June 9, 2023- Slate Roof Press poets Candace R. Curran and Janet MacFadyen definitely rocked the boat at Luthier's last night in Easthampton, MA, as part of the Unbuttoned Presents Series!

 

Speak Easy - Open Mic

You are invited to Speak Easy, a poetry open mic featuring local poets, Jody Stewart & Candace Curran at the Buckland Public Library. Friday, October 28th from 6 to 7 pm. Sign up for 5 minute slots at 5:45 pm.

The Winner of the 2022 Elyse Wolf Prize/ Slate Roof Press Annual Chapbook Contest!

Congratulations to Candace R. Curran,  winner of the 2022 Elyse Wolf Prize/ Slate Roof Press Annual Chapbook Contest!

We have the honor to announce the selection of The Sound of Her Good Name, by Candace R. Curran of Shelburne Falls, MA, as the winner of our 2022 chapbook contest. Candace becomes the newest member of Slate Roof Press, and receives the $500 Elyse Wolf Prize and publication of her chapbook in an art-quality edition. This year we focused on poets from our home territory in western Massachusetts. Finalists: Sarah Levine of Easthampton, MA, for Each Knuckle with Sugar Annie G. Rogers of Amherst, MA, for Becoming Bird We thank everyone who participated for their considerable time, work, and heart in preparing and submitting a manuscript. The selection process was difficult; we received many excellent manuscripts representing a broad spectrum of poetic styles and concerns, and each one was carefully considered. Our selection process was blind. About the winning author and manuscript   Candace R. Curran is the author of Playing in Wrecks, and a co-author of the collaboration, Bone Cages (with John Hodgen, Doug Anderson, and others), both published by Haley’s Press. Her poems have been published in Meat For Tea, Silkworm, RAWNerVZ, and elsewhere; and anthologized in Writing the Land, Honoring Nature, WTL: Northeast, Poet’s Seat Poetry Silver Anniversary, Compass Roads, and Poems in the Time of Covid. She has won the Poets Seat Contest twice. Candace has organized and participated in word and image collaborations including Four On The Floor, Three On a Tree, INTERFACE I-I0, and Exploded View. She has also served children and adults for many years in both public and school libraries. Candace's partner is a librarian, and books are an important part of their world. We at Slate Roof were drawn to The Sound of Her Good Name for its truth telling, piercing perceptions of human behavior, and fierce momentum. It is an open-eyed, heart-felt manuscript that handles the most difficult material with grace and craft. Here is an excerpt: Daisy Ring He sets about stringing a necklace if she'll have it      taking up her wrists placing them around his own neck he believes he loves her     she loves him not     and most likely he can’t make her sing but     what won’t she do to skirt that sting    so he collars her     welding as fast as petals fall    weaving her to his thin wishbone    on vines he hopes will take

 

Upper Downtown Looks/Feels Like Another Country

 

Brattleboro Book Launch

Poems Around Town (PAT) is a project of Write Action, with support from Time to Write and the Brattleboro Literary Festival. The April 2021 event featured submitted poems placed in shop windows throughout downtown Brattleboro. I was honored to have two poems included in the companion book "Poems in the Time of Covid" published by Small Pond Press.

Order "Poems in the Time of Covid" at https://writeaction.org/about/covid-poems.html