. James features a guest each month and discusses writing as a healing practice of self-compassion, a way to access the most authentic parts of ourselves. There is writing time and time for community. These two-hour live monthly Zoom writing sessions take place every second Wednesday from 10 AM - 12 PM PT / 1 -3 PM ET.

This is a safe and inclusive space that’s free of the pressures to produce or publish, where we can embrace play and experimentation as our main intentions. No matter what you write or how often, this offering can be a nourishing infusion of inspiration to fuel your creative practice. Tap into the power of writing together in community with the shared purpose of a deeper connection with ourselves and the world around us.

You can read more news here.

Hellbender Gathering of Poets -
Poetry + Environmental Science + Community =
a joyful rising in our climate-changed world

We so strongly support and want to make everyone aware of this important new community mixing poetry with environmental science for a joyful coming together to do something about climate change. Condensed from the Hellbender website:

The Hellbender Gathering of Poets aims to nurture a community hellbent on finding the words that protect and repair our climate-changed world. Through an annual festival that celebrates the power of poetry, we welcome writers and readers alike into a joyful rising—one galvanized by environmental science, awareness, courage, and hope.

The roots of the Hellbender Gathering of Poets grow in the good soil cultivated by the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, which featured some of America’s finest poets, including luminaries such as Sharon Olds, Joy Harjo, Patricia Smith, and Thomas Lux, among many others. Before his passing, President and Founder Miles Coon looked to the festival's future by appointing long-time Festival advocate and faculty member Nickole Brown as its President. Now relocated to the mountains of Western North Carolina, the festival goes by a different name—the Hellbender Gathering of Poets. This not only avoids confusion as to our current location but also hopes to raise awareness of a little-known creature endemic to our very backyard in the waters here—a giant salamander by the name of the Eastern Hellbender. Often revered as our “last dragon,” this aquatic wonder is currently threatened, with the population shrinking with each passing season. As an indicator species requiring cool, clean, uncontaminated water to survive, the presence of hellbenders indicates a healthy ecosystem, something that all beings—human and other—require.

The name also gives voice to those who cherish this earth and are determined—hellbent—to heal and protect our planet. We believe in the transformative power of poetry to rise up during the most challenging times, and we nurture those who seek the poems that do this most