Impromptu music

We've just found a photo of one of our Writers at Woody Point highlights! On Thursday Steve Maloney and Katie Baggs dropped in and had an impromptu show here in the Studio! We loved it! For those of you who might not know the name, Steve is a St John's musician. He's top. Here's a link to a video, it's definitely worth a listen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNNZ7gXIMI0 We're huge fans!

Here's the photo!

Katie plays with an awesome band called All the Wiles. She also has one of the most beautiful voices we've ever heard! Check out the website http://allthewiles.com/

If you get the chance to go see All the Wiles or Steve Maloney, you definitely should. Chances are we'd see you there!

Writers festival!

Well, we've had a brilliant week! There have been lots of readings from incredible writers; tons of music and so many good times it's hard to remember them all! We're sorry we haven't been blogging, we've been super busy. But we're back on it now!

We were lucky enough to have a series of free readings here at Galliott Studios. On Friday Linda Spalding was reading here; then on Saturday we were joined by Lisa Moore and yesterday saw a reading from Jamie Fitzpatrick. All three writers were great, and our book wish list has expanded massively!

Here's a photo of Jamie Fitzpatrick's reading

We stole this picture from the Writers at Woody Point facebook page. It's great and includes lots of information and awesome photos. Check it out herehttp://www.facebook.com/writersatwoodypoint

Thanks to Linda, Lisa and Jamie. And thanks to everyone that came out to hear them read. We hope you all enjoyed it!

The Count

Today we heard the sad news that Jerry Nelson has passed away. Jerry was the voice of The Count on Sesame Street. We love The Count and are really sad to have heard the news. Here's a picture we found of Jerry and The Count.

Jerry Nelson was a legendary puppeteer and we're sure he'll be fondly remembered by kids all over the world.

Swimming...and JAWS!!!

Tomorrow will be the fourth annual swim across the bay! A hardy group of us will swim the mile across Bonne Bay. It's sure to be great, but possibly a wee bit chilly.

To celebrate our successful swim we'll be showing Jaws on the wharf tomorrow evening. The showing will be at 11pm and the film will be shown on a projection screen on the wharf! We're very excited about it! Our friend Ryan will be swimming and watching with us. He made us a poster!

If you'd like to join us for the swim across the bay, come over to Galliott Studios by 10.30am tomorrow. That's straight after our free reading by Douglas Walbourne-Gough, so why not come for both?

For the swim we implement a buddy system and have support boats to make sure everyone's safe. Don't worry if you're not the strongest swimmer, you'll be able to ride the rest of the way in a boat if you get tired. If you don't have a buddy in mind, that's fine too. You could make a new friend during the swim!

We'd also like to point out that it's not a race. If you're uber competitive you might need to reign yourself in a bit, we like everyone to swim together. It's more fun that way!

Jaws is a free showing, but we can only fit a limited number of people onto the wharf so make sure you're here around 11pm. It's going to be great!

Check back Friday for photos!

Project Bookmark

Our friend Miranda Hill arrived in Woody Point today! Miranda is a wonderful writer and is here to read from her new book, Sleeping Funny at Writers at Woody Point. We're really excited to read the book and looking forward to having a sneaky preview at this weeks reading!

Here's a picture of Miranda looking lovely here at Galliott Studios

And here's a link to her website. It's great! http://mirandahill.com/

Miranda is also the founder and executive director of Project Bookmark. We LOVE this project and think you would too. Project Bookmark Canada installs plaques (called “Bookmarks”) bearing text from stories and poems in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set. The nationally registered charitable organization is building a cross-Canada network of site-specific literary installations that will allow Canadians and visitors to read their way right across the country.

We stole that explanation from their website, which you can see here http://projectbookmarkcanada.ca/

Woody Point will be graced with the first Bookmark outside of Ontario, and the eleventh Bookmark overall. This Bookmark will be for Al Pittman's poem 'The Sea Breeze Lounge' and will be unveiled as part of Writers at Woody Point on Thursday 23rd August at 12.30pm on the Woody Point waterfront. More information at http://www.writersatwoodypoint.com/hold-wp-schedule.html

We hope to see you there!

Douglas Walbourne-Gough at Galliott Studios

We're very excited! Why? Because Douglas Walbourne-Gough is coming to read here at Galliott Studios! Doug's our favourite poet. He's lots of other people's favourite too and has won lots of awards like an Arts and Letters Award in the Senior Poetry category and the 2011 SPARKS Literary Festival Haiku Contest! He's also an editor and arts organiser. Very impressive!

Here's a picture of Doug reading at the April Rabbit

Doug was recently awarded a second NLAC Professional Project Grant for his current project, The Crow Gulch Poems, a research based manuscript of poetry exploring the now-defunct community of Crow Gulch.

He'll be reading from both Humber Mouths 2: Voices from the West Coast of Newfoundland (Scop2), which he co-edited with Dr. Stephanie Mckenzie, as well as exerpts from The Crow Gulch Poems.

Sounds pretty top eh? Doug will be reading here at Galliott Studios this Thursday, 23rd August at 9.30am. It'll be a small reading and a great opportunity to meet Doug himself. So why not come along? It's a free reading and everyone is welcome!

Sunday night's Sherman show!

Another great Sunday night here at Galliott Studios! Sherman Downey entertained us and a jam packed studio with a solo set. Poor lad had a bit of a croaky throat, but powered through and delivered a great show. Quite the trooper it seems!

Here's a photo!

Liv got all embarrassed when Sherman thought her posters were made by a child. But he took one for his band room and signed one for our wall of fame. Looking good so far!

  

Hopfully we'll be adding some more to the wall pretty soon, but this week is the writers festival, so no music from us. We'll be having lots of art, music and wonderful writing going on in town though, so we'll keep you posted!

Thanks to everyone who came out to party with us last night. And a big thank you hug to Sherman himself for putting on such a great show even when he was feeling under the weather.

Get well soon Sherman!