Try ekphrasis! Ekphrasis is a written form that responds to visual art, and you're invited to write in response to current Woskob Family Gallery art exhibits in a free November 8 Hometown Voices workshop that opens with brief readings by writer Carolyne Meehan and poet Shannon Telenko.

Meehan's work often guides others in healing self-expression and connection, and Telenko's experience as a cultural anthropologist informs her poems about Pennsylvania and beyond. They will each share their ekphrasis experiments, and then the community will be invited to give it a try!

Hometown Voices events are held at Woskob Family Gallery in the Penn State Downtown Theatre Center at 146 South Allen Street in State College. Refreshments will be provided.

This event free and open to the public. Parking downtown is free on most Sundays. Come enjoy local writers and support your creative community!

Carolyne Rose Meehan is a guide of breathwork meditation, mindfulness and writing. She facilitates healing and community focused writing workshops for Write to Shine as well as Ridgelines Language Arts. Her work is in helping women connect to themselves, the earth and one another through creative expression, breath and embodiment. Songwriting, singing and music are essential elements of her medicine and ritual. She writes Breath & Ink, a Substack Newsletter with poetry, prompts and practices for living a heart-led life. On Instagram you can follow her @carolyne.rose.m

Shannon Telenko is a cultural anthropologist who writes about urban-to-rural migration and Pennsylvania culture. She works in the Division of Undergraduate Studies at Penn State and serves on the boards for Ridgelines Language Arts and Laurelville Retreat Center. A lifelong Pennsylvanian, she has also spent time in Nashville and Washington. She lives close to downtown State College and enjoys the proximity to small town cosmopolitanism, farms, and forests. Her new poem, “These Kinds of Northern Appalachian Men,” can be found online in the June publication of As the Crow Flies (Appalachian Journal).

For questions or additional publicity materials, email Hometown Voices Series Coordinator Rachael Wiley at rwiley@psu.edu.