SPARK rounds take place in February, May, August, and October…and we want you to join us! RSVP today by filling out the form below with your name and your email address.

Questions? Let me know! Or RSVP today! (Fill out the form below with your name and your email address, and let me know if you’re  a writer, an artist, or both.)

Amy Souza
Arlington, Virginia

Roberta Branca’s day job is the night shift, as a reference and instruction librarian at Hesser College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Her past writing experience includes journalism and technical copywriting and editing. Writing fiction has been her pleasure, pastime, and pet peeve since childhood. She is currently part of a writing group, 4-C Coasters, in Dover, New Hampshire. She was encouraged to join the project by three-time SPARK participant Jewel Beth Davis. The SPARK project is the first mass publication of Roberta’s fiction, and she is honored to be a part of it.

Caroline Crawford is director of publications at Saint Michael’s College and has edited the college’s magazine for nine years. When she’s not at work, she reads, writes, cooks, runs, spends some time in downward facing dog, and herds her two young children. Born and raised in Staten Island, New York, she lives in Burlington, Vermont.

Jewel Beth Davis is a creative nonfiction writer and theater artist who lives in Rollinsford, NH. She has performed, directed and choreographed professionally throughout the U.S. and British Isles. She has earned an MFA in Writing at Vermont College. She holds a BA in Theater from University of NH and an MA in Theater Movement from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She also teaches writing and theater at Great Bay Community College and Middlesex Community College. Her play, “Shadow Dancing” won an award from the CT Playwright’s Collective. Her creative nonfiction and fiction has been published in the Compass Rose, SN Review, Moondance Literary Magazine, Cezanne’s Carrot, Bent Pin Literary Journal, RE: Ports Magazine, READ THIS: MSU’s Literary and Art Publication, The Sylvan Echo, Poetica Magazine and is upcoming in Midway Journal and Lilith Magazine. A second new piece has recently been accepted by Bent Pin for January 2009.

Dawn Doran is an artist and craftswoman living in Reisterstown, Maryland, with her Pirate Husband their two magical daughters. She teaches classes in fiber arts, fine arts, and craft.  Dawn has a degree in Art and Education.

Jim Doran lives in north Baltimore with his wife, Dawn, and two lovely daughters, and works as a web developer for Johns Hopkins University. Jim loves to draw and founded the junk mail art movement on Flickr.

Lisa Eldridge used to like to walk the straight and narrow line. She used to think that everything was fine. Sometimes she’d sit and gaze for days through endless dreams, all alone and trapped in time. She lives in Aptos, California, is a creative writer and a technical editor, and has 10 cats.

Joanne Lozar Glenn is an independent writer, editor, and educator specializing in education and healthcare. She teaches writing classes in adult education programs and sponsors annual “Get Away, Get Writing” retreats at the beach.

Lynn Elizabeth Heiser is an artist and graphic designer living in Alexandria, Virginia.

Jane Hulstrunk lives in Williamstown, Vermont, with her husband. She dabbles in photography for creative expression.

Robert Haydon Jones is a former Marine. He broke into advertising under David Ogilvy during the “Mad Men” era. Later, at JWT, he managed all creative & broadcast production for Ford, Pan Am and Kodak. His small marketing services company has helped launch a number of well-known products – including MS magazine, Common Cause, Nyquil, Omaha Steaks and Amnesty International (US). He lives and works in Westport, Connecticut, with his wife, Alice. He has seven children and eleven grandchildren. He umpires high school and Summer League baseball games.

Leah Piken Kolidas is a mixed-media artist living near Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and their four fuzzy cats. Leah blogs at www.CreativeEveryDay.com and sells her prints and original artwork at www.BlueTreeArtGallery.com.

Ashley Seitz Kramer recently moved to Cleveland, Ohio and teaches writing courses in the SAGES program at Case Western Reserve University and at John Carroll University. For five years, she taught writing at Ohio University and led a community writing group for adults with mental illness. She completed her MA at Ohio University (2005) and her MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts (2008). She collects teapots and vintage aprons, and is drawn to all things epistolary.

Sheri Leseberg has been painting in oils for eight years, and moved into mixed media within the last 5yrs. She is married to an Air Force Sgt.; they have three kids and she stays at home with them to homeschool. She is now stationed in Germany, and has found much inspiration living overseas. Find her online at www.blendingthecolors.etsy.com.

Dale Leffler is a writer, poet, lifestyle coach and workshop presenter. He lives and works in New Jersey while his children afford him the opportunity to travel to Denver, Burlington, and Virginia Beach to see and hug his five talented and inspirational grandchildren. Dale escapes to Monterey, Tennessee, every chance he gets.

Brian MacDonald is a media communications professional living in Jericho, Vermont. His creative pursuits include writing, photography, drumming, and supplying his muse with chocolates.

Amy Moffitt is a poet, singer, and blogger (moffou.blogspot.com) who lives in, but is not of, the Washington, DC area. Her day job puts her in continuous contact with young adults from 130 + countries, and her travels have taken her as far as Iceland, Guatemala, and (repeatedly) the UK. A self-identified Presby-Cathlo-Episcopa-Mennonite, Amy is an active participant in the life of Convergence, a community center and church for artists in Alexandria, Virginia, and Common Table, an emergent church in Vienna, Virginia. She brings her rich patchwork of experience and exposure to multiple streams of culture and theology to writing, singing and poetry that is unapologetically honest and appreciative of the beauty in everyday experience. This is her second time to contribute to SPARK.

JoAnn Moore now lives on the coast in northern California after far too long in wintery Vermont. She teaches high school English for her day job, walks her St. Bernard, Apollo, daily and writes not nearly enough.

Leyla Sarigol is a Washington, DC-based idealist who toils professionally in an attempt to strengthen the systems that are supposed to serve children, youth and families, people with disabilities, and people without money (who are often one and the same). She recently started delving into film and TV production.

Amy Souza is the founder of SPARK and runs the project from her home in Arlington, Virginia.  When she’s not cajoling people to join SPARK, setting up partner pairs, nagging people about deadlines, or working on the website, she writes, edits, paints, and walks dogs. Amy has a master’s degree in radio and television from San Francisco University.

Mary L. Tabor’s short story collection The Woman Who Never Cooked won Mid-List Press’s First Series Award. Her fiction and essays have appeared recently in the anthology Electric Grace, Paycock Press, The Missouri Review, Chautauqua Literary Journal, Image, the Mid-American Review, River City, Chelsea, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and American Literary Review. She was a visiting writer at University of Missouri-Columbia in 2006-2007 and she teaches at the Smithsonian’s Campus-on-the-Mall, George Washington University, and is a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. Mary is writing a memoir “live,”entitled Sex After Sixty in the format of a blog.

Michelle Townsend Wallace is a writer, artist, and musician living in Dallas, Texas. She has a background in counseling and nonprofits, and is always looking for opportunities to integrate her many passions. Michelle has been married for 11 years to her childhood sweetheart, and they have three children. You can find her online at www.myjourneytohope.blogspot.com.

Round 1: May 2008

Round 2: September 2008

Round 3: February 2009 — YOU ARE HERE

Round 4: May/June 2009

I started this project in 2008 to propel me out of a creative slump and was thrilled to find so many willing and enthusiastic participants. As it turns out, I’m lucky enough to know many talented writers and artists. For some of them, writing or art is their profession. Others tuck creative time into the free spaces of a day—ten minutes here, a half hour there. Many of the SPARK participants didn’t know one another, nor did they ever meet in person, but they all share some common traits:  a desire to gain inspiration in a new way, the willingness to try something new, and an openness to receiving the gift their muse delivers.

The project’s rules are simple. Writers send artists a story or poem, and artists send writers an image of their painting, photograph, or sculpture. Working over a set period of time, each person uses their partner’s piece as a jumping off point for new work of their own. People are allowed to respond to their partner’s work in whatever way they wish (although writers are asked to keep their pieces to 1,000 words or less).

The goal is simply to give writers and artists a challenge, a new way of looking at the world and their work, and a chance to inspire another creative soul. Thus, some of the resulting work is considered final by its creator; some is not. Again, the goal was not to create a perfect poem or a salable work of art, so as you view the work please do not judge what you see as such. In fact, I’d ask you to suspend judgment as much as possible and simply look at these groupings to consider how each person’s work influenced their partner’s.

SPARK rounds take place four times each year. Send us a note if you’d like to join us!

Amy Souza
Arlington, Virginia

Or if you’d like to contact a particular contributor, just send me a note and I’ll forward it on.

Amy Souza
Arlington, Virginia