Artemis Speaks Podcast – Dorothy Gillespie Documentary

Join the conversation with son Gary Isreal,  President of the Dorothy M. Gillespie Foundation, and daughter Dorien Gillespie Bietz, children of Dorothy Gillespie, as they reflect on the many gifts their mother had in a groundbreaking documentary Courage, Independence and Color. The documentary will be shown on May 22, 2022 at the Grandin Theater in Roanoke, Va.

Artemis Journal was borne out of writing workshops for abused women. Ms. Gillespie donated her print celebrating Women in the Arts. The journal’s mission is to support, develop, and encourage the talents of artists and writers from the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond. Now in its 48th year, Artemis Journal looks back at its beginnings.

Dorothy Gillespie, acclaimed artist, donated her pastel painting to Artemis for our first cover, which became the citie’s first mural in downtown Roanoke, Va.

To Listen to the podcast, go to our Podcast Section on this website

Jeri Rogers and the refurbished mural in year 2022 holding the first Artemis Journal with Gillespies image.

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Dragonfly Project

Part of Artemis’s mission is to reach out to younger Writers and Artists

Teacher, Michele Evans’s class in Loudon Count was gifted Artemis Journals by donors John Keiling and Nina Schlossman

Student Eugene, John Keiling, Michele Evans, Nina Schlossman

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‘Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project’

Nikki Giovanni & Jeri Rogers, Editor Artemis Journal

HBO has acquired the Documentary which won the Sundance Film Festivals best documentary of 2023

In the opening scene of Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s searching documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, the poet Nikki Giovanni shows her cards: “I don’t remember a lot of things,” she says as images of a glittering galaxy and archival footage of the poet as a child flash onscreen. “I remember what is important and I make up the rest. That’s what storytelling is all about.”  

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project wants to let Giovanni choose how she is remembered without sacrificing an allegiance to linearity and mainstream appeal. So the documentary, anchored by the vivacious personality of its subject, blends its experimental inspirations (Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro) with the duty of a compositionally legible portrait (Timothy Greenfield Sanders’ Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am).

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Hello 2023

We are off to a busy start, all submissions are now in and our Editors are making selections for the next journal. Thank you to all who have made submissions and to our supporters. The Artemis 2023 will be released next summer with an official launch at the Roanoke Taubman Museum of Art in the Fall. Stay tuned for details.

In the meantime, our Podcast, Artemis Speaks is now in the 3rd season with 40 interviews of artists and writers from our library. A big thanks to my co-producer, Skip Brown of Final Track Studio, who makes the magic happen.

Skip Brown, Producer recording Jordan Harmen singing our Posdcast theme song “Slow Down”

2023 Podcast Interviews

https://www.artemisjournal.org/podcast

Susan Hankla, Poet

Susan Hankla Poet has s long history with Artemis. Back in 1977, as a young writer, Susan’s poetry appeared in the very first edition of Artemis Journal. VA. For many years she worked as a traveling poet-in-the-schools working with underserved communities in Virginia, through generous grants from The Virginia Commission on the Arts. This made her love of teaching creative writing grow into reaching out to the Richmond community offering adult writing classes at the VMFA Studio School, The Visual Arts Center, & The University of Richmond. Her debut collection of poems, Clinch River, was released in 2017 and her second poetry book was just released, titled I’m not Evelyn published by Groundhog Press.

Nikki Giovanni, Poet

From Harlem rooftops to the drumbeats of the Congo, the poems in “The Women and the Men display in full measure the gifts that have made Nikki Giovanni one of the most important, appealing, and broad-reaching American poets: her warmth, her conciseness, her passion, and her wit.
As a witness to four generations, Nikki Giovanni has perceptively and poetically recorded her observations of both the outside world and the gentle yet enigmatic territory of the self. When her poems first emerged from the Black Rights Movement in the late 1960s, she immediately became a celebrated and controversial poet of the era. Written in one of the most commanding voices to grace America’s political and poetic landscape at the end of the twentieth century, Nikki Giovanni’s poems embody the fearless passion and spirited wit for which she is beloved and revered.

1977 Artemis Journal cover image, Passages V by Sam Krisch

Go to our Podcast section to hear Artemis Speaks interviews

https://www.artemisjournal.org/podcast

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Artemis Journal Launch

News of Artemis Journal Launch of 2023 Journal

Regional culture kicked into a big gear on Friday at the Taubman Museum of Art. Our September launch featured our guest speaker, acclaimed poet, Nikki Giovanni. Our sold out crowd cheered our program which also had Southwest Virginia ballet Companie’s student dancer, alexis Potter performing along with Nikki giovanni’s reading of her poem, “Fall in Love, (for Artemis). Jordan Harmon, musican perfored music for the event.

The museum played host to two events in one. Roanoke’s annual Artemis Journal, devoted to Southwest Virginia artists and writers, had its launch party. “For the Love of a Book” is the theme for the 45-year-old publication’s latest iteration. The journal, developed from writing workshops for domestic violence victims in the region, this year features works that Nikki Giovanni inspired with her poem, “Fall in Love (For Artemis).”

The publication also features former U.S. Poet laureate Natasha Trethewey; Virginia poet laureates Ron Smith and Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda; and Virginia Poet Laureate Luisa Igloria. Artists and writers from Floyd County — Colleen Redman, Katherine Chantal, Starroot and Lisal Kayati — are in the pages, along with more creators from around the world, according to information that Artemis editor Jeri Rogers provided.

Donnie Secreast, Literary Editor, Poet Nikki Giovanni, Adam Gnuse
Zephren Turner, Page Turner, Art/Layout Editors, Donnie Secreast, Adam Gnuse, Literary Editors, Jeri Rogers, Editor, Julia fallon, Associate Editor, Steven Kenny, Cover Artist
Artemis Journal 2022, Cover, The Flock, by Steven Kenny
Taubman Museum of Art
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New Podcasts featuring writers, Giovanni, Goette, Zanelli

Join host Jeri Rogers as she speaks to Nikki Giovanni about jazz, Jane Goette about her newly published novel, & Italian Poet, Alessio Zanelli

The renowned poet, Nikki Giovanni has a new album  “The Gospel According To Nikki Giovanni.”

In addition to publishing dozens of poetry works, Nikki Giovanni has recorded several spoken word albums over the course of 50 years. But this time, she’s doing something a little different.

The new album,  a collaboration with saxophonist Javon Jackson, is a collection of gospel hymns and spirituals set to jazz. Growing up in the Baptist church, Giovanni says gospel music was instrumental to understanding herself as a poet.

“The spirituals had a message,” she says. “They weren’t just some people woke up one morning or came from working in the evening and said, ‘Oh, let’s sit down and sing.’ They were sharing information with each other.”

” The truth exists in the world and it is the job of the poet to pull the truth out of violentical air and place it with care upon the page to be casted from the mouth to the hearts of the people.”  
– Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother, Irreversible Entanglements)

Nikki with Jovan recording at Final Track Studios with co-producer, Skip Brown

Jane Goette’s novel, A River Road Memoir is a journey through a young girl’s idyllic childhood in the rural South to her restless adolescence when the Civil Rights struggle becomes urgent and personal to her family. The unfolding story is told through the second daughter’s eyes. Jane is a serious child, the one her father calls, “a tree full of owls,” always thinking, observing, and wondering about meanings. Unresolved conflicts continue around the family table as the Civil Rights movement evolves, the Vietnam War begins, and chemical plants spring-like poison mushrooms along the river. Set in the 1950s and 1960s, the conflicts reflected in this book are hauntingly familiar to readers today as Americans continue to battle over the nation’s identity and values.

Alessio Zanelli is an Italian poet who writes in English, a language he has learned completely as an autodidact. His work has appeared in some 200 literary journals from 17 countries including, in the USA: Artemis, California Quarterly, Concho River Review, Italian Americana, The Lyric, North Dakota Quarterly, Philosophy And Literature, Potomac Review, Worcester Review, and World Literature Today, among about a hundred more. His fifth original collection, titled The Secret Of Archery, was published in 2019 by Greenwich Exchange (London). For more information please visit www.alessiozanelli.it.

To listen to the podcast, go to our podcast section

https://artemisjournal.org/podcast/

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Artemis Speaks Podcast connects with Artist
Steven Kenny

Queen of Origins by Steven Kenny

Making connections

Artemis Journal is pleased to introduce a new artist to our community, Artist Steven Kenny, who makes nature his centerpiece in all his paintings. This connection to nature is good for us, and Steven reminds us of that vital connection.

According to Dr. Miles Richardson in Positive Psychology, “Knowing your place in nature brings meaning and joy.”
Living in our human-made world, we become disconnected, and emerging research is showing that a feeling of connection with nature is good for us.

There are many ways to expose yourself to nature, a simple walk in nature, the Japanese shinrin-yoku, forest bathing, or if you can’t get outside, you can immerse yourself in Steven Kenny’s art.

Steven was born in Peekskill, New York in 1962 and now resides in Check, VA. He attended the Rhode Island School of Design, receiving a BFA in 1984. After studying independently in Rome he gained notoriety as a freelance commercial illustrator, later devoting his full attention to fine art. His award-winning paintings are exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States and Europe.

“I believe future generations will look back on the period you and I now live in and will consider [Steven Kenny] one of the leading artists emblematic of contemporary painting in the first quarter and more of the 21st Century.”

– Paul Chimera, Dali historian with The Salvador Dali Society and author of the book, Dali & His Doctor: The Surreal Friendship Between Salvador Dali and Dr. Edmund Klein

LISTEN

https://www.artemisjournal.org/podcast

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Spring 2022

The invention of the printing press circa 1440 was a significant milestone in the story of our civilization. It allowed the knowledge gained during the Age of Discovery to be spread faster and wider and promoted the subsequent flow of scientific and cultural exchange. The masses were enthralled. Scientists and artists were inspired. Letters and ideas were avidly exchanged, and societies were founded that still exist today.

Artemis Journal helps to build a stronger society by publishing our yearly journal. Our editors are in the final stages of layout for our next Artemis Journal 2022. By partnering with various arts organizations, we help to spread the word about the significant impact that the arts and written word make on our society.

For four decades, Artemis literary journal, published annually, has showcased compelling new voices with notable authors ranging from poet laureates to Pulitzer Prize and other major award winners and nominees. Over 1000 writers and artists have been featured contributors or have donated their time and expertise as board members for the all-volunteer operation. The rich history of creativity of Artemis has played an integral role in their success and perseverance of Artemis.

The theme for this year’s journal, “For the Love of a Book,” was inspired by Distinguished Poet Nikki Giovanni’s poem, “Fall in Love (For Artemis).” This theme expresses a core belief that implicitly drove the inception of our journal, and it can account for our compendium’s continuance into the present. According to Gustav Flaubert, “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” We believe in the importance of art and literature in our lives and acknowledge its potential as a coping mechanism and its utility in helping us understand the realities of the world around us. Adopting this theme recognizes a community of people who feel the same and celebrate our journal.

Nikki Giovanni
Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor, Department of English

Here is the poem by Nikki Giovanni that has inspired this year’s Artemis;

Fall in Love 

(For Artemis)

If you have to fall

In love

And you do

It should be with a book

Not a novel

Nor a mystery

Certainly nothing scary

And always remember other life forms

Aren’t aliens but other life forms

Just as we are earthlings

Not people to be feared and killed

But life-forms inhabiting the same planet 

Maybe ideally a recipe anthology

With great ideas of things to do with garlic

Or especially a mixology book to tell us how to relax

If we are careful

We all need to know how to taste beer

And how to judge wine

(the same way we do people–carefully)

And we definitely need a book that lets us

Laugh

And every now and then one

That lets us cry

We need a book and a dog

And a quilt

To tuck into 

And love

And that will be faithful

And true

That’s what love is

A good book

Acknowledgments

Artemis, a charitable organization, would not be possible without the continued support of our donors.  Our journal partners with many organizations, including The Light Bringer Project, Festival-in-the-Park, Taubman Museum of Art, and Final Track Studios, co-producer of our podcast Artemis Speaks. 

We are grateful to the Roanoke Arts Commission for their continued support of our journal.

https://roanokearts.org/connect/

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Artemis Journal

Celebrating International Women’s Month

Artemis Journal has been an advocate for social justice since 1977

Artemis supports the Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson bringing her one big step closer to becoming the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s top court.

The 21st century has been marked with understanding, open-mindedness, and compassion for more groups of people than possibly any other time in history. As women continue to be presented with new opportunities and empowered to speak their minds, change continues to occur.

As a bright bright star that began in a basement at the YWCA under the vision of Jeri Rogers, Artemis continues to pay tribute to those foundations today by advocating equal and fair treatment of all, strongly denouncing all forms of discrimination. Whether it is a fight against sexism or racism, Artemis works to elevate the voices of all genders and backgrounds and provide a pathway for their art.

Artemis Journal is grateful for the support of the Roanoke Arts Commission, The Roanoke Taubman Museum of Art, and our readers to help support this unique contribution to art and literature. Artemis is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. 10% of book sales are donated to a women’s shelter for abused women and their families.

New Podcast

Angla Dribben, Poet, Everygirl

Join the conversation with Jeri Rogers, Editor Artemis Journal, and Poet Angela Dribben as they discuss the role of gender in her debut collection, Everygirl, a finalist for the 2020 Broadkill Review Dogfish Head Prize.

Angela was a poetry contributor at Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, holds an MFA from Randolph College, and is the current VP of the West Region of Poetry Society of Virginia. Her most recent work can be found or is forthcoming in Los Angeles Review, Orion, Coffin Bell, Split Rock Review, Artemis Journal, and others.

Angela has recently joined the Editorial Board of Artemis as Poetry Liaison for the Virginia Poetry Society.

http://angeladribben.com

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