CHRIS ARVIDSON words and art - Coming January 2025

2024 Citizens of the Free Nation of Shabazz

Email me (see contact tab) for information on purchasing my art work. This piece Atlantic Beach Fall will be the cover of my upcoming book of poetry "Nobody Cares What You Think" due out January 2025.

Sat May 4 - Writing Workshop - Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library

Writing to Art: Using Visual Images to Prompt Beginnings
Saturday, May 04, 10:00am–12:00pm
South County Regional Library
In this workshop, led by local artist and poet Chris Arvidson, we'll use art to create a series of promising starts to your writing. Writing to art or "ekphrastic" writing can help open avenues to your projects, spark surprising starts…

Registration closes May 1 at 12:00am (13 spots remaining)Register for event
Writing
Adults
New Adults (16-24)
Older Adults
Teens (12-18)

"Looks Like Trix #3" oil on board, 4x4" - painted in Benzie County, Michigan, last week of October, 2023. Private Collection.

Look at that list of fantastic artists and writers!

Leslie, Chris & Cole

Storied Charlotte Blog - 12 for 2022

I made Mark West's "Storied Charlotte" list of 12 of his favorite books of 2022! Click the link above to read Mark's list.

Winston-area friends -- come on out!

Park Road Books

Click here for Park Road Books - they have copies or you can order from them online.

Check out the newly designed Charlotte Readers Podcast with it's 301st episode out today. Landis Wade has added a couple of hosts and put together a great format for readers and writers to enjoy -- including book recommendations. I got more than one shout-out for The House Inside My Head in this episode, and you can hear me read two poems from the chapbook at 48:05. Thanks to Landis, Sarah & Mark for the support.

Finishing Line Press

Click here to order THE HOUSE INSIDE MY HEAD direct from the publisher.

Amazon also carries THE HOUSE INSIDE MY HEAD.

a box full of books title "The House Inside My Head" poems by Chris Arvidson

You can read about the Earth and Sky exhibit in this article from the Charlotte Observer. Clink the link below:

October 24, 2021, The Charlotte Observer

Photo: Jessica Wilson

My essay "Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Please" has been published in Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, Vol 28.1-2, from University of Nebraska Press.

Photo Cassondra Greer

Triplets at 6 months. It's hard being one of those in grandparent jail!

I loved these guys!

Click here to listen to the Charlotte Readers Podcast, featuring The Love of Baseball

The Charlotte Readers Podcast, with Landis Wade, Ellyn Ritterskamp, Caroline Kane Kenna, and Chris Arvidson. Recorded April 3, 2019.

Podcast

Click here to get to The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara interviewing Chris Arvidson

A recent WV newspaper feature article Abiut the anthology “Unity” has been picked up across the country in major newspapers. Here it is: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/wv-writers-collaborate-on-coming-together/article_f456fc15-546c-505a-bf1e-e3e8ac029e49.html

I have a poem in the book and it's available from Mountain State Press and Amazon.

https://inside.uncc.edu/news-features/2017-10-13/fall-classic—essayists-contribute-tribute-baseball

Click here for a story about the UNC Charlotte writers above who appear in The Love of Baseball.

CHRIS ON KNBR

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CHRIS TALKING BASEBALL LOVE ON KNBR the San Francisco Giants broadcasting home.

And guess what happened yesterday? We had such powerful wind gusts, my flag AND the mount got yanked on the post here. Gotta go get a new mount today. Can't be without my Tiger flag! Photo Cassondra Greer

The first morning's picture -- off we went!

The beech wood along the trail.

Broadway Tower on The Cotswold Way.

Me and my Henry at the Roman Baths... in Bath.

At Elton House with Emma, Nick, Chris, Joan, Philip and Kevin.

Beth Macy and me. I can only aspire to be as badass as she.

Available now - Henry's new CD. CDBaby.com, Amazon, Spotify, iTunes.

COMING SPRING/SUMMER 2015

At Wordkeepers in August.

Henry in Jerusalem at the UNC Charlotte acheological dig site where we eventually worked three summers in the past decade.

Henry and James Tabor, with the rain and storm about to begin. This is the site of the Jesus Tomb which James writes about in his book "The Jesus Discovery"

KAKALAK FALL 2024

Very honored to be included in Kakalak's latest -- so many wonderful writers and artists to be seen with! https://kakalakanthology.com/news-events/

My studio at the Charlotte Art League

Across the Divide, oil on canvas. 20x24"

SOLD! a mixed paint and photo transfer piece called "Time to Go Home" - Contact me for information on mixed media/photo transfer pieces available for purchase chris@chrisarvidson.com.

Evolution of Words and Art at the Charlotte Art League March 10-April 6. See Charlotteartleague.org for gallery hours.

Thanks Goucher for featuring my poetry in the New & Notable section of this winter's magazine. Good company!

Painting with my sister Lorie out at St Pierre Road Arcdia Marsh property, part of the wonderful preserved forever lands of the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy. Click on the "ART" tab above to see other works from that day.

My poem "Dear Frances Crockett" leads off this wonderful double issue on women and baseball.

Charlotte Lit

I've just joined the board. First meeting for me, June. Let me know if you've got interest, suggestions, contributions to make to this fabulous organization.

Charlotte Writers Club

Venerable. Good contests. And some nice opportunities to read your work out loud to an audience.

Quick Links

E-mail the author

McFarland Publishers

Available Now! The Love of Baseball. You can also buy Reflections on the New River from the publisher by clicking here.

Wildacres Retreat

Check out Wildacres' website for more information on their wonderful programs.

See information about the Creative Non Fiction MFA program at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland.

Authors Guild

Coming January 2025 - Nobody Cares What You Think

Night of the Spoken Word

May 15, 2011

Tags: writing, arts, Ashe County Arts Council, West Jefferson, All My Children, General Hospital, One Life To Live, Soap Operasa

Ashe County Arts Council holds a "Night of the Spoken Word" each year. They invite area writers to read the latest of their work to a very nice audience of 100 or so. The event, which is very well-received, and which I participated in last year as well, was the inspiration for me, Julie Townsend, Scot Pope to create "Wordkeepers" writing salon during the winter months, which I've posted about here on my blog.

Last night was 2011's "Night of the Spoken Word" and as in years past, we all had a wonderful time listening to area writers. I read an essay about Soap Operas, the reading version of which I'm posting here. (Those of you who know me will have to imagine me reading it aloud.) Sorry I don't have any pictures of any of the writers, once again, I forgot in my nervousness, to bring my camera.

NIGHT OF THE SPOKEN WORD MAY 14, 2011

I see many of you here tonight who have joined Scot Pope, Julie Townsend and other writers from around the area at Wordkeepers – a reading salon we started over the winter months at Bohemia coffee house. Back at January’s Wordkeeper’s, I read a confessional essay about watching soap operas. At the time, I WAS a reformed soap opera watcher – a bone fide member of ABC Daytime Anonymous. I’m sorry to have to report back to you all now that I have fallen off the wagon – but it’s for a really really good reason… Read More

6 Comments

Comments

May 15, 2011 10:40 PM EDT

Oh, no! I had no idea? I, like you, loved "All My Children" and everything that followed(that I somehow got hooked on). I think I was just lazy and didn't want to get up to turn off the TV. There were no remote controls back then. I started watching in high school continued on through college, and my twenties. I started working the day shift at age thirty and that pretty much ended it for me. Now that I am starting to work the afternoon shift, again, I may have to tune in for old time's sake. I really don't know why I even care? Perhaps, it is one more piece of my past that it going away forever?

- Carleen Jones

May 16, 2011 3:11 AM EDT

I'm sure that has much to do with it Carleen. And since AMC and OTL will soon be gone, you don't have to worry about their habit-forming nature!

- Chris Arvidson

May 17, 2011 8:33 AM EDT

You were an ABC soaps fan, me a CBS soaps fan. I used to tape them when we worked in DC and watch them when I got home, fast-forwarding through commercials and plot lines I really didn't care about. When I moved to VT I stopped watching for a while, then picked them up again when I was home with babies and then dropped them again. CBS cancelled As the World Turns and Guiding Light too and replaced them with I have no idea what and probably won't ever tune in during that time anyway. But, I did pick up watching the Young and the Restless in the last year or so, grateful for the opportunity to zone out on brainless TV, of course continuing to fast-forward through commercials and juvenile plot lines. Kinda embarrassing to admit though.....but not so much now that I know you were a soap opera groupie too....!!

- Kathy Finnie

May 17, 2011 8:35 AM EDT

P.S. Gotta run now, the Young and the Restless is on TV and I have to make lunch and sit down with my remote control. Love working out of the house!

- Kathy Finnie

May 17, 2011 8:40 AM EDT

ha ha KAF -- I'm going to watch today while I'm working on a mailing! And by the way, when my dad retired and moved up to the woods he got a satellite dish and he started watching the Young and the Restless. I about crapped myself the first time I visited and he was sitting down to this as his lunchtime fare. Too funny. He liked the older woman who was on there -- somebody close to his age. He'd be hard pressed to find someone on one now like that.

- Chris Arvidson

May 20, 2011 8:04 AM EDT

Iss, I LOVED Dark Shadows!! But my mom wouldn't let me watch it so I had to sneak it in.

But my guilty pleasure now is The Good Wife.. . .

- iss

Here's my "wordkeepers" essay from Saturday.

January 18, 2011

Tags: soap operas, soaps, General Hospital, All My Children, One Life To Live, television, Dark Shadows

My reading at “wordkeepers”
Saturday, January 15, 2011

More Viewing Confessions, by Chris Arvidson

Those of you who joined us here at Wordkeepers in November will remember my confession regarding the viewing of both crappy and excellent Christmas movies. Today, here and now, I’m going to make a further heinous confession. What I reveal to you here however, holds the promise of redemption. Read More

3 Comments

Comments

Jan 18, 2011 8:34 AM EST

Erm, I'm worried (just a bit). What has happened in your life recently to bring about this cataclysmic reassessment?
On a more serious note - the rehabilitation of soap opera as a serious artistic form is way overdue. We live in an exponentially accelerated entertainment culture where most people's experience of anything other than their own lives is reduced to the crack cocaine-like reward hit of video gaming or skimming a few pages of a short story on the bus into work. (The latter being the 3 people left in our society who actually read fiction . . .). Soap opera offers complexity of plot, exploration of social issues, long-term development of character and continual dramatic & emotional engagement. All the stuff the novel was supposed to do in the 19th century in fact . . .
(Reasoned arguments against the above proposition very welcome, by the way).
So, I hope you're putting all that time to good use by revisiting Bleak House and Middlemarch and Return of the Native . . .

- Nick

Jan 18, 2011 9:30 AM EST

Holy crap, Nick. Now I understand my attraction to the soaps. It wasn't a guilty pleasure, but rather a high-minded recognition of dwindling entertainment attributes. Shit. Well, it is true that I have replaced the time I would normally spend watching these shows with reading...albeit not the classics you mention!

- Chris Arvidson

Jan 20, 2011 5:46 AM EST

Glad you're "taking the cure," painful though it may be. May I suggest substituting different addictions. I'm struggling to break a powerul Sudoku habit with knitting.
Television-wise, I highly recommend crime, especially murder. Forensic shows have a lot to offer: thoughtful searching for truth, patience, dogged determination, and reserving judgment until all the facts are in. They're presented in soothing, matter-of-fact voices, utterly lacking in hysteria. Families of victims speak with genuine emotion. Other than the lightning speed of DNA results, they're very real.
There's an element of fantasy, too. In the end, everybody gets justice, better than the average soporific for getting a good night's sleep.

- Mary Olive