‘Communal Pen’ returns to Lowcountry in February
Two-part writing workshop 'visits' McClellanville
Medlock Bridge Park
Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area
Communal Pen, a creative writing workshop presented by the S.C. Arts Commission and South Carolina Humanities, is back for starting Saturday, Feb. 20 to help you write to celebrate memories, stories, and traditions of place... continuing its reimagined virtual format with a brand-new theme!
What are the memories, stories and traditions that make your community home?
What landmarks, customs, sights and sounds connect us with family, friends and neighbors, while highlighting our unique experience and identity?
Sometimes, you’ve just got to write it down!
Facilitator
EBONI RAMM will lead the virtual workshop as you write to celebrate and explore connections to place and community. Often, it is in our written words that memory lives. The writing process can itself help us to awaken and preserve thoughts and traditions, offering insight, understanding and respect to present and future generations.
In conjunction with the traveling exhibit
Water/Ways, McClellanville Arts Council is co-host of this two-part writing workshop, which will be conducted over two Saturday mornings next month:
- 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20
- 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 27
Space is limited;
registration is on a first-come, first-served basis online or call 803.734.8680. The new format does not support walk-ins as previous workshops have.
Share it with your friends on Facebook!
NOTE: marking yourself as "Going" on Facebook
DOES NOT register you for
Communal Pen.
No previous experience necessary! Although Communal Pen is a virtual program, the
Water/Ways exhibit will be on display at the McClellanville Arts Council from Jan. 18 through March 1.
The
Communal Pen writing workshop draws inspiration from the
new Smithsonian exhibit, Water/Ways, which is touring South Carolina with the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street (MoMS) Traveling Exhibition Service from June 2020-April 2021. MoMS provides access to the Smithsonian for small-town America through museum exhibitions, research, educational resources, and programming.
Exhibit themes and images are a springboard for igniting our own stories, giving voice to our shared and individual experience of place.
Communal Pen is developed through the S.C. Arts Commission’s place-based initiative, "
Art of Community: Rural SC," a new framework for engagement, learning, and action in rural communities. The writing workshops are coordinated through the SCAC’s Folklife & Traditional Arts and Community Arts Development programs, with generous support from South Carolina Humanities.
Deeply rooted in South Carolina, "Communal Pen" writing workshop creator and facilitator
Eboni Ramm fell in love with the arts at a very young age and was encouraged throughout her youth to express herself. Today, an accomplished poet and jazz singer, she invites audiences of all ages to share her passion for combining these art forms, highlighting her belief in the powerful influence of jazz on the American literary experience and aesthetic. She has taught her unique Jazz Poetry Salon at residencies with the Richland County Public Library, Arts Access South Carolina, Youth Corps, Fairfield Middle School, McKissick Museum, and ColaJazz’s partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center, among others. Other selected accomplishments include her publication,
Within His Star: The Story of Levi Pearson, celebrating Eboni’s ancestor who added strength to the unprecedented Brown vs. The Board of Education case, and the release of her poetry CD,
Passion, and her jazz CD,
The Look of Love. Learn more about Eboni at
www.EboniRamm.com.
"Communal Pen: Water/Ways" coordinator
Laura Marcus Green is program specialist for community arts & folklife at the S.C. Arts Commission, where she provides statewide outreach and project coordination through the Art of Community: Rural SC initiative and other projects, while managing folklife grant and award programs. She holds a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University and an M.A. in folklore/anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. Selected prior positions include folklife & traditional arts program director at McKissick Museum, community engagement coordinator for the Museum of International Folk Art’s Gallery of Conscience, and work as a folklife fieldworker and researcher, writer, curator and consultant for various arts and culture agencies nationwide. Having attended, coordinated, and facilitated diverse workshops, she is a devoted believer in the power of community writing.
“Whether you’re in Blythewood or Dhaka, Bangladesh, we’ll all be here together,” says festival creator Ray Smith.
That’s because in its third year the whole event will happen virtually, streaming live over two days: March 20 and 21.
There will be plenty to see and interact over. So far, submissions have been received from across the U.S., India, Canada, Oman, Iran, Poland and Mexico.
The film competition for students aged 14 to 18 gives young filmmakers the chance to show their films to a live audience, attend master classes led by award-winning professional filmmakers, and have their work judged by industry professionals. It’s been held for the last two years in Blythewood, a small town north of Columbia.
At the third festival, attendees will be able to view the selected films, attend virtual master classes and listen to a live panel of professional filmmakers providing feedback on each day’s films. All will all take place from 1-4:30 p.m. on March 20 and 21.
New in 2021: It will all be free to attend. Tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2021-doko-virtual-film-fest-tickets-128798211919
The festival is entirely volunteer-based, so donations are requested. Any received go toward the continued mission of supporting the arts and next year’s Doko Film Fest.
The climax of the event will continue to be the awards recognizing the best in each category, as judged and selected by a panel of film professionals. Those categories are:
The inaugural event will feature author Adriana Trigiani (right). On March 4, Trigiani will virtually deliver a reading from her latest novel, Tony’s Wife. The following day (March 5), she will teach a master class to CofC students. Trigiani is a New York Times bestselling author of fiction and nonfiction; an award-winning playwright, television writer and producer, and filmmaker; and the cofounder of the Origin Project, an in-school writing program for students in Appalachia.
The Allendale Rural Arts Team, led by Maven Lottie Lewis, celebrated its Hometown Heroes June 19 with recognition of front line workers in the face of COVID 19; and the unveiling of a community mural by Hampton County artist Sophie Docalavich. Photo credit: Xavier Blake.
Co-presented by 
Since 1921 the Society has sponsored readings, lectures, and other events featuring the likes of Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Amy Lowell, Harriet Monroe, Archibald Rutledge, and legions of other renowned and emerging poets. If you write poetry or enjoy it as a reader or hearing it in recitation, we invite you to become a member and join us this spring as we launch our centennial year.
Beginning in January, we have monthly readings and writing workshops scheduled for broadcast over Zoom and hopefully in-person, should pandemic protocols allow. All readings are open to the public and free. In addition to a Poetry Showcase, our January reading at 7 p.m. on Jan. 8 will feature a brief history by President Jim Lundy, who has written a book, due out soon, about the society’s first 100 years. We’re also pleased to announce that thanks to generous support from South Carolina Humanities, writing workshops—which are normally for a fee—will be free this spring as well. Registration through our website is required to receive the Zoom link for each event.
You can become a Poetry Society member at our website (
#SCartists and arts organizations want to fill that void.
They live for that. It’s a calling.
Yet in times of social distancing, that’s hard to do. Through the wonders of modern technology, many are trying and succeeding. So while we’re all staying home to protect vulnerable family, friends, and neighbors, The Hub is stepping up to fill the void between artists and arts lovers. (