Many indigenous cultures celebrate the fall equinox as a time when completion and harvest portend a new year, a new cycle, imminent spring. I am celebrating my own renewal after a gravelly year that culminated in Alaska where I saw the Aurora Borealis and so much more. Soon I’ll post photos on my website and social media. I distinctly recommend the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks!
And I’ll soon share with you information about a couple of new,unusual publications! Stay tuned!
Please join usSunday afternoon, 22 October, at 4:30, when I’ll read with the excellent poet, Ambika Talwar. My selection and slides from Sacred Sites reveal roots of the climate crisis, and Dear Traveler and new poems ponder how we might live now. See flyer below or the events page on this site.
With brightening leaves and the (most likely) coming rains,
Winter tempests swirl across the country even as my front yard trees line their branches with thickening buds, small cocoons where spring leaves slowly ripen. And, like them, we move into the year with our unease and our pleasures. And what a pleasure it is to read with two marvelous poets: Tom Laichas and Brendan Constantine!
This reading is going to be lively, textured, varied, informative, and fun! Please join us– live and in-person– at one of my all-time favorite\LA bookstores: Book Jewel in Westchester. Old school in the best sense, comfortable, and staffed by people who truly know books. I think you will love this shop as much as I do.
Join us!
Susan
Here’s the discount link to the Sacred Sites audiobook where you can hear about the era when the earth’s atmosphere held as much CO2 as it does now and other news from climate antics and momentous evolutions: sacred sites: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sites-audiobook or search Suntree Findaway Voices.
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!
In a year of continuing challenges, we have very good news
to report: Phase one of our SacredSites 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.
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 HawaiiFive-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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