Tag: Sacred Sites

June and July events

Dear Friends,

I’m happy to announce the following events celebrating the release of Dear Traveler and the multiple award-winning audio and paperback revised edition of Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California. I’ll also be reading new work including chants from “The Undertakers.”     Please join us!

Sunday June 12, 2:00-4:00 pm — Avenue 50 Gallery, 151 North Avenue 50, Highland Park 90042. I’ll be reading with Briana Muñoz, Tom Laichas, and A. K. Toney. The flier is attached.

Looking ahead: Tom Laichas and I are having our long-delayed publication party! Drinks and treats! I will be playing my dulcimer!

Friday July 15, 8:00-9:00 pm — Beyond Baroque, 681 North Venice Blvd., Venice 90291 

Tickets will be available in a few weeks. 

I look forward to seeing you!

Susan

The Intelligent Beast: A Literary Journal & Reading Series  

Avenue 50 Gallery  131 No. Ave. 50, Highland Park, CA. 90042 (Free parking)

June 12, 2022, 2:00 – 4:00    Featured Poets:

poets

Tom Laichas’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rupture, Disquieting Muses, Stand, Ambit, Moon & Sun and elsewhere. He is a winner of the Nancy Hargrove Poetry Prize from the Jabberwock Review and the author of Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (forthcoming from FutureCycle Press, 2023), Sixty-Three Photographs from the End of a War (3.1 Press, 2021), and Empire of Eden (The High Window Press, 2019).

Briana Muñoz is a writer from Southern California. Raised in San Diego, she spent a lot of her time at her mother’s Mexican folklore dance classes and at ranches where her father trained horses into the sunset. She is the author of Loose Lips (Prickly Pear Publishing 2019) and Everything is Returned to the Soil/Todo vuelve a la tierra (FlowerSong Press, 2021). Her work has been published in Dryland, the Bravura Literary Journal, LA BLOGA, and in the Oakland Arts Review, among others.

Susan Suntree is a poet and performer whose work investigates the dynamics of science, art, and spiritual philosophies as they engage contemporary life. She has presented her award-winning poetry and performances nationally and internationally, and has published books of poetry, biography, and creative nonfiction, as well as translations, essays, reviews, and book chapters. Awards include the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Award for Nonfiction, the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Poetic Narrative, and a Mellon Foundation Elemental Arts Award, and the audiobook of Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California was a finalist for a Society of Voice Arts and Sciences prize.

A. K. Toney is a poet, writer, educator, and performance artist. As a World Stage Performance Gallery alumnus, he had the honor to be mentored by jazz great, community leader and founder of the World Stage Billy Higgins. Toney’s skills as a performance artist have taken him across the nation and abroad. His experience as a performance artist and educator has allowed him and his organization, Reading Is Poetry, to teach workshops with LA Unified schools, NAMI, and the Natural History Museum. Toney is also a contributing writer to KCET.

From AudioFile Magazine:

“…don’t miss listening to this astoundingly creative exploration of the history of place… Gary Snyder’s introduction, read enthusiastically by Peter Coyote…The emotional nuances of Suntree and Queypo’s delivery will make your ears dance.” 

 https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sites-audiobook   or wherever audiobooks are offered including many libraries.

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The New Year (2022)

Dear Friends,

A new year arrives as the sun moves higher overhead and a goldfinch couple feeds in the lavender by my front door. After a month of rest, I am reviewing the marvel of our Sacred Sites audio book adventure. I am heart-full with gratitude for your support! Thank you to all who have written to us since the audio book was released. Your praise has kept us steady and inspired!

“…riveted from beginning to end.” ” Thank you so much for creating this beautiful experience.” “… an absolute delight.” And from AudioFile magazine: “…don’t miss listening to this astoundingly creative exploration of the history of place… Gary Snyder’s introduction, read enthusiastically by Peter Coyote…The emotional nuances of Suntree and Queypo’s delivery will make your ears dance.”

We intended to create a beautiful, entertaining, and mind -changing production, and your responses tell me that this is what we accomplished.

Just before Christmas our production team attended the Society for Voice Arts and Sciences (SOVAS) awards gala at the Guggenheim Museum theatre in New York City because Sacred Sites audio book was chosen as one of five finalists for sound design. We were competing with an international slate of entrants, which highlighted all the more our composer/editor Tom Zehnder’s fabulous work. What a delight it was for our team to celebrate our Sacred Sites audio book this way.

Now we continue the adventure of letting people know about this work. Your ideas about how to get the word out are most welcome! Please be in touch. Radio, TV, print, pod casts and social media connections would be great!

Author’s discount: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sites-audiobook or wherever audiobooks are offered including many libraries. (Yes, our GoFundMe is still up if you would like to support our publicity campaign: http://www.gofundme.com/f/sacred-sites-audio-theater)

[Photo: Susan Suntree; Tom Zehnder, composer/editor; Gopika Sharma, producer; Tom Keegan, director]

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SACRED SITES AUDIO BOOK LAUNCH PARTY!

With my heart brimming with appreciation for your support, I am thrilled to announce that we will launch our Sacred Sites Audio Theater via Zoom on Saturday, March 6, at 5PM PST!

Our team has worked for a year, with support from so many of you, to create what we feel is an audio performance that speaks to the heart of the current climate and social crises and summons us to live in balance with all beings. As Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gary Snyder writes in his foreword (read by Peter Coyote): This book “brings us home.”

Please join our celebration sponsored by 18th Street Art Center! It’s going to be a joyful show! Meet the cast and crew, hear clips from the book, experience Sacred Sites presented in the oral tradition which is its source. Though there is much left to do to bring this work fully into the world, now is the time to stir up a party!

Register right away! https://us02web.zoom.us/…/reg…/WN_jfvznkHpRUysh-jLwffbHA

Please post and share with your friends and family. All are welcome!

With gratitude!

Susan

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Last day of recording!

Audio Theater Update

November 19, 2020

Dear Friends,

In a year of continuing challenges, we have very good news to report: Phase one of our Sacred Sites audio theater production is completed! I am thrilled to type these words!

We are so grateful for the support so many of you have provided. Without you, we would not have come so far. After months of preparation rehearsing, working with linguists and other consultants, and much more, we have completed 22 hours of recording. The Media Staff studio, a supporter of this project, has one of the best recording rooms in Los Angeles. The raw material sounds excellent. In my next letter, I will share clips of the recordings.

It is a pleasure to introduce to you Kalani Queypo (Blackfoot, Hawaiian) who reads with me Book 2 and the Epilogue. He is a founding member of the National American Indian Committee at SAG-AFTRA. Among his many credits are Terrence Malick’s The New World, Jamestown, and Fear the Walking Dead. I’ve included his headshot and bio plus studio shots at the end of this letter.

Phase Two has begun: editing, music composition and licensing, mastering, distribution, and publicity. Since we are an independent production, we must do everything we can to get this timely and inspiring project out to the public.

To do this, once again I need your assistance. Please reach out to anyone you feel would love this work and would join our mighty team of supporters — no amount is too small (or too large!).

Sacred Sites is a story that weaves the world together. It inspires us to love this earth and, thus to care for it in every way we can. It is essential that we understand natural systems and learn the many ways we humans have and can, once again, live in harmony with all life.

Thank you for being a part of this creation.

http://www.gofundme.com/f/sacred-sites-audio-theater

Or send a check made out to Sacred Sites LLC to 41 No. Logan St., Denver CO 80203.

With deep appreciation,

Susan

Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet, Hawaiian) proudly serves on the Native Voices Advisory Council and is a founding member of the National American Indian Committee at SAG-AFTRA. He can be seen in the Oscar-nominated, Terrence Malick film, The New World, Steven Spielberg’s Emmy winning Into the West and Slow West (Sundance GRAND JURY PRIZE). Television credits include Jamestown (producers of Downton Abbey), Saints & Strangers, Fear the Walking Dead, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie, Bones, and Hawaii Five-0. Queypo is currently filming the new CBC series, The Trickster.

Kalani and me at the end of his session.

Director Tom Keegan and engineer Anthony Alfaro

Me on my last day of recording (16 hours over four days!)

Jerry Mayfield, whose Media Staff studio was a wonderful place to work. He is famous for his sourdough bread which he served at every session with his homemade jam. What delight!

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