Thank you to everyone who participated in the celebration of 13 years of Tumblewords Project workshops here on the Texas/New Mexico/Chihuahua border. The treat of the day was the visit by Dr. Felipe de Ortegy y Gasca, the renowned Chicano writer and educator, who founded the study of Chicano literature, as well as the historic Chicano Studies Program at University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Ortego shared with us some anecdotes from his amazing career, both in the military and as a professor of literature as well as a trail-blazer in the pursuit of Chicano rights. He also talked to us about the writing of creative non-fiction, and read us some examples of his writing in this genre.
Dr. Ortego also treated us to the presence of his wonderful wife Gilda and her gracious and talented parents.
Thanks also is due to Celia, Karla and Manuela who brought scrumptious treats to add to the celebratory experience.
As you may know, I have not written a grant proposal since Jesus Guzman, a cofounder of the project, died in 2001. Nonetheless, we have continued to present workshops by nationally and internationally known writers and artists from across the US and Mexico, as well as Latin America and Hungary. To tell you the truth, I don't think anyone could be as surprised as I am that I have kept plugging away. The results (all the poems and other pieces that have been published across the country after being originally written in Tumblewords) has been the pay off, as well as seeing and hearing voices take on strength and originality and sufficient confidence to publish and perform.
Please stay tuned. I am not sure if it would be fair to say "the best is yet to come," but I do know that we will keep tumbling along, and keep presenting workshops by brilliant, talented, and renowned artsts and writers, as long as people keep attending the workshops. It is a joy to encounter new voices every month, and to reencounter old friends from time to time, after years of absence.
This year we plan to begin the work of publishing our first anthology, and are exploring the idea of having an online workshop as well as the weekly workshops at Memorial Park Library. Thanks to Maria Miranda Maloney, we now have this blog spot, and we hope to attract more of you to drop by regularly and to post comments or works in progress or announcements of events. I continue to coordinate the workshops, and I also curate the poetry page for Newspaper Tree and am poetry editor for the El Paso Bar Journal, promoting the literary arts among the lawyers and jurists in El Paso.
Throughout these years, Tumblewords Project would not have continued without the devotion and talent of people like Robin Scofield, Nancy Green, Mary Mooney, Monica Gomez, Ken Kenyon, TS Ross, Al Soto, Leslie xXx, Gene Keller, and the visual artists of Juntos Art Association. Moreover, we have been blessed with a fruitful collaboration with El Paso Public Library, El Paso Community College, and UTEP, as well as other venues such as the Bridge Center for Contemporary Art, Oseye Cultural Center, McCall Community Center, the Cultural and Technology Center of La Fe and the Chamizal National Memorial and countless small business who have provided places for readings. We have also enjoyed good relations with such groups as Border Senses and pluma fronteriza, la clica, Sage Literary Alliance, and the Women Writers Collective, the NonProfit Poets Society, the Border Book Festival, and Meta4 Poetry Society. Even though we have not written grant proposals in so many years, no list of benefactors or thank yous would be complete without mentioning the New Mexico Arts Department, the El Paso Arts Resources Department, the Texas Commission for the Arts, the various independent school districts in this region, and the Black Chamber of Commerce.
Thank you for these thirteen years. Join me in committing to making the 14th season at least as good as the prior ones, and to continuing Tumblewords Project into the indefinite future.
abrazos a todos
Donna Snyder
Tumblewords Project Coordinator
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
History of Tumblewords Project
Dear Readers:
I have been announcing for several months that in July Tumblewords Project will celebrate its 13th anniversary. I have recently discovered that I am wrong--it will be our 14th anniversary. I figured this out when I noticed that Border Book Festival's upcoming event, "Return," is being billed as their 14th annual festival. Tumblewords Project here on the border was conceived from a workshop I presented in the very first BBF about the politics of writing. After the workshop, comprising a panel discussion and improvisational performance, Judyth Hill from New Mexico Arts Division had lunch with Jesus Guzman and me at La Hacienda on Mesquite Street in Las Cruces. Judyth told me that she was adminstering some monies provided by the Lila B. Wallace Foundation to fund grassroots literary projects in the western USA, under th ename of the Tumblewords Project. She asked me what I would want to do with a little money if it came my way. I told her that I would like to present creative writing workshops modelled after the workshops Judyth and I had been part of in Santa Fe, workshops led by Joan Logghe, Miriam Sagan, Natalie Goldberg, and Judyth herself.
A few months later, after a couple of telephone calls and a couple of organizational meetings in Vado and San Miguel, Judyth sent me a check for a few hundred bucks and Mesilla Valley Tumblewords Project began to present weekly writing workshops at Concilio Campesino, a farmworker senior citizens center, in San Miguel, New Mexico. The idea was to foster an appreciation for literature, particularly regional literature, and to create a community for writers who might or might not be part of what we called "the academic elite." We called it the Mesilla Valley Tumblewords Project to distinguish it from other entities that received funds from that particular pot of money. Another difference is that the other Tumblewords Projects were by and large one-event projects, using the money to fund a performance or a workshop, usually featuring only one or two artists.
From the beginning we were a tri-state project. That first series of workshops included Denise Chavez, as always the gracious god mother of the literary arts in the border region, among other talented writers. The workshops were presented at Concilio Campesino, which was provided to me free of charge because of work I did for farmworkers and for senior citizens. The first performance event featured poet Levi Romero from northern New Mexico, Eric Slavin and his colleagues from the Santa Fe Quartet from Argentina playing music by Astor Piazolla, and an art show of local visual artits. We presented it at the Branigan Culturale Center in downtown Las Cruces.
The words Mesilla Valley were dropped once Jesus and I moved to El Paso and I began to present workshops in El Segundo Barrio. Sometime before I stopped presenting workshops in Souther New Mexico, I contacted New Mexico Arts Division and was told that I could continue to use the name Tumblewords Project because it did not belong to anyone else, and that it would be a wonderful thing for the name to continue. As far as I know, our TWP is the only one anywhere that continued to present workshops and performance events season after season and year after year.
Right this minute I can't remember all the names of all the writers and artists who were there when we began the workshop series, or even the name of the woman who helped me present that first workshop at the BBF. After almost 14 years of workshops, sometimes as many as 96 workshops a year, my mmory falters. In the future I hope to dig out my dusty archives and make a list of all the presenters and performers over the years, and I hope to jot down a few more memories from time to time, too. But for now I want to set the record straight: Tumblewords Project began in July 1995, a few months after the very first BBF. So that means that this summer, we will celebrate our 14th year.
Siempre la poesia!
I have been announcing for several months that in July Tumblewords Project will celebrate its 13th anniversary. I have recently discovered that I am wrong--it will be our 14th anniversary. I figured this out when I noticed that Border Book Festival's upcoming event, "Return," is being billed as their 14th annual festival. Tumblewords Project here on the border was conceived from a workshop I presented in the very first BBF about the politics of writing. After the workshop, comprising a panel discussion and improvisational performance, Judyth Hill from New Mexico Arts Division had lunch with Jesus Guzman and me at La Hacienda on Mesquite Street in Las Cruces. Judyth told me that she was adminstering some monies provided by the Lila B. Wallace Foundation to fund grassroots literary projects in the western USA, under th ename of the Tumblewords Project. She asked me what I would want to do with a little money if it came my way. I told her that I would like to present creative writing workshops modelled after the workshops Judyth and I had been part of in Santa Fe, workshops led by Joan Logghe, Miriam Sagan, Natalie Goldberg, and Judyth herself.
A few months later, after a couple of telephone calls and a couple of organizational meetings in Vado and San Miguel, Judyth sent me a check for a few hundred bucks and Mesilla Valley Tumblewords Project began to present weekly writing workshops at Concilio Campesino, a farmworker senior citizens center, in San Miguel, New Mexico. The idea was to foster an appreciation for literature, particularly regional literature, and to create a community for writers who might or might not be part of what we called "the academic elite." We called it the Mesilla Valley Tumblewords Project to distinguish it from other entities that received funds from that particular pot of money. Another difference is that the other Tumblewords Projects were by and large one-event projects, using the money to fund a performance or a workshop, usually featuring only one or two artists.
From the beginning we were a tri-state project. That first series of workshops included Denise Chavez, as always the gracious god mother of the literary arts in the border region, among other talented writers. The workshops were presented at Concilio Campesino, which was provided to me free of charge because of work I did for farmworkers and for senior citizens. The first performance event featured poet Levi Romero from northern New Mexico, Eric Slavin and his colleagues from the Santa Fe Quartet from Argentina playing music by Astor Piazolla, and an art show of local visual artits. We presented it at the Branigan Culturale Center in downtown Las Cruces.
The words Mesilla Valley were dropped once Jesus and I moved to El Paso and I began to present workshops in El Segundo Barrio. Sometime before I stopped presenting workshops in Souther New Mexico, I contacted New Mexico Arts Division and was told that I could continue to use the name Tumblewords Project because it did not belong to anyone else, and that it would be a wonderful thing for the name to continue. As far as I know, our TWP is the only one anywhere that continued to present workshops and performance events season after season and year after year.
Right this minute I can't remember all the names of all the writers and artists who were there when we began the workshop series, or even the name of the woman who helped me present that first workshop at the BBF. After almost 14 years of workshops, sometimes as many as 96 workshops a year, my mmory falters. In the future I hope to dig out my dusty archives and make a list of all the presenters and performers over the years, and I hope to jot down a few more memories from time to time, too. But for now I want to set the record straight: Tumblewords Project began in July 1995, a few months after the very first BBF. So that means that this summer, we will celebrate our 14th year.
Siempre la poesia!
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