In stock / Shipping Available PAPERBACK Ridge Memory 9, 18×53 oil pastel over watercolor, © Elissa Gore 1999 BRIGHT HILL is dedicated to increasing audiences’ appreciation of the writing arts and oral traditions that comprise American literature, and to encouraging and furthering the tradition of poetry and writing in the Catskills and beyond. Writers and artists who participate in Bright Hill Press/Word Thursdays programs are selected for their artistic excellence, their ability and willingness to work within a community setting, and the diversity of their backgrounds, genres, and styles. BHP understands that recognition of the need for a literary community and a commitment to lifelong learning are critical aspects of audience development; our programs for children and adults engender the spirit, craft, and imagination that makes this possible. We offer literary and art programming for youth and adults. Programs range from children and adult literary workshops to “Word Thursdays.” featured poet and writer readings with open mic. We publish poetry, prose, and anthologies The press has published more than 75 collections of poetry as well as anthologies of poetry, prose, and visual arts. We partner with national, state and non-for-profit orgs on special projects. Bright Hill partners with the New York State Council on the Arts, developing and maintaining the NYSCA Literary Map of New York State and the NYSCA Literary Tree Beatrice brings 10+ years of grant writing and production experience to BH. She is a writer educated at NYU, a small business owner, and mom to her beloved son Charlie. Larry is born and raised in Delhi, NY. He brings precision and passion to his work at Bright Hill. Bertha Rogers, poet & visual artist & master teaching artist, founded Bright Hill Press with her husband, Ernest M. Fishman, in 1992. Rogers has published more than 600 poems in literary magazines and in several individual collections of poetry, & has shown her visual art in exhibits throughout the USA. On Thursday, September 23 , 2021, Bright Hill hosted a special Word Thursdays event featuring Jennifer Finkle and the Random Acts of Kindness Journal Writers. Watch BELOW. The Bright Hill Center features the Bright Hill Community Library & Internet Wing, the Word & Image Gallery, our renovated education wing (where workshops take place, home to our smart board and art supply storage), our dine-in kitchen book shop, the Bright Hill administrative offices, and guest rooms for visiting writers and artists. Outdoors, the Patterns Literary Garden and the Children’s Secret Garden are features of our peaceful, Catskills nature haven. Stay tuned for the virtual tour, coming soon. “Bright Hill Press for 25 years, under founding Director Bertha Rogers, has brought to life her vision of a network of writers and a center for teaching the young and sustaining in the community the life of the literary mind. Reading and attending Word Thursdays and special events, and having my book chosen for Bright Hill Press, have nourished my writing in countless ways for which I am unspeakably grateful.”
New Bright Hill publication by author V.P. Loggins
The Wild Severance contains six poems that serve as a prologue and an epilogue and introduce each of the book’s four sections. They form a loose narrative depicting a deadly encounter between a hawk and a crow and stand as an extended metaphor exploring the difficulties of living a complex human life—loss, loneliness, desperation, joy, sorrow, love. As the poem “O” observes, ‘The hawk bows to the breast of the crow / with the abandon of a lover. Beak for teeth / tearing away at the heart’s cover.’ The book opens with a poem entitled “Orison,” which calls into consciousness its central symbol of brutality, the hawk, and is followed by “Crow,” which introduces the book’s first section and initiates an exploration of the dark dualities of predator and prey, perpetrator and victim, guilt and innocence, fear and fearlessness, terror and assurance. The Wild Severance concludes with “Hawk and Crow,” which begins ‘When morning returns’ and ends with ‘prayer.’ This book takes its reader, therefore, on an undulating flight through darkness to light.
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The Wild Severance
Birmingham, Alabama and raised in Illinois, V. P. Loggins holds a Ph.D in English Renaissance literature from Purdue University and has taught most recently at the United States Naval Academy.Bright Hill Books
About Bright Hill
Literary and Art Programming
Special Projects
Random Acts of Kindness
Learn more about the Kindness Project by watching the video below.
In February 1999, Jennifer Finkle, a teacher at Andes Central School (1990 – present) wrote on the first page of an empty journal: Kindness Chain Key: “Remember you as a human being are very powerful and challenges teach us about the elasticity of the human spirit.”Use this journal to record a random act of kindness that you do for someone else. Pass the journal to the recipient and have them do the same. I hope you’ll be surprised to see how good random kindness can feel and hope it will continue within our school community. The first of hundreds of entries by faculty and staff followed, filling two large journals by 2019. Finkle was inspired by an episode of the Oprah Show in which she spoke of random kindness and how it can be just as fulfilling to the giver as it is to the receiver. The journals contain small, heartfelt and uplifting acts of random kindness, in written form. A retired administrator, who now helps with teacher evaluations, received the book and was so moved he recommended Finkle should get it published; “a lasting tribute to our unique school and all of the people who work so hard to make Andes Central School such a special place.”
Finkle partnered with Bright Hill Press to begin planning for the publication and circulation of The Andes Central School Faculty and Staff Kindness Journal, as well as the partner program “Kindness is Contagious Project.” Bertha Rogers, Editor-in Chief, will edit the manuscript, and Beatrice Georgalidis, executive director, is producing the project and promotional campaign with associate producer Sophie Bille.
500 copies of the Andes Central School Faculty and Staff Kindness Journal will be printed; one copy will be mailed to each of the 46 schools in the Delaware County and Otsego County BOCES school districts, including the gift of an empty journal, and a letter detailing the “Kindness is Contagious Project;” the hope that every school will begin their own kindness journal, and archive the kindness of their respective faculty and staff for years to come. A video, email and social media campaign will launch to publicize the publication of the journal, and the Kindness is Contagious Project.
The Bright Hill Literary Center
Testimonials
Robert Bensen, Ph.D. I Professor of English & Director of Writing
