Today in the ArtZany! Radio studio Paula Granquist welcomes writers Joy Riggs and Rob Hardy to talk about the Writers Resist Event and the upcoming Writers Night: A Sense of Place readings and other literary happenings.
ArtZany! – Radio for the Imagination 01/13/2017
Joy Riggs is an award-winning freelance journalist writing about history, parenting and travel. Joy received a 2015 emerging artist grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC). She is writing a book of memoir and narrative nonfiction about her quest to uncover the extraordinary exploits of her paternal great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, a pioneering Minnesota music man. She blogs about the project and her family’s adventures in making and appreciating music at mymusicalfamily.blogspot.com.
Her articles, columns and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Mamalode, Great Moments in Parenting, Minnesota Parent magazine, the Star Tribune, Minnesota Monthly, Viking magazine, Minnesota Good Age, AAA Living, the Carleton College Voice, Minnesota Law & Politics, the Des Moines Register, the Indianapolis News, Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine, and in the Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications, Beautiful New Homes and Building Ideas.
Rob Hardy has taught part-time in the Carleton College Classics Department, coordinated Latin Club at Greenvale Park Elementary School (with the support of a Broadening the Bridge Grant), and translated or adapted two Greek tragedies for production by the Carleton Players: Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Aulis (2000) and Aeschylus’s Oresteia (2012).
In the wider Northfield community, he is an elected member of the school board since 2013, a liaison to the Human Rights Commission, an advisor to the District Youth Council, and an advisor to the Northfield Skateboard Coalition. He also hosts a poetry reading series at Content Bookstore in downtown Northfield. In August 2016, Rob was selected as Northfield’s first Poet Laureate (sponsored by the Northfield Public Library and Arts and Culture Commission). Four of Rob’s poems are stamped into sidewalks in downtown Northfield as part of the Northfield Arts and Culture Commission’s Sidewalk Poetry project.
Rob’s poems have appeared in Red Cedar Review, Water-Stone Review, Rattle, Apple Valley Review, Whole Terrain, English Journal, Comstock Review, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment, The Christian Century and in other journals, and in the anthologies 33 Minnesota Poets (Nodin Press 2000), Essential Love (Grayson Books 2000), Proposing on the Brooklyn Bridge (Grayson Books 2003) and Beyond Forgetting (Kent State University Press, 2009). rbhardy3rd.blogspot.com/p/robs-poetry.html
Northfield Writers Resist
Sunday, January 15, 1:30pm – 3:00pm
Cannon Valley Friends Meetinghouse, 512 Washington Street
Thirteen local writers will participate in a “Writers Resist” event on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The “Northfield Writers Resist: Hope is Greater Than Fear” event.
The readings will address issues of social justice, freedom of expression, and the preservation of democratic ideals. The event is free and open to the public. A coffee and cookie reception will follow. The local event is coordinated by Joy Riggs and Rob Hardy and is one of more than 80 Writers Resist events taking place across the country and in Europe.
Participating writers are Northfield Poet Laureate Rob Hardy, Beth Breiland, Bella Callery, Florence Dacey, Adriana Estill, Doug Green, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, Rich Larson, Harmony Neal, Orick Peterson, Joy Riggs, Kaethe Schwehn, and Vicki Scott.
Writers Night: A Sense of Place
Thursday, January 19, 7pm
Northfield Public Library Atrium, 210 Washington Street
The Northfield Poet Laureate is pleased to present “Writers Night: A Sense of Place,” a carefully selected program of poetry and prose by local writers.
Ten writers from Northfield, Faribault, and Webster will read selections on the theme of “a sense of place.” The selections were submitted during the month of December. In early January, a panel of judges made selections from thirty separate poems and short prose pieces in a blind screening process.
Writers included on the program are Sherry Anderson, Becky Boling, Bret Farley, Larry Gavin, Doug Green, Margit Johnson, Christine Kallman, Hannah Pahs, Joy Riggs, Julie Ryan, and Leslie Schultz.
Writers Nights were first held in the Northfield Arts Guild beginning in 2003. This revival of Writers Night is sponsored by the Northfield Public Library, with funding from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund made possible by the voters of Minnesota.
