Wednesday Lemonade
September 9, 2020
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Welcome back to Wednesday Lemonade, a community newsletter focused on keeping VCCA Fellows, staff, and supporters connected.
We write to you today with good news, new tunes, a robust virtual event schedule, messages from Fellows, tiny VCCA moments, an invitation to silent companionship, postcards for sale, deadline reminders, and more.
Pay extra attention to our announcements below about September 24; we're hosting a special edition of our VCCA Fireplace Series as well as a virtual VCCA Reunion that evening. You're very much invited to both.
Enjoy the last weeks of summer. It's almost time for cider.
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We're pleased to share that VCCA is one of 14 organizations in Virginia to receive CARES Act funding from the NEA!
The funds are part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) passed by Congress in March. VCCA received a $50,000 emergency grant which will help sustain operations through our temporary closure during the pandemic.
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We've added six new pieces which will be up for the month of September. Head to our website to read about these VCCA composers and listen to their work:
- Tim Peck | Moulin à Nef
- Laurence Sherr | Blue Ridge Frescos
- Gregory Mertl | A Seeker's Song
- Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz | Les crapauds de la fontaine
- Carl Bettendorf | ... à travers ... encore
- Andrea Clearfield | Prayer to the Shechinah
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To keep these playlists going strong, VCCA Fellow-composers are encouraged to submit a piece for inclusion in a future playlist. Use this form to share your work.
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A Slight Shift in Schedule |
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We're taking an extra week off before our Fireplace Series returns on September 24 with a special edition welcoming new VCCA Board members as our featured guests. That same evening, we'll host a VCCA Reunion on Zoom. We hope to "see" you at one or both of these special events!
We'll then be back the following week with the next Fireplace Series event on October 1.
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Fireplace Series 10 @ 7:30 p.m. ET
Writer and VCCA Fellows Council member Christina Chiu will host the evening with special guest appearances from Executive Director Kevin O'Halloran and another new Board member Hazel Duncan.
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Interested in attending Fireplace Series 10?
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VCCA Reunion @ 8:15 p.m. ET
Immediately following the September 24 Fireplace event, we'll move to Zoom for a virtual VCCA Reunion. If you're interested in attending, RSVP below to sign up for more updates on this gathering.
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Interested in attending the VCCA Reunion?
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Yes - Send me the Zoom meeting details
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Fireplace Series 11 @ 7:30 p.m. ET
Washington Post columnist and VCCA Board member Steven Petrow returns to host our eleventh Fireplace Series event on October 1. Our featured guests will be visual artist Jay Petrow and writer and VCCA Board member Rone Shavers whose debut novel Silverfish is out this month from Clash Books.
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Call for Visual Artists and Composers
Part of what makes VCCA and our Fireplace Series special is the cross-disciplinary nature of our Fellows and their conversations. We're looking for more visual artists and composers to join our long list of writers interested in being prospective guests in our virtual event series showcasing new work released during the pandemic. If that sounds like you, let us know you're interested.
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Fireplace Recap: "What Sparks Particular Pieces" |
Fireplace Series 09
Last week, we enjoyed a reading from Katherine Hill's new novel A Short Move and an excerpt from James Primosch's commissioned work for a new album by Grammy Award-winning choir The Crossing. Judith Shatin invited our guests to speak about their inspirations and personal connections to their work. Recordings of the full event are available on Facebook and on YouTube.
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Fellows, please submit a message. This is a way to tell the VCCA community about how you're navigating these times as an artist and human and to spread the word about work affected by or created during the pandemic.
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"During Fall 2018 at VCCA, I wrote Seeing Things — which explores on a personal and national level ways we distort or preserve memory, define or alter reality, see or don’t see those around us — and was a semifinalist for the 2020 Ohio State University’s Charles B. Wheeler Prize. Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation was a 2020 finalist for the Philip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award. Due to COVID-19, readings, conferences, workshops were postponed for Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems, A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry (re-issued Dec), Inside Out: Poems on Writing and Reading Poems with Insider Exercises (April) + I’m Feeling Blue, Too! (Aug). COVID-19 also brought a steep learning curve for transferring classes online, alongside concern for family, friends, students. I now am revising Begin with a Question (Paraclete '21). At least, that’s the plan as much as we can plan anything these days..."
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"This year started off with me winning the Beverly Hills Theatre Guild's Julie Harris Playwright Awards Competition (2nd Place Award). The play had come to me in bits and starts, but began to really take a form and life of its own at VCCA, some years back. I was happy there, and happy with the work. It was about a Quaker family who were leading station keepers on the Underground Railroad. A notorious stranger named John Brown comes in from a major snowstorm and stays ten days. Necessity Hath No Law was based on my ancestors. The Beverly Hills Theatre Guild had planned a special March 22 event in which the winners were to be recognized, but it was cancelled because of the coronavirus. I was probably too excited to go, anyway. Hope dear VCCA and all stay safe!"
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We've added a variety of VCCA postcards to our online shop. The postcards pictured here are three for $5.
Find more details and a picture of our three for $2 options on our inventory list.
Send your orders to Bea. Then send your postcards the world over.
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September 15: Wachtmeister Award |
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October 31: Fellows Council Nominations |
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Look to this comprehensive list of ways to stay virtually engaged with our creative community during VCCA's temporary closure.
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🧡 Stay safe, and be well.
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Want to stay in touch with VCCA, just not on a weekly basis? Simply reply to this email to let us know, and we'll understandingly unsubscribe you from this particular email list.
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