Bookmarks | Call For Entries

The Memoir Project, a program of The Arts Center of the Capital Region, invites submissions for Bookmarks, a series of group readings featuring writing that is grounded broadly in personal experience.  Experienced writers as well as those whose work has not previously been read publicly, or published are encouraged to submit work.

Each scheduled reading will be curated by a member of The Arts Center’s Literary Committee.  Details about the submission criteria and schedule for each curator are listed below.  Each individual reading category has a separate submission date.

Submission guidelines

Works will be evaluated on literary excellence and relevance to the broader Memoir Project theme (i.e. does the work mine the personal to express the universal?) as well as the individual themes set by each curator.

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Interested writers should submit work as indicated and a resume/CV, both in PDF form to: sara@artscenteronline.org
(For Text as Art, please send any visual art entries as .jpeg files)

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Please include the following text in the subject line:
Memoir Project: (name of theme for which you are submitting) (your name)
• All submissions must be received by 5 p.m. on the date indicated (please see individual themes for deadline dates.)
• Submissions should not exceed 750 words.
• You may submit to multiple curators but please submit only once per theme.
• All applicants will be notified once the curator has chosen readers.
• Please mark your calendar and try to attend all the readings in the series.  Your fellow writers appreciate your input!

Bookmarks is a free program of The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

Submission categories and deadlines are:

“Family at the Holidays” curated by Marion Roach Smith, Deadline: October 31st 2012, 5pm
Reading: November 5th 2012, 7pm — PASSED

“Books I Have Loved: A Reader’s Relationship with Books” curated by Robyn Ringler, Deadline: December 20th 2012, 5pm
Reading: January 14th 2013, 7pm

“Valentine’s Day: Dilemmas and Disasters” curated by Kathryn Allen, Deadline passed.
Reading: February 11th 2013, 7pm

“Are You Experienced?” curated by David Wolcott, Deadline passed.
Reading: March 11th 2013, 7pm

March’s theme is “Are You Experienced?” curated by David Wolcott. When Jimi Hendrix asked that threshold question in one of his songs in 1968, he understood that if you’ve tripped, you know what happens, but if you haven’t, you can’t possibly understand. This session presents an unusual collection of prose and poetry recollections of “self-experiments in chemistry,” inspired by a personal history article by Dr. Oliver Sachs, “Altered States,” in the August 27, 2012 New Yorker. Our readers will talk about their experiences long ago with opiates, LSD, marijuana, mescaline, psilocybin, nitrous oxide, banana peels, morning glory seeds plus a non-drug “rock band groupie” youthful indiscretion. Whether taken as cautionary tales or expressions of self-revelation, we will hear fascinating stories of people learning something important about themselves, something that changed their lives.

“Text as Art” curated by Nancy Klepsch, Deadline passed.
Reading: April 8th 2013, 7pm

Sometimes the written word can be represented visually.  This category is dedicated to words which tell a visual story.  Visual art works in all media will be considered for an exhibit, to be displayed in the Arts Center’s Foyer gallery from March 16th – April 21th, 2013 (Please send any visual art submissions as a .jpeg file)

“Sunday School Lessons to Dancing ‘Round the Ouija Board” curated by Donna Miller Deadline: April 11th 2013, 5pm
Reading: May 13th 2013, 7pm

Discovering spiritual identity through assembling, testing and redefining belief systems can be a life quest. Some people are unshakable in their beliefs, certain they understand an essential life force, and that a place in the universe awaits. Every instance of faith accepted or rejected has a story that enlightens us with the mysteries, terrors and joys that define who we are and what we believe. I must warn you that until I was ten years old, I held the certain conviction that the water towers dotting the cornfields of the Midwest were screws holding the earth together. God lived at the Ohio State Fair near the livestock judging. I walked a different path since then. Share your unexpected journey in this evening of reflection and humor, for surely these are both signposts on the road to divine understanding.