Menu
April showers, May flowers, or both? Whatever the weather may bring on Sunday, April 28 at 3pm, the Rosendale Theatre will give nature lovers a splendid excuse to come indoors. “Trail Mix: Hudson Valley Nature Writers” continues the Prosendale reading series (produced by Joyce Sprafkin), with a literary celebration of our magnificent mountains, waters, and trails.
The six featured authors hail from across the region. Acclaimed naturalist Leslie T. Sharpe (The Quarry Fox) makes her home in the Great Western Catskills. Artist/poet Kate McGloughlin and award-winning author Gail Straub (Solace and Sanctuary) and host/co-producer Nina Shengold (Reservoir Year) live three stones’ throws from the glorious Ashokan Reservoir, which they will celebrate as a trio. Essayist and river swimmer Akiko Busch (How To Disappear, Nine Ways to Cross a River) lives on the Hudson River’s eastern shore, as does author/photographer Derek Dellinger, whose new book The Joy of Winter Hiking joins a long trail of popular outdoor guidebooks.
“Trail Mix” will add a multimedia dimension with a short film by Dellinger, original art by McGloughlin, and live music by singer-songwriter Tim Kapeluck with Geoffrey Harden on fiddle and bass. There will also be a reception with complimentary refreshments and book signings by the participants. Trail mix snacks generously donated by High Falls Food Co-op.
Admission is by donation ($10 suggested), although donations of any size to the Rosendale Theatre will be gratefully accepted. For more information: http://www.rosendaletheatre.org.
More about the Trail Mix authors and musicians (in alphabetical order):
Akiko Busch is the author of How to Disappear: Notes on invisibility in a time of transparency (Penguin Press, 2019). Her previous essay collections include Geography of Home, The Uncommon Life of Common Objects, Nine Ways to Cross a River, and The Incidental Steward. She has taught at the University of Hartford, Bennington College, and the School of Visual Arts.
Derek Dellinger is a writer, landscape photographer, filmmaker, and avid hiker living in the Catskill Mountains of New York. He is the author of The Joy of Winter Hiking, America’s Best Day Hikes, 50 Hikes in the Upper Hudson Valley, and co-author of 50 Hikes in the Catskills. He has been featured in Popular Science, Paste Magazine, the New York Post, and on the BBC, Leonard Lopate Show, and more.
Geoffrey Harden plays bass, fiddle, and guitar and has performed and recorded with the Stillhouse Rounders, Hudson Valley Flyers, Catskill Mountain String Band, Bluegrass Clubhouse, the Twangtones, the Waydowns, the Lightning Rods, Saturday Night Bluegrass Band, and other area musicians who play fast and sing high.
Tim Kapeluck is a singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist whose music is steeped in the traditions of bluegrass and Appalachian folk. His debut album By Time and Gravity has 11 original songs of characters living on the fringes, social commentary, heartbreak and redemption. “As sweet a voice as can be heard… The musicianship is fierce and uncompromising and Kapeluck’s performance is as honest as you can get.” — Woodstock Times
Kate McGloughlin is a painter, printmaker, poet, and 12th generation Olivebridge resident whose work has been included in over 70 exhibitions in the US, Japan, Scotland, and Ireland. She is President Emeritus of The Woodstock School of Art. Requiem for Ashokan premiered at WAAM in 2017 and spurred three subsequent iterations of the show. McGloughlin co-authored Solace and Sanctuary: The Ashokan’s Enduring Gifts with Gail Straub in 2022. www.katemcgloughlin.com
Leslie T. Sharpe’s book The Quarry Fox and Other Critters of the Wild Catskills (Abrams, 2017), the “first literary treatment of Catskills wildlife since John Burroughs,” won a Gold Medal Independent Book Publishers Award for excellence. In 2020, the Quarry Fox audiobook, with Leslie reading, was produced by Silver Hollow. In 2019, Leslie was named one of “Fifty Stewards of the Catskills” by the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development.
Nina Shengold‘s books include Reservoir Year: A Walker’s Book of Days (Syracuse University Press), River of Words: Portraits of Hudson Valley Writers (SUNY Press), Clearcut (Anchor Books), and 14 theatre anthologies for Vintage and Viking Penguin. Shengold won a Writers Guild Award for her teleplay Labor of Love and the ABC Playwright Award for Homesteaders. She teaches creative writing at Vassar College. www.ninashengold.com
Gail Straub‘s books include the best-selling Empowerment, The Rhythm of Compassion, Returning to My Mother’s House, and her award-winning nature writing The Ashokan Way and Solace and Sanctuary with Kate McGloughlin. Co-founder of the Empowerment Institute, Gail’s work on women’s empowerment throughout the Global South has impacted over half a million lives. For over 40 years she has lived on the edge of the Ashokan Reservoir and the Catskill Mountain Watershed. https://empowermentinstitute.net/