Winona Writers Group - February Virtual Meeting

Friday | February 12 | 3:30-5:30pm
may end early, depending on how many readers participate
Zoom (details below)

Local writers are invited to bring a short piece of your writing to share with us. As always, feel free to use these prompts, change them, or ignore them and write your own idea. For this meeting, we will not have printed copies of each other's work. We will read aloud, then share verbal comments and suggestions.

February Prompts:

1. At the beginning of February, some cultures celebrate the return of light, but February remains a fairly dark, snowy month here in Minnesota. For this prompt, write about color--maybe your favorite color, a memory of colors, or even lack of color in a winter world.
2. Try starting a scene with the following sentence: I saw a message in a bottle.

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86855941259.

Billy X Curmano joins a Zoom “Evening of Vegan Healing Actions”

Friday | February 26 | 6:00pm (7:00pm EST)
Noche Ritual – Franklin Furnace (franklinfurnaceloft.org)

Nicolás with The Interior Beauty Salon holds space online at Franklin Furnace’s Loft for a group of creatives around the Earth to enact a series of vegan rituals. These micro-actions, carried on from homes from Rio de Janeiro to The Bronx, Puerto Rico and Minnesota, are intended to invoke healing —personal and collective—, serve as catalyst for inner and outer balance, and induce co-regulation as the night blossoms. The evening develops as a succession of under 2 minute gestures, some homeopathic while others more cathartic, are given birth one after the other.

Participants in order of appearance: Maggie Ens, Luke Dixon, Anna Recasens, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Frances Valesco, Linda Mary Montano, Lisette Morel, Jennifer Zackin and Adolfo Ibáñes Ayerve, Anna Costa e Silva, Quintín Rivera Toro, LuLu LoLo, Elia Alba, Jean Marie Casbarian, Ed Woodham, Melanie DewBerry, Charo Oquet, Erika DeVries, Limber Vilorio, Luis Lara Malvacías, Ana Paula Cordeiro, Rhina Valentin, Dulcina Abreu, Francheska Alcántara, Linda Sibio, and Billy X. Curmano ends the series.

Noche Ritual contemplates the possibility to perform art as refuge at a time of planetary sorrow and several concomitant pandemics brought forth by Covid-19: systemic racism, sexism, ageism, and the urgent ecological plight that we face as a species, among others. This event coincides with Nicolás’s 54th birthday. It also sends him off into the delicious unknown in the months and year(s) to come. Bring a blanket, a fruit and a knife to peel it. Blessings.

Bright Light Stories in the Night: poems & art

Friday | February 26 | 7:00-8:30pm
Bright Light Stories in the Night | Facebook

Scott Lowery's poems has been chosen for this one-of-a-kind deep winter arts event from Rochester. Local celebrities will read from an e-chapbook of new poems by SE MN poets and illustrated by regional artists, followed by a Q&A session with the project's poets and artists. Tune in on Facebook Live (with or without FB account) or Zoom; RSVP to poets.semn@gmail.com. During early March, poems and art will be available for in-person viewing at SEMVA, 320 S. Broadway in Rochester.