STAMFORD — I met with Christine (Chris) Hauser, the facilitator of the Stamford Writer's Circle,Terry Bradshaw, Rick Van Valkenburg and Sinéad Starkey at T.P.'s Cafe, on a cool rainy afternoon. Even when closed, it is a lovely, cozy place to meet new friends or old. In this case, I am discovering the history and workings of the Stamford Writer's Circle.
In September of 2001, Stamford had an Arts Center, a non-profit, named Performance Plus. Within that, there were many programs, one being a project called the Writer's Circle. It was started by Terry and Christine. Terry was the first facilitator. Performance Plus raised money and purchased a building. Another project of theirs was a theater in a converted carriage house. Both the Writer's Circle and the Carriage House Theater continue after the Performance Plus project has ended. Chris brought her understanding of theater to Stamford. She was an IATSI union stagehand and projectionist.
This writer's group is very special. Many groups choose a few members to read their work at each meeting. This group stays until everyone reads their work. This ensures that those who are not yet comfortable sharing their writing, are helped to find their voices as writers and readers. And the method works. The results are visible in the confidence readers show in recorded events online. It is further evidenced in the number of members both published and those receiving awards for their writing. The method is about growth. "Everybody gets to read," Chris says. “and people get to discuss, because we are all looking for helpful hints." They meet once a month as long as it takes for everybody to read. "This encourages writers who are not experienced writers, but just want to explore and learn more. Our format encourages growth... Everybody gets more comfortable reading."
Pieces of all genres flow out of the readings of the members, poetry; fiction; "flash pieces;" as Terry refers to short pieces of under a thousand words; novels and short stories. The workshop sends out optional prompts, accompanied by three photographs. This way, if a member isn't working on a piece at the moment, and just wishes to exercise their writing muscles, there is a topic about which they can write.
The age of the writers ranges from early thirties to the oldest member, Edward Lamb Nichols, who is soon to be 96. Ed has several books out, one of which was sponsored by the Delaware County Historical Society.
Terry has won the 2024 "Black Orchid Novella Award", an award sponsored by Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and the Wolf Pack, a group devoted to the works of Nero Wolf. “That was kind of fun," Terry says with a slight laugh. "With a gala dinner in Manhattan in December." That members are published and win awards helps to inspire other members to keep working the method.
There is a performer’s gathering each year in Cooperstown, at the Fenimore Museum, called "Write Out Loud". It hosts writers from within one hundred miles of Cooperstown. Every year for the past three years, members have been chosen for this competitive curated event. This year, Sinéad and Dory from the group are reading in the event, Terry has read twice in the event, as has Rick. Every year, the Stamford Writer's Circle, have had writers who make the grade and are chosen.
The member and treasured elder of the group, Ed Nichols lives in a house built before the eighteen hundreds, by his four times back Grandfather. He was born in that house at a time when people were often born at home. Today he lives in that same house and can watch his niece and her husband farm the land which gave life to generations of his family. He can be found on YouTube, reading a lovable ode to the joys of being a country grandfather, feeding chickens with his young grandson. In his sky-blue pants, and suspenders, and gentle manner, he is everyone's image of the perfect grandparent. His poem beautifully conveys the simple joy of generational family life. He introduces the poem with a brief statement of his pride that Terry, Chris and Rick have been chosen to read at the Fenimore Museum's Write Out Loud competition. His is a humble sharing of love of family and community in his reading at Liberty Rock Books, in Hobart, NY.
Chris mentions another aspect of country life, now in the past about which she has written. Airports were considerably more common in the Catskills in the twenties and thirties. "People began flying their own planes, and they needed a place to land them." Nearly every town had a small airfield. Most are now gone. The Writer's Circle's storytelling keeps the flavors of the past alive that may have become forgotten in time. I try to imagine the planes of wood and canvas taking off from the airports she describes in Stamford, Grand Gorge and Gilboa.
In keeping with the reality of the Catskills, there is a diverse membership, some of whom travel some miles to take part. At the table today, typical of this diversity, are Sinéad and Rick. It has been my experience, over the years, that Irish people in America can grow inwardly tired of always being introduced as "Irish" especially after years of living in the USA. So I won't mention that Sinéad is from Co. Mayo, in Ireland, though with the name "Sinéad" you may have guessed, that her years in the Catskills followed being born...where I spent much of my younger life in Ireland.
Coincidentally, Rick comes from my old stomping grounds in New York City's Lower East Side. Rick lived east of me, in what is called "Alphabet City," as the avenues are lettered rather than numbered. He ran the "Neither Nor Book Store." This was on 6th Street and Avenue B, at a time when films were made about people avoiding that neighborhood. However, to those who did know this urban wilderness, it was a churning caldron of creativity of cast outs and margin dwellers. It was the NYC I loved deeply and is now quickly dying a slow death. Rick came North to the mountains, as the frontier of creative life was beginning to shut down, and hyperinflation began to make land speculation so profitable, art and theater simply could not compete.
At the Hobart bookshop reading in 2024, Rick reads a poem on his late mother's hundredth birthday. It is a voyage into the senses around the conception and birth of his own self and his twin Eric, ending with "now only I survive."
Sinéad found her voice as a writer and a reader in this writer's group. "I had a desire to write for a long time, and I was terrified of it." Chris remembers with a smile and pantomime, that Sinéad was hesitant to share her poetry with the group at first, and yet, from the first reading, the group was "blown right out of our seats!"
These many different wildflower seeds, blown to these mountain villages create a community of strength, not the bad ass bullies who seek to dominate the American scene today. But immigrants and margin dwellers; theater union backstage hands; and old ancestral family's members; all give the support of their experiences and their rapt attention to each other. They encourage in their success those who may be the next one published or praised. This gathering of voices defines the tough nature of our mountain folk.
