SPIRIT OF THE HILLS
WRITERS GROUP
They provided enough content to fill two picnic tables, one of poetry, the other of short stories. This is not amazing amongst this group of word warriors of all genres. They are prolific in all that they do for arts and culture, and they do a lot.
The Spirit of the Hills Arts Association is “composed of more than 140 artists, artisans, performing artists, photographers, writers, and patrons, … embraces all art forms and traditions including the performing and visual arts, media, design, and literature. Our goal is to build and sustain the Arts and Artists in Northumberland County.”
The Writers Group is quite a chunk of the Arts Association, 78 members currently. It has by an energetic crew of independent, creative women, Felicity Sidnell Reid, Gwen Scheltema, Susan Stathem, Cynthia Reyes, Jennifer Bogart, and Kim Aubrey. They set their sights on Northumberland, a place of gentle hills and as many spirits and created a bi-yearly anthology of poetry, short stories, non-fiction
They organize the bi-yearly Northumberland Festival of the Arts, which showcases, WORDS ON A WIRE, a poetry performance textravastanza, bringing in the Parliamentary Poet Laureate, the Ontario Poet Laureate and other award-winning poets.
The participants of the Writers Group are all accomplished authors in various genres, history, memoir, novel, short stories, biography, and poetry. I was immediately attracted to this group of people. They were fierce individuals, independent and all with nimble minds.
That same spirit led them to poeticipate in the very first picnic table in the world to display poetry. And, to participate in the world’s first Poetry On Parade (POP), in which a picnic table was a float in a parade. They are adventurous souls, and POETCHRY is proud to have them produce content for an annual picnic table of poetry and prose for the PICNIC ON POETRY Project.
A picnic table bearing four short stories has recently been released into the public domain of Victoria Park in time for the Canada Day Crowds. The authors of the stories are Antony Di Nardo, Reva Nelson, Karen Walker and Sharon Stevens.
