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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 14:36 |
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Written by Elliott Johnston
Peter Vielehr is hosting a book club to strengthen the Fort Collins queer community.
Peter Vielehr, dressed as “Dixanne Harlot,” gets ready to host “Under The Covers,” a drag show held at Bas Bleu Theatre earlier this year. The show launched the Fortitude program, which is geared towards Northern Colorado gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning men.
The Fort Collins progressive community has some catching up to do when it comes to discussing queer issues. We can talk environmentalism, we can talk bikes, we can talk farmers markets while drinking home-brewed beer while riding a bike, but when it comes to GLBT issues, we don’t really talk. While non-profits like Lamda and Northern Colorado AIDS Project do important educational outreach in the community, Peter Vielehr, a Health Educator at NCAP and a facilitator of a new book group called Queer Reads, says that being queer-identified in Fort Collins isn’t so easy to be, even in our more (supposedly) open-minded settings.
Queer Reads, which meets on the first Wednesday of each month at the Lamda Community Center, is designed to get people talking. The first meeting was held at the beginning of March, where Written on The Body by Jeanette Winterson, an experimental text questioning gender boundaries, was analyzed.
Vielehr is selecting books and leading discussion for the first three sessions, and then the group will vote on what to read for the rest of the year. Matter Daily recently spoke to Vielehr about why Queer Reads is important for Fort Collins, why the word queer is appropriate, and what allies can do to make the Fort Collins queer community feel more accepted.
Matter Daily: Talk about how Queer Reads got started.
Peter Vielehr: Yeah, so the book club was an offshoot of a few of us talking about what’s missing in our community, and stuff that we would want to do and be a apart of. A book club is exactly that, because there are not enough spaces in town to actually get together with other queer people and talk about queer issues. And not in a bar, which is where most of that happens. I really wanted to a place where you have intelligent discussions around reading, because that’s something that a lot of us like to do.
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Written by Elliott Johnston
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Monday, 08 February 2010 12:59 |
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The Old Town Writing Group
That’s the myth. In reality, most writers need people. In reality, most writers go soft with no deadline, no one waiting on the other edge of the computer screen. Some unchecked stories get loose and meandering, some unchecked egos balloon exponentially, only to deflate rapidly with the obnoxious farting sound of self-pity. Most writers need a balance, a grounding mechanism, a central command to report to.
Most writing is enhanced by nuts-and-bolts concepts: workshopping, feedback, and revisions. While these craft-centric ideas may not sound sexy, the finished product is. Smart, cogent writing peer-reviewed and trimmed of unnecessary fat? Sexy. Smart, cogent writing about sex peer-reviewed and trimmed of unnecessary fat? Extra-super-sexy. This is the M.O. behind “Savage Night,” a Valentines Day reading put on by The Old Town Writing Group, a six-woman band of established Fort Collins authors who aim to share their work and the benefits of self-starting a writing collective.
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Friday, 22 January 2010 20:24 |
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Join the Old Town Writing Group on the lustiest night of the year for a reading filled with savage desires, irregular heartbeats, and uncooperative body parts.
Kimberly Fields, Leslie Patterson, Molly Reid, Sarah Ryan, Laura Resau and Carrie Visintainer will read their stories and essays.
Lovers, friends, and misanthropes are all welcome.
Sunday, February 14th, 7pm
The Bean Cycle/ Matter Bookstore
144 N. College Ave.
Fort Collins, CO 80524
970.472.4284
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Sad Country for Silly Kids |
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Tuesday, 27 October 2009 14:46 |
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Written by Elliott Johnston
Bret Bertholf (aka Halden Wofford) lends his playful take on Americana to children’s books.
 Honky tonk music is primarily concerned with adult problems. Kids don’t really have to worry about losing all those things that people lose in dusty old country songs (jobs, vehicles, lovers, houses, minds). And, because they are too short for barstools, children can’t fully relate to the omnipresent solution said songs offer (the drinking of mythological amounts of booze). So it might be assumed that honky tonk – post-WW2 blue-collar American roadhouse sounds popularized in the ‘50s by bummed-out heroes like Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell – isn’t kid territory, because most kids aren’t up to speed on the gross variety of life’s collected drama.
But, as Bret Bertholf asserts in his goofy and informative children’s book The Long Gone Lonesome History of Country Music, classic country music isn’t just about gloomy grown-ups; it’s about a long line of strange, gloomy grown-ups who dress, talk, and act real funny. For The Long Gone Lonesome History, Bertholf uses colored-pencil illustrations, ropey, handwritten text, bright block letters, and an authentic love of “real” country music (not that country-pop malarkey that’s been staining up the charts for years). The book takes kids through eighty years of country music history, having fun with country nicknames, country hair (from ‘60s Countrypolitan gals with monster beehives, to mean-lookin’, greasy-haired Outlaws), country food, country pets, and more. In one spread, a yodeling primer: “First, pretend you’re swallowing a monkey. Now, sing a high note and get your best friend to pinch you in your posterior. A healthy YELP will get you yodeling. (Now do it louder! NO, louder than that! You gotta scare some dogs.)”
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Pressing On: A Dispatch from the Frontlines and the Headlines |
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Monday, 24 August 2009 04:37 |
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Published in Matter 12: Press
“I am an exile from newspapers because of the most grievous sin of all—I have lost my belief. I no longer believe that the front page, the business page, the sports page, the arts page can tell a story that matters.”
— Charles Bowden, Blood Orchid
“Remember what I told you a long time ago?” my grandmother asked me over the phone. My ears perked, thinking she was on the verge of revealing some sage advice that she earned through her long years. “There’s no future in the papers.”
Grandma Sue’s hint of ancient wisdom was actually a warning, a taunt of sorts, that she likes to repeat to me quite regularly when I see her in person back East or occasionally when we talk over the phone: Newspapers are a dead end for a smart fellow like her youngest grandson.
My grandmother wasn’t disclosing some lesson gained from a career as an editor at the Washington Post or a beat reporter for Newsweek. I presume her shared insight was something she picked up watching Fox News.
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