It is the season of magic, or at least that’s what Fall seems to be, what with those cool dark nights slipping in off the ocean, perfect for that wandering black cat shapeshifter at bat-winged spellmaster patrolling the night skies.
Not feeling it yet? Well, the folks at New Moon Magick located at 4 Chapman avenue in Oak Bluffs are. This Sunday, Sept. 18, from 4 to 6 p.m. they are holding a reading by Annette Blair, author of the Accidental Witch Trilogy and artist Diane Hayes, author of The Rift Healer.
Joseph Sebarenzi, author of God Sleeps in Rwanda, is speaking at Howes House in West Tisbury on Saturday, August 6, at 5 p.m.
Mr. Sebarenzi’s book is a memoir of his life in Rwanda, including his service as President of the Rwandan Parliament, before and during the period of genocide experienced in Rwanda. Mr. Sebarenzi’s parents, three brothers, two sisters, and all their families were killed during this period.
“I really did spend my entire childhood watching television,” says Alexandra Styron, a claim that stands in stark contrast to her endlessly expansive vocabulary and carefully crafted storytelling.
Islanders will have a say in selecting the first Martha’s Vineyard Poet Laureate.
Year-round poets must submit five poems of any genre, style or form. A jury of judges will read all submissions, and nominate five finalists. The winning five poets must be willing to participate in a public reading that will be videotaped and distributed on the Martha’s Vineyard Poetry Society’s Facebook page; MVTV; YouTube and through other Island media and agencies.
Paul Karasik is many things and an exhibit focusing on the whole man would include, but not be limited to, the following: Cartoonist extraordinaire (published in The New Yorker), development director for the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, author, graphic novelist, sweat lodge devotee, the list goes on and on. He is also one of the nicest, most interesting people you will ever meet.
Edward Dillon doesn’t exist. Longtime readers of the Vineyard Gazette may recall reading about Mr. Dillon’s antics in the West Chop column during the summer of 1977. The column, written by then 12-year-old Amor Towles, reported the comings and goings within the close-knit community. Yet unbeknownst to most readers, the man by the name of Edward Dillon, mentioned in columns throughout the summer, was fictional.
Author Chip Bishop’s great-great-uncle, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, was a newspaper editor during the time of Theodore Roosevelt. One of the stories he covered was the construction of the Panama Canal, the transoceanic canal that today seems a foregone conclusion but at the time was considered by many to be a fool’s errand.
Young poets have until Monday at 5 p.m. to enter their poems in the Elisa Brickner Poetry Contest, sponsored by The Elisa Brickner Fund of the Chilmark Free Public Library.
The contest was created to foster the love of poetry, and provides cash prizes of $200 and $100. To be eligible, poets must be entering grades 6 - 12 in the fall.
Winners will be asked to read their poems on Monday, August 15, at 5:30 p.m.
We often want to know more about our favorite authors. After investing hundreds of pages of time in their created worlds, we feel entitled to know more about what they’re like in our shared world. It’s the root of our fascination with Hemingway’s boxing and Faulkner’s drinking, with Greene’s Catholicism and Salinger’s reclusiveness. We want to know more, but rarely do we get our wish. However, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who shares more than Andre Dubus 3rd.
Before probing the outer reaches of our galaxy, alien hunters would be well-advised to turn their telescopes around, training them on Earth’s own cephalopods instead. The group of animals includes squid, octopus, cuttlefish and nautiluses and were seemingly jury-rigged by evolution, armed with suction cups, beaks, ink, jet propulsion, camouflage and an intelligence entirely unlike our own.