MANCHESTER — Manchester Community Library has partnered with the Ruth Stone House to offer a free writing workshop to kickoff National Poetry Month on Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m.
Ruth Stone House co-founders Bianca Stone and Ben Pease will host a two-hour generative workshop at the library where new work will be written and discussed.
“We thought this was a great way to celebrate National Poetry Month by offering a free poetry workshop with the Manchester Community Library. Since it’s the beginning of the month, we hope this will inspire those who attend to dive into poetry for the rest of the month (if not longer),” said Stone in a statement.
Paige Vignola, a former English teacher and the library’s assistant director of education and community engagement, said, “Poetry Month is probably my favorite month of programming throughout the year.”
“Everyone should write and what better way to get the creative juices flowing than in a workshop with Bianca and Ben,” said Vignola.
Stone is a writer, visual artist and teacher born and raised in Vermont. She received her Master of Fine Arts from New York University in 2009, where she worked and lived for many years. Stone is the author of the poetry collections “Someone Else’s Wedding Vows” (Tin House, 2014), “Poetry Comics From the Book of Hours” (Pleiades, 2016), “The Mobius Strip Club of Grief” (Tin House, 2018) and most recently “What is Otherwise Infinite” (Tin House, 2022). Stone’s poems, poetry comics and essays have appeared in a variety of magazines, including The New Yorker, The Nation, The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, Brooklyn Rail and many others.
Pease is a poet and multidisciplinary writer who is dedicated to fostering a more accessible literary community in Vermont and beyond. He is the author of the full-length poetry collection “Chateau Wichman: A Blockbuster in Verse,” a “Dungeons & Dragons” adventure module set on the Ruth Stone property called “The Light of Mount Horrid,” the hybrid illustrated edition “Furniture in Space” and several chapbooks. He holds undergraduate degrees in political communication and writing, literature and publishing from Emerson College and a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from Columbia University. He is the executive director of the Ruth Stone House, communication coordinator at Otter Creek Engineering and book designer for Factory Hollow Press.
Husband and wife team Stone and Pease co-founded the Ruth Stone House, a literary nonprofit writing residency and letterpress studio dedicated to supporting poetry, art and cross-discipline discussion through workshops, lectures and other programming.
The Manchester Community Library is open to all as an inspiring gathering place for the community, providing opportunities and resources for personal enrichment and growth. For current hours and programs, visit mclvt.org or call 802-362-2607.
