This Week: Greenfield Annual Word Festival

by | Oct 17, 2016

Artist ixchelailee stands in front of her video/poetry collage for the Exploded View show, which will be performed Friday and Saturday, Oct. 21 and 22, at 6 p.m. (Trish Crapo photo)
Artist ixchelailee stands in front of her video/poetry collage for the Exploded View show, which will be performed Friday and Saturday, Oct. 21 and 22, at 6 p.m. (Trish Crapo photo)

Take a Page from Greenfield’s Book

Got something to say? Sitting on a heretofore untold story, just biding your time for the right moment? Now’s your opportunity to stand up and share. The Greenfield Annual Word Festival has come back around again, providing visitors and local audiences with a chance to enjoy work crafted by poets, spoken word artists, storytellers, and writers young and old, from near and far.

According to Paul Richmond, the event’s founder and the head of the locally-based Human Error Publishing, this event has become one of the largest word festivals in Western Mass. Last year — the festival’s sixth — drew more than 160 participating writers from the Valley, New York, and all around New England. Some are well-seasoned authors. Some are just finding their voice. But that’s the fun of  jumping aboard someone else’s train of thought to parts unknown — you can’t predict what you’ll see and learn along the way.

The festival has grown substantially each year, Richmond says, but “this growth is more a reflection of the talent and the number of writers and audience wanting to take part … You will be hard-pressed to decide which venues to go to, for all of them have amazing talent. If you find one venue crowded, there is another very close by!”

We don’t have room to list full details and name every writer involved (although we’d love to), but the kick-off is Tuesday evening, Oct. 18 at The Arts Block, featuring local and nationally-known writers. Wednesday is Story Night, in the style of local series The Mole: five-minutes stories with no props and no scripts. On the following evenings, the mad rush of words grows even stronger — with art exhibitions, food and drink, bar chatter, lessons, music, and a book fair all mixed in. Catch the emerging full line-up online at gawfest.org. 

Greenfield Annual Word Festival: Oct. 18-23. All day in venues downtown, mainly along Main and Miles Streets. Headquartered at The Arts Block, 289 Main St. Free; donations encouraged. (978) 544-8784, gawfest.org, humanerrorpublishing.com. 

— Hunter Styles,  hstyles@valleyadvocate.com.