Hey there, literary pals! |
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It's not just any Tuesday — It's Giving Tuesday! This annual event coincides with the launch of our winter fundraising campaign. Blue Stoop is looking to raise $10,000 by the end of January 2025 to replenish our Community Access Fund, which supports scholarships for local low-income students and free programs like Thursdays on the Stoop and Creative Coworking. As a gesture of gratitude, everyone who donates to our Community Access Fund this winter will receive a digital resource on publishing and a list of forthcoming novels with ties to Philadelphia. Those who donate $50 or more will also gain access to a special Philly Author’s event in 2025. |
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Since taking the helm in May, Taylor and I have been working hard to launch new initiatives, expand Blue Stoop's impact, and manifest a well-supported future for the organization. Let's look back at what we accomplished in 2024 and our goals for 2025: In 2024, we hosted 50 free online programs including coworking sessions and community-led workshops; we provided resources, inspiration and community to 529 students; we paid out more than $22,000 to teaching artists and facilitators; we offered 41 craft classes with $7,348 in financial aid; we worked with Jennifer Weiner to support 6 emerging writers with $5000 each, personalized mentorship, educational resources, and career-building opportunities; and we presented a slew of free in-person events, including the final season of The Bricks at H&H Books, a visual-art inspired performance at ICA, a Coming Out Day open mic, in-person coworking at Indy Hall, and a new series for novels-in-progress, presented in partnership with Molly’s Books & Records and The Free Library of Philadelphia. One of our biggest goals has been, and continues to be, centering accessibility. In practice, this priority looks like free weekly workshops, discounted tuition and free bus passes for low-income students, and no-questions-asked payment plans for those who want them. It looks like COVID tests and high quality masks, provided free of charge to our in-person classes. It looks like wheelchair-accessible venues and classroom accommodations for disabled students. It looks like hiring instructors who understand how to effectively work with diverse individuals from all educational backgrounds. We are constantly striving to improve in support of our most marginalized community members: BIPOC, queer, trans, disabled, low-income, and the intersections thereof. In 2025, we're dreaming big. We want to expand our in-person programs to include free public workshops, large-scale writing meetups, and other opportunities for writers and readers of all backgrounds to connect and create, face-to-face. We want to grow our board and our volunteer program, streamline our systems, and work with other organizations to reach new audiences. All of this, of course, depends on the availability of funding. We appreciate anything you're able to contribute. We are so proud of how far Blue Stoop has come in the last six months. We couldn't have gotten here without the incredible support of our talented volunteers, the guidance and labor of our small but mighty advisory board, the encouragement and assistance of our fiscal sponsor CultureTrust, and the faith and generosity of our ever-growing community. Thank you, thank you, thank you. |
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- Wednesday, 12/4, 3:30 – 5:30 pm ET: Creative Coworking on Zoom. A generative virtual drop-in session with peers. Stop by for a few minutes or stay for the whole session — it’s totally up to you. You can use this time to write, edit, read, daydream, or whatever best serves your literary life. We will open and close the session with 10 minutes to check-in about our writing goals, obstacles, and accomplishments. (FREE/VIRTUAL)
- Thursday, 12/5, 4:00 – 5:00 pm ET: Thursdays on the Stoop: Exploring Daughterhood with Hiwot Adilow. This generative 1-hour workshop is a space for participants to engage poems that model what daughters are capable of making and unmaking. Through writing prompts, we will work to answer the question: What are you devoted to? This workshop encourages poems that bow to and buck against subjects of devotion like fathers, mothers, lovers, nations, and The World. Participants will leave the workshop having developed maps toward honoring themselves and what they hold dearest. (FREE/VIRTUAL)
- Saturday, 12/7, 2:00 – 4:00 pm ET: Novels in Progress @ Parkway Central Library. At this salon-style conversation and reading, we'll hear from Lauren Holguin, author of the in-progress novel Thorns & Roses: A Stem, and Nikki Volpicelli, author of the in-progress novel STOPPING. Expect to hear excerpts from the unfinished works and reflections on each authors' respective journeys, followed by a friendly, open discussion about the books' themes and more. Learn more about each author's project and RSVP by clicking the link above. (FREE/IN-PERSON)
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Tuesday, 12/10, 6:00–9:00 pm ET | Single session | Zoom How can writing about the self explicitly challenge and deconstruct hierarchies of power and domination? In this 3-hour class inspired by Audre Lorde’s "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name" and Christina Sharpe’s "Ordinary Notes," students will learn about autofiction, autotheory, and the autoethnographic. Through discussion and generative writing exercises, students will explore new ways to write about themselves and their place within oppressive systems. Instructors: Maurice Rippel (he/him) is a writer, educator and filmmaker committed to using ethnography and documentary for social change. He teaches at Bryn Mawr College and the Community College of Philadelphia, and is completing his PhD in Anthropology and African American studies at Yale University. His Medium is @maurice.rippel and his Instagram is @mauricerippel. Luke McGowan-Arnold (he/him) is a writer and musician based in Philadelphia. He writes novels about social movements. His substack is @irregularnotes and his Instagram is @hueythecosmonaut. |
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In solidarity, Julian Shendelman
Co-Director P.S. Looking for more local literary connections? Check out our community calendar and resource pages. |
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Got an event, organization, business, or book to promote? |
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BEYOND THE STOOP Here's a quick excerpt from our community calendar. Adding an event is quick, easy, and free! |
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~~~~~~~~~ Event title Experiments in Witnessing: A Reading by Students in Syd Zolf's Class Start time 12/4/2024 5:00pm Location Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104 Description Please join us for an unforgettable reading by the students in ENGL/GSWS 3104, "Poetry Lab," and ENGL/GSWS/COML 3501, "Writing & Witnessing." They will share inventive poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid writing on a range of topics, from climate change, colonialism, and the policing of borders to queerness, desire, and hyphenated belonging. Open to the public. Link N/A
Contact info wh@writing.upenn.edu Cost Free ~~~~~~~~~ Event title The Intertextual Self: New Approaches to the Memoir Start time 12/5/2024 7:00pm Location Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103 Description Memoirists most often focus on the authenticity of their own voice and experience, and how best to render on the page the intersection of memory and current insight. This traditional approach creates engaging and compelling personal narratives—singular texts of the self. But a new approach seems to be emerging, one in which writers grapple with other texts that have informed their experiences, shaped their thinking, and served as lenses through which to interpret their own lives. This event features three highly accomplished and daring authors who have taken this approach to their memoirs, highlighting how they absorbed other texts and made them integral to telling their own stories. Authors Chris Campanioni (A and B and Also Nothing, 2nd Ed.), Tyler Mills (The Bomb Cloud), and Leah Souffrant (Entanglements) represent a new generation of writers who have turned to an even wider range of texts to help them identify, craft, and share their own stories. Each of their strikingly original memoirs also include visual art created by the authors. Link Contact info ereflit@freelibrary.org Cost Free ~~~~~~~~~ Event title The Late(ish) Poetry Show Start time 12/6/2024 8:30pm Location PhilaMOCA, 531 North 12th Street Philadelphia, PA 19123 Description Like the Tonight Show & Def Poetry had a baby that grew up to be your favorite Friday night in Philly. Poetry, interviews, games & music. Come watch some of Philly's best poets and join the livest audience in the city for a night of poetry, open mic, music, games and more. All ages welcome, adult content expected. This is a masked event. Please mask up for your safety and ours. Open Mic Poets - 8pm sign up
- Bring a poem 3 minutes or less, a haiku, and a sense of adventure.
Link Contact info https://www.instagram.com/thephillypigeon/ Cost $10-25 ~~~~~~~~~ Event title Outside the Wire: Writing Grief — In-Person Workshop Start time 12/7/2024 1:00pm Location Rutgers-Camden Campus Center, 326 Penn St, Camden, NJ 08102, Executive Meeting Room lower level Description Facilitated by experienced Warrior Writers artists, this creative writing workshop will offer prompts from various forms of art surrounding the theme of grief, the many forms it can take, and the ways it impacts our lives. We will examine and discuss art created by veterans and spend time writing our reflections. We encourage participants to share stories, opinions, and ideas to lead to productive writing and storytelling. These workshops are open to all veterans, service members, and their families; no prior writing experience is necessary. Warriors Writers is a veterans focused arts nonprofit that fosters artistic exploration and expression through casual, welcoming writing workshops, designed for people of all writing and art experience and exposure. By reflecting and creating in a comfortable space, we encourage and support healing and community building. Link Contact info writers@camden.rutgers.edu Cost Free; registration required ~~~~~~~~~ Event title A Poetry Open Mic Experience, featuring Cyn Jones Start time 12/7/2024 6:00pm Location Indy Hall, 709 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19123 Description What’s up family? Here we are, back, with another dope Poetry Open Mic Experience held monthly in Philly at Indy Hall Clubhouse. This isn’t your typical open mic so grab your tickets & come find out why. Our Poetry Open Mic Experiences are pure fire, as usual, & SELL OUT every month. The room is filled with beautiful people, amazing talent, great food, dope music, and the energy was high. If you were in the building, you already know. And it’s time to do it again. So, let’s get to the details: Saturday, December 7th, at 6:00 PM the doors open and a beautiful night begins. We kick the night off with some music, networking, eating, and open mic list sign ups. At around 6:45 PM, our Host, Jovan McKoy, will hop on the mic to kick the night off. We will have DJ G33k keeping the vibes high with music, plus vendors, visual artists, food and dessert vendors, and a featured poet for the night . And of course, most of the night gets dedicated to the poets who signed up. We will have some competitions throughout the night, to add some fun and engagement with the audience and many moments of laughs, love, and dancing. Link Contact info findus@voicesinpower.com Cost $22 ~~~~~~~~~ Event title Author Talk: Anna Engels Start time 12/10/2024 5:30pm Location Falls of Schuylkill Library, 3501 Midvale Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19129 Description Join local author and teacher Anna Engels for a short reading from her book A Fool for an Heir, followed by a look at her process as a writer, and an audience Q&A. Engels grew up in Latvia and currently teaches at Villanova University. A Fool for an Heir is a fictionalized biography chronicling the rise if Ivan III, through the eyes of his son—the boy whose life inspired the legend of Ivan Tsarevich. Link Contact info ereflit@freelibrary.org Cost Free ~~~~~~~~~
Event title Beyond the Page: Visual Poetry Incubator Start time 12/11/2024 6:00pm Location H&H Bookstore, 2230 Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19125 Description A generative workshop exploring the world of visual poetry, using our surroundings as a starting point. We will read Douglas Kearney and Victoria Chang, and write in response. Open to all levels of experience! Link Contact info info@theheadandthehand.com Cost Suggested Donation $25-50 ~~~~~~~~~ |
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1315 Walnut Street, Suite 300
Philadelphia, PA 19107, United States |
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