ABOUT
The Corazón de Trinidad Creative District presents A Solstice Celebration: As Dark Turns to Light, featuring a diverse group of poets and writers, poet laureates, readings, writing workshops, K-12 poetry workshops, the Authors' Marketplace, and an open mic finale featuring the workshop participants!
The Commons @Space to Create Trinidad!
Festival Schedule
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8
POETRY IN THE SCHOOLS
10:00 - 11:45 AM
THE POEM RISES UP
with SETH @Trinidad High School
Song + Poem = SoEm
with Jovan Mays @Trinidad High School
Poetry in the Schools sessions are closed to the public.
1 PM - 2:45 PM
I'VE KNOWN RIVERS
with SETH @Hoene School
Song + Poem = SoEm
with Jovan Mays @Hoehne School
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9
OPENING NIGHT
The Commons @Space to Create
Opening Reception
5:00-6:00 pm
Gathering the Light: Featured Readings
6:00-8:00 pm
Featured readings with writers Dustin Hyman, Kim Krisco, David Anthony Martin, Jovan Mays, Tom Nordgren, Petra Perkins, and SETH
Photo: The Commons @Space to Create on Grand Opening
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10
All hours listed are in Mountain Daylight Time (MDT)
Tickets required for entrance into workshops
MORNING WORKSHOPS
10 am - 11:45 am
High Concept Stories: Why You Want Them and How to Create Them
with Kim Krisco
Bring your story, or story idea, to this hands-on workshop and reshape it into a High Concept tale and (hopefully) leave with a log-line to pitch to publishers and agents. [Bring your laptop or pen and paper to get the most from this two-hour workshop.]
Writing the Field: Hike and Write
with David Anthony Martin
A guided hike along the River Walk along the Purgatoire River with a focus on environmental literacy, field notes & form. Guided by environmental educator, poet and publisher David Anthony Martin, writers will use their experience of natural setting and information to take field notes and craft works.
Participants are encouraged to bring their preferred tools for taking field notes or writing (journals, notebooks, phones or other devices), water bottle, and to dress for the weather and for walking through outdoor spaces, both on and off paths
Reading Like a Pro
with SETH
Learn the art of reciting poetry (and prose) effectively. Performance Poet SETH shares simple techniques to keep an audience listening from your first word to your last. Bring a verse from an original or favorite poem.
AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS
1:00-2:45 pm
Tickets required for entrance into workshops
How to Stop Thinking about Writing/Publishing Your Memoir and Actually Do It: In 1,468 Easy Steps
with Petra Perkins
Petra will discuss the ups and downs of memoir writing, how to get started on your memoir, how to truly stay engaged, and gather the spark that keeps the momentum going through multiple drafts, editing and publication. Also she will touch on writing a memoir book proposal for those looking to find a publisher, and will particular focus on self-publishing with all its pros and cons. Petra will also convey her own experience of euphoria upon getting her book done (!) and share lessons learned in marketing a memoir. Included will be a short writing exercise for those who would like to participate.
On finding your river
with Jovan Mays
Have you ever wondered why they call your consciousness a stream? Or why they say our minds can run, drift, or even channel? Studies say that we have between 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day, or about 35 to 48 thoughts per minute, per person. As writers, our thoughts are experienced escape artists. When we fail to grasp them, we often reference the word “block.” Well, is it possible that we are blocking ourselves? In this workshop, we will examine how we can move with our cerebral currents, get out of our own way, access an understanding of our personal rivers, how they work, and how we can be more dynamic river guides to our audiences and ourselves. Come prepared to work those metatarsals and phalanges in this highly generative experience aimed to lead participants of all ages to their deltas.
Writing Scripts for Stage and Screen
with Tom Nordgren
This seminar will cover scriptwriting in all its phases, from brainstorming your best ideas and transforming them into plot and dialogue, to bringing your work into forms needed for submission and production, both for the stage and for film.
Writing Dialogue that Pops!
with Dustin Hyman
In this workshop, we will look at examples of great dialogue prior to playing with funny/absurd writing prompts.
In short: We will put characters into conversation...
AUTHORS'
MARKETPLACE
3:00-6:00 pm
The Garage @The Commons
Just in time for holiday shopping! Join us for the Authors' Marketplace, where the written works of Festival presenters, local poets, and writers will be featured! Meet authors and poets, get signed copies, and quiz them about how and why they do what they do. The Authors' Marketplace is free and open to the public!
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10
CLOSING
The Commons @Space to Create
Welcoming the Dawn: Writers' Showcase Open Mic
6:00-8:00 pm
The Festival will end with festival participants reading
or performing their written works
WRITERS
Dustin Hyman
Dustin Hyman is Dyslexic and supports neurodiversity. After earning a PhD (emphasis in Creative Writing) from the University of Louisiana, Dustin finds himself teaching English at a tiny college in Colorado. His first novel was published in 2014 by Black Rose Writing. His collection of short stories, Gutter Punks, will be published in 2023. Dustin won the Chicago Tribune’s 2018 Nelson Algren award for literature.
Kim Krisco
Kim Krisco is the author of four published novels – The Magnificent Madness of Tessa Wiggins is his most recent release. Before writing fiction full-time, Kim served as a consultant, trainer, and coach for business and non-profit organizations and published three non-fiction books to support this enterprise. He and his wife Sararose Ferguson live on the North Fork of the Purgatory River. Learn more at www.mysterybookauthor.com
David Anthony Martin
David Anthony Martin is an environmental educator, poet, writer, columnist, and author of four collections of poetry: Span, Deepening the Map, Bijoux, and The Ground Nest. He lives in the Wet Mountains in southern Colorado. He is the founder and editor of Middle Creek Publishing & Audio. He also works in several capacities for the Nature & Wildlife Discovery Center in Beulah and Pueblo, Colorado and has written a weekly column for their Nature's Classroom column in the Pueblo Chieftain over the last two years. He served as the judge for the Eugene V. Shea National Poetry contest for 2022.
Jovan Mays
Jovan Mays is the emeritus Poet Laureate of Aurora, Colorado, a National Poetry Slam Champion, and the Youth Voice Coordinator of Aurora Public Schools. As an arts educator, Mays has worked with over 1 million students throughout the Denver Metro and beyond through poetry outreach in his program, Your Writing Counts. He is the author of 3 books: Pride, The Great Box Escape and This Is Your Song. Mays’ work has been published by The Pilgrimage, Button Poetry, and Write About Now. He is a graduate of Chadron State College where he played football, wrestled, and earned a degree in Secondary History Education.
Tom Nordgren
Tom Nordgren received his B.A. in English from San Jose State via Macalester College, his M.A. in Literature and Creative writing from the University of Minnesota and his PhDs (Literature, Creative Writing) from the University of Houston.
While in Houston, Tom was mentored by Donald Barthelme, who oversaw his fiction writing, and Edward Albee, who produced two of his stage plays in his acclaimed workshop. Before arriving at Trinidad State, Tom taught at University of Houston, Texas A&M at Galveston, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, Platteville, where he retired as an Emeritus Senior Instructor. He spent the next ten years as a freelance fiction and screenwriter. Tom moved to Trinidad a few years ago and now makes this terrific mountain community his permanent home.
Petra Perkins
Petra Perkins is a widely published and award-winning author of memoir, fiction, poetry, essay, humor, and stage play. Her two recent memoirs are BLAZE: How I Found Forrest Fenn's Treasure Chest Hideout (e-book) and FULL CIRCLE: A Hands-On Affair with the First Ferrari 250 GTO. Petra has two more memoirs in work, a screenplay developing in the inner sanctum of her brain, and is creating with her poetry group a book of poems, The Four Faces of Eve. As a former aerospace manager and STEM education activist, she is currently judging a series of NASA essay contests for students via Future Engineers of America. More about Petra and her writing can be found at www.petrapetra.com
SETH
Poet, fiction writer and performer SETH openly admits to having a sordid love affair with language. His passion for words, particularly the rhythms and sounds of speech, extends not only to his craft but to his presentation. As one of Colorado’s best-known performance poets, SETH has garnered numerous awards for his pioneering efforts to meld spoken word with the other performance arts. He has collaborated with countless musicians, poets, actors, singers, and dancers in a never-ending quest to render poetry more entertaining, and thus more accessible, to general audiences. SETH is the author of A Black Odyssey, a poetic memoir, and the award-winning satirical novel, The Perfect Stranger.
KEEP WRITING SHINING IN THE CORAZÓN
The Corazón de Trinidad Creative District has brought this important annual event to the city of Trinidad for the fourth year. In doing so, Trinidad has hosted Poet Laureates, published and nationally known poets, and writers; provided educational programming for area students; and has aided local hotels, restaurants, galleries, and museums by drawing people from around the state and beyond!
Please help us keep poetry and literature shining in the Corazón by donating what you can and join us at this year’s exciting Poetry Festival. We hope to see you there!
