Recent Publications

Columns, personal essays, teaching essays, plays:

• "Sounds of Surf” (personal essay) Traverse: Northern Michigan’s Magazine, March, ‘06
• “Splitting Wood” (personal essay) Traverse: Northern Michigan’s Magazine, November, ‘05

• “Smudge Pots” (personal essay) Traverse: Northern Michigan’s Magazine, May ‘05

• “In search of a Small Plan,” (personal essay) Your Place Grand Traverse an on-line magazine concerning issues of environment, development, culture and sense of place. See: http://www.yourplacegrandtraverse.org/ July ’06

• “The Halfway Through Problem” Teacher Center: Write it! Teaching lesson for Scholastic Publishing, online column for teachers. See: http://teacher.scholastic.com/writeit/fiction/teacher/halfway.htm February ’06

• “From the Bottom UP” Teaching Center: Write It! Teaching lesson for Scholastic Publishing, online column. See: http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=7371 August, ‘06.

• “Water Birds” (prose-poem) Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes, an anthology of essays published by MSU Press, Ed. Allison Swan, August ‘06.

• “Peaches” (poem) Never Before; Poems About First Experiences, (anthology) published by Four ways Books (NYC), Ed. Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Nov. ‘05

• “Water Jugs” (reprinted essay) With A Cherry On Top, an anthology of writings about the cherry culture. Mayapple Press, Ed Angela Williams, Aug ‘06

• “Stone That Rises” (dramatic script) produced by Leelanau Players, March 3-4, 11, and as fundraiser July 16, ‘06.

• Three features in Glen Arbor Sun, county newspaper

• Two reviews for ForeWord Magazine

  • Writing Brave and Free by Ted Kooser

  • Halfway decent Sinner by Melita Schaum

• “An Eye for an I” Ludington Nonfiction Conference, presenter/faculty

  See: http://www.ludingtonwriters.com/
  

Readings:

• Reading and talk, Manistee Association of University Women, October 6, ‘05

• Reading and craft lecture, East Jordan Arts Council, October 20, ‘05

• Reading and craft lecture, NMC conference, Courting the Muse, November 11, ‘05

• Reading and Q & A, Traverse City Rotary Club, Jan 31, ‘06

• Reading and talk, Fremont Public Library, February 23, ‘06

• Reading and talk, Empire Asparagus Festival, May 19, ‘06

• Have done readings and talks for book clubs in Suttons Bay, Northport, Traverse City and Interlochen in the last year.
  

Judging Contests

• Michigan Writers poetry chapbook contest (one of three judges)

• Steven Dunn Poetry Contest for Words and Images, University of Southern Maine

• Empire Asparagus Festival Poetry Contest
  

Workshops

• Invited by Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear, an organization supporting the preservation of farms and farmland within the Port Oneida area, to create and execute day-long workshops titled “Path to Page” using sites within the boundaries of the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. August 18, ‘06

  
  

First Literary Symposium

Between the Lakes: an Interlochen Symposium for Writers and Readers.
Co-coordinator with Pete Colsen.

Consultant to Walnut Hill Writing Studio for Strategic Plan, Boston, MS

• Visited Walnut Hills Writing Studio for two days, observing classes and interviewing their instructors/students for their new strategic plan. Prepared document offering with conclusions and recommendations.

  
  

Voices Project for Michigan Humanities Council

• Served as consultant for script “What Will Be In the Fields Tomorrow” by Barbara Carlyle, including revision, editing, and concept issues

• Served as participant in first reading at Old Town Playhouse, March 12, ‘06

Michigan Writers, Inc.

• Serve on the board as of January ‘06

• Serve as co-chair of the Cooperative Press Committee

• Serve as Chair and as a judge (one of three) of the Poetry selection committee for chapbook contest. Note: our winning selection last year received a Pushcart Prize
  

Stage Turners, story performing group based at Old Art Building in Leland

• Served as reader and consultant for selection of stories

• Participated in two performances, July 23 and August 20, ‘06
  

Beach Bards, founding member (ongoing)

Now in our 18^th season, Beach Bards is a poem-saying, story-telling group which, through our performances at the Friday night summer bonfire and for other organizations, raises money for small literary and artistic projects not covered by larger organizations in the community. This year our performances supported:

• Dunes Review, regional literary magazine

• Singer-songwriter festival in Glen Arbor

• Disadvantaged students for school trips at the Leelanau School

• Two fundraisers: Fresh Food Partnership and the Old Art Building, Leland.

Books

LESS RECENT PUBLICATIONS/PRODUCTIONS

Articles

"Threads." So To Speak: Feminist Journal of Language and Art. Fall/Winter 1996. Ed. Wendi Kaufman. Fairfax: George Mason University.

"Winter Gods" Under the Sun. Spring 1997. Ed. Michael O'Rourke. Cookeville: Tennesee University.

"Liturgy" Kinesis. March 1996. Ed. Leif Peterson. Whitefish, MT.

"Cleaning Kill" Quarter After Eight. Spring 1996. Ed. Matthew Kooperman. Athens: Ohio University.

"Weather Changes" Array. Fall/Winter 1996. Ed. Bess Holloway and Hazel Hart. Boulder: CO.

"Conversation with Michael Delp" Caesura, Fall 1998. Ed. Lequita Vance-Watkins. San Jose: CA

Traverse: Northern Michigan’s Magazine, numerous columns and essays on growing up in rural communities.

Numerous reviews have appeared in ForeWord: Monthly News and Reviews, TraverseCity, MI 1998 and in Fourth Genre, East Lansing MI

Poetry

Poems selected for New Third Coast Anthology of Michigan Writers,

Wayne State University press, 2000

Seasons of the Sleeping Bear, chapbook published with Fairway Press (Ohio), supported with grants from Glen Arbor Art Association, Beach Bards of Glen Arbor and Cottage Bookshop. Publication coordinated with commercial video, "Four Seasons of the Sleeping Bear," Northwest Video, Traverse City, and features poems honoring the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, 2001

Moniker, chapbook co-authored with Ray Nargis, published by Split Ivorie Publications and Performances, Williamsburg, 1988

Also published in: Wind, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Prairie Hearts Anthology, Blue Violin, Lucid Stone, Prairie Moon Readout, Pinyon Poetry, Alms House Press Sampler, Garfield Lake Review, New View, Peninsula Writers Anthology, Stone Circle Anthology, TAPJoE, World and I, Verve, a Literary Magazine, Sport Literate

Broadsheet, Michigan Poets' Signature Series with NMC and MCACA, 1988

Have completed three manuscripts of poetry: “Country Living,” “Burying the Stone Pile,” and “Uncoded Woman.”

Plays

“Wives of An American King” full-length script, produced at Old Town Playhouse in March 06 and by Emerald Isle Repertory Theater in July’06 . Seen through the eyes of his five wives, the script revisits the life of James Jesse Strang, Mormon leader who settled Beaver Island, crowned himself king while serving two terms in the Michigan Legislature, and who was assassinated by members of his sect in 1856.

“Stone That Rises” commissioned by Port Oneida Culture Fair in cooperation with MCACA and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, produced by Leelanau Players, spring 06. The story fo the lives of Elizabeth and Carston Burfied, first settlers of Port Oneida region.

“Recovering Ruth” (working title). First reading at Glen Arbor Art Assocation fundraiser, August, 2003 Based on Robert Root’s (biographer) interpretation of Ruth Douglass’ journal of 1848, “Time By Moments Steals Away.”

“Berta’s Path” produced as a radio reading through Land Information Access Agency symposium on Landscapes of Community: Exploring the relationship between Arts, Environment, and History. Fully staged production at Old Town Playhouse, Traverse City, February 2002 with grant from MCH.

"Aral: A Folk Opera" commissioned by the Manitou Music Festival through the Glen

Arbor Art Association, produced August, 1998 with Beach Bards. Revived August, 2000 through a grant from Michigan Rural Arts and Culture Program. Scheduled for Production, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, summer 2002, through a second MRACP grant and the Michigan land Use Institute.

"The Voice of Emma Fields and Other Northern Belles" was first produced in 1994 with a grant from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs at Traverse City Opera House. It was a finalist for the Jane Chambers Playwriting Contest, and as a result received its first Chicago reading at the Shattered Globe Theater, March, 1996. Also produced in St. Louis and Iowa City. Produced as reader’s theater for the LIAA symposium in 2001.

"Walls," University of Iowa's Studio Series. January, 1996

(This play is inspired by oral histories from Traverse City Mental Hospital.)

"Many Colored Bridge to Anywhere," (children's play) University of Iowa Outreach Program for Children, tour 1993-94.

"Blackberry Patch," Old Town Playhouse. Studio Theater Production. 1990

"Record Breakers," Traverse Bay Radio Theater, 1990; Old Town Playhouse Original

Script Reading Series. 1990

"Pigtales," (children's play) Old Town Playhouse Theater for Children, co-author, Marguerite Cotto, 1991. "Pigtales" has been produced repeatedly by children's Theater troupes in Michigan.

"The Adventures of Turtle and Bird," (children's play) Old Town Playhouse Theater for Children, co-author, Marguerite Cotto. 1990.

Anne-Marie Oomen
Po Box 185
9000 W Cohodas
Empire, MI 49630
(231)326-5775
oomenam@interlochen.org