3rd Thursday Newsletter Issue: 16 Date: May 19, 2022 Dear Reader, Announcements Creative Colloquy <https://creativecolloquy.com/>’s Open Mic and Literary Reading is again being held in person! This month’s event was on Monday, May 16, at The Harmon on Pac Ave. Although I was unable to make it to the event, I heard it was a great gathering of writers and those who love to hear their work! I am excited to be able to join future gatherings (held on the third Monday of each month). Write253 <https://www.write253.com/> presents Poetry Picnic on Saturday, June 11, 11am to 3pm, in South Park. The event will feature a day of readings, open mics, printing projects, poetry games, and Creative Colloquy’s Book Bike! Tacoma Public Library will also be there with an oral history recording book. Blue Cactus Press, Seeds of Peace, and Stewart Middle School will be present with cool books and projects. Check full details and performance schedule at www.write253.com and I hope to see you there! Blue Cactus Press <https://bluecactuspress.com/> is offering Book Production 101 <https://bluecactuspress.com/product/book_production_101/>, a half-day, in-person workshop facilitated by Christina Vega <https://bluecactuspress.com/product/still-clutching-maps/>, on June 25. I highly recommend this workshop and can’t say enough about how helpful it was in getting my planning started around the publication of my work. This weekend is going to be busy downtown with the Glass Art Society <https://www.glassart.org/conference/tacoma-2022/> Conference and events in and around the Museum of Glass <https://www.museumofglass.org/>. Also, athough the Museum of Glass is closed to the public for the Conference, they will be open to the public tonight for Third Thursday (with free admission from 5-8pm), along with the Tacoma Art Museum <https://www.tacomaartmuseum.org/>, LeMay - America's Car Museum <https://www.americascarmuseum.org/>, Foss Waterway Seaport <https://fosswaterwayseaport.org/>, and the Washington State History Museum <https://www.washingtonhistory.org/>. Come downtown to check out all our city has to offer! Updates There is no way I could ever willfully stop the creative process - it is as much a part of me as is the blood that fills my heart. I can’t hide the frenetic energy which is in my mind and spins off in various forms of artistic expression. Nor would I want to hide it. The process of creation is what defines me. While “In a Past Life & Other Poems Sung by the Window <https://sites.google.com/view/beeugenebecreative/whats-new>” was a tribute to my dad, “Wild Rose & Other Poems Sung by the Window” is an ode to my mom, Jane Marie <https://www.messingermortuary.com/obituary/Jane-Battersby>, who passed away on April 6 at the age of 86. “Wild Rose” is a collection of poems drawn from my memories of her life and from my feelings of loss and of mourning with her passing. It has been a painful time for our family but we are blessed with many beautiful memories of her life; through these memories her spirit continues to bless us from afar. The title comes from the wild roses she grew from rose hips which she collected in the forest near our cabin on the Mogollon Rim, in northeastern Arizona. She loved roses in general but those wild roses in particular. My favorite photograph of her, from my nephew David and included in her obituary, shows her sitting on the porch of the cabin next to these roses. Mom was an amazingly creative person. Always filling the world with her art, she had a distinct style that imprinted on my mind from the earliest ages. She painted floral motifs in the corners of the windows of our home, portraits of all of us (as suns) on the dining room chairs, and even the bottom of our pool one year (with an octopus and fish). It really is no wonder that I can’t stop creating art - it is literally in the blood that fills my heart. And this book is meant to be an ode to her, a picture book in words to capture the love she gave to the world. Mom’s self portrait as the Sun, on the back of her dining room chair. - If you would like to read the prior issues of the 3rd Thursday Newsletter, they’re available in the archive <https://sites.google.com/view/beeugenebecreative/newsletter-archive>. Please share this newsletter and, if you received it from a friend, visit my website <https://sites.google.com/view/beeugenebecreative/home> or sign up for the newsletter here <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSegjADUC-XnKc4NsG6q9_JMSz8v46hg2k6Gje-pUm76fkFM3A/viewform?usp=sf_link> . Newsletter Archive <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Y9_OOIfuTTiwBx1S0C5BWgFrg0nRsgNY?usp=sharing> -or- Unsubscribe <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAuaoO0Ep_lKRIe5mufZfhzw6b7gtLXEnPy5kifj55LNRcEA/viewform?usp=sf_link> <https://sites.google.com/view/beeugenebecreative/home> Copyright© 2022 by Burl E. Battersby All Rights Reserved [image: beacon]