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Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation
Call for Submissions: Mid Atlantic Monthly Forum Essays
Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF) is soliciting submissions of essays for online publication in MAAF’s Mid Atlantic Folk Arts Forum.
The purpose of the Mid Atlantic Monthly Forum is to provide a vehicle to share experience, transfer knowledge, and encourage dialogue about issues central to sustaining the health and vitality of the folk and traditional arts community in the mid-Atlantic region. Possible themes include, but are not limited to, best practices; new programming and organizational models; compelling field research; interagency collaborations and partnerships within and outside of the field; and new tools and technologies.
Authors should be professionally involved in the field of folk and traditional arts in the mid-Atlantic region, such as folklorists, ethnomusicologists, educators, and working artists. Essays will be selected considering, but not limited to, 1) interest of the subject matter to Forum recipients and 2) geographic diversity within the MAAF service area: Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Essays should be no more than 1500 words and may include photos and/or audio files.* Authors are also invited to record their essays for release on the MAAF Folk Arts Podcast. MAAF reserves the right to edit individual essays for content and length as necessary. Monthly Forum essayists are not paid a fee, but may submit their essays for publication elsewhere with credit given to the Forum for prior publication. Essays will be published on the Mid Atlantic Folk Arts Forum blog and the MAAF website. Prospective authors may view examples of previous publications at those sites.
To submit an essay or to discuss a topic idea, please contact MAAF Program Associate, Folk Arts Sally Van de Water (sally@midatlanticarts.org; 410/539-6656 x 107).
* Please note: Photos must be 1 MB or greater with a minimum 72dpi (greater recommended) and be submitted in one of the following formats: .jpg, .gif, or .tiff. Audio files may be .mp3 or .mp4 format. Authors are responsible for providing MAAF with copies of photo/audio release forms where necessary.
Essays penned by mid-Atlantic folklorists are currently distributed
to 250 academic and public sector folklorists in the region.
Topics vary widely
from field research on tobacco farming in
southern Maryland to the challenges of sustaining
a folklore program in
nonprofit settings. The Foundation initiated this
series to further the exchange of information and ideas among
folklorists and their peers.
Forum pieces that have an accompanying podcast are indicated with an RSS button.
 These
documents are in Word format
| June 2010 |
Digital Preservation
This essay is a companion piece to the 2010 Folklorists in the South & Mid Atlantic Retreat, held June 19-21 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The meeting theme, “Folk Vérité: Folklife in Film & Video” explores the use of film and video as documentation and storytelling. Guha Shankar is one of the Retreat’s guest speakers and will be leading a session on digital preservation techniques and best practices.
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| May 2010 |
Courage, Motherhood and the Act of Leaving
In this month’s essay, Amy Skillman writes about her experience working with PAIRWN, a group of refugee and immigrant women living in Central Pennsylvania. Invited by a social service advocate, she first met the group ten years ago and expected to involve some members in the state apprenticeship or fellowship programs. Here, she writes of that first meeting and the dynamic “Story Circle Project” that evolved.
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| March 2010 |
Finding Alternative Careers
Essayist Joseph Goodwin, Assistant Director of Ball State University Career Center, offered a professional development workshop at the 2009 American Folklore Society Annual Meeting entitled “Job Search Skills and Alternative Careers for Folklorists.” Here, he offers advice from that workshop and his former “Careers” column from the AFS newsletter.
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| January 2010 |
Rediscovery Fieldwork – Folklorists as Community Neighbors, Fieldwork as Gift-Giving
Maryland State folklorist Cliff Murphy uses his research with the family of traditional musician Ola Belle Reed as a case study in rediscovery fieldwork, the evolution of a family’s traditions through time, and the uses of archival documentation.
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| July 2009 |
How to Folk with Web 2.0
David Dombrosky, Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon's Center for Arts Management & Technology, gives advice to folklorists on how to use Web 2.0 technology to further their work and expand their audiences.
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| June 2009 |
Cultural Sustainability at Goucher College
Rory Turner is the Director of Goucher College's new graduate program in Cultural Sustainability. The program, which launches in spring 2010, will focus on “actively identifying, protecting, and enhancing cultural traditions through activism, fieldwork, academic scholarship, and grassroots communications.”
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| April 2009 |
Spanning the Globe: Fieldwork in Northern Virginia’s Suburban Communities
Arlington folklorist Chris Williams writes about the challenges and rewards of identifying and cultivating "festival-ready" traditional bearers.
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| March 2009 |
Building and Painting Ship Models
Steve Rogers is a nationally recognized ship model builder, has written five books on the subject, and teaches at the Woodenboat School in Maine.
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November 2008
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Bad Side, Good Side: A Personal Conversation about Island Superstition
Elaine Jacobs is a public school educator in the St. Thomas/St. John School District and an adjunct faculty member at the University of the Virgin Islands.
Elaine Jacobs Bad Side, Good Side Podcast
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| October 2008 |
First Hand: Tradition Bearers in a Museum Setting
Jaclyn Stewart is Director of the Jersey Shore Folklife Center at Tuckerton Seaport.
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September 2008
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From Grants to GRAMMYs: Leveraging Cultural Energy
Dr. Daniel Sheehy, Director & Curator, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and its initiative, Smithsonian Global Sound.
Dan Sheehy From Grants to GRAMMYs Podcast! |
| February 2007 |
Kara Rogers Thomas is a Lecturer of Interdisciplinary Studies at Frostburg State University. Her forum piece, Between Scylla and Charybdis: Charting the Course for a Folklore Hybrid speaks to a tension that lies within many folklorists as they try to balance their many hats. Click here to download Word Document |
| January 2007 |
Bau Graves is Executive Director of the Jefferson Center in Roanoke, Virginia and author of Cultural Democracy: The Arts, Community and the Public Purpose... Click
here to download Word Document |
| December 2006 |
Bob Stone is the longstanding statewide Outreach Coordinator for the Florida Folklife Program. This article is a sample of his research on Florida cow dogs... Click
here to download Word Document |
November 2006
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John Lilly, Editor/Folklife Director for West Virginia Division of Culture and History's Goldenseal magazine... Click
here to download Word Document
John Lilly Reads His Shetland Essay in this Special Podcast! |
| October 2006 |
Gerry Milnes, Folk Arts Coordinator,
Augusta Heritage Center, Elkins, WV... Click
here to download Word Document |
| August 2006 |
Varick Chittenden, director of Traditional Arts in Upstate New York, and "retired" (to use the term loosely) Professor Emeritus of English, SUNY Canton College of Technology... Click here to download Word Document |
| July 2006 |
Glenn “Kwabena” Davis was born and raised in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. A storyteller for over thirty years, Glenn continues to offer workshops on the art of storytelling and this month writes about "Storytelling: A Folk Tradition Fighting Back"... Click here to download Word Document |
| June 2006 |
Margaret R. Yocom, a folklorist who specializes in family folklore, oral narrative, material culture, and gender studies writes about "Living Words: Folklorists and Creative Writers"... Click here to download Word Document |
| May 2006 |
Marco Antonio Hernandez heads the group Katari based in Delaware, a group "impassioned" by folk music from Latin America. This is the first forum essay written by a traditional artist.... Click here to download Word Document |
| April 2006 |
Simon Bronner, Professor of American Studies and Folklore at the Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Center for Pennsylvania Culture Studies, PA... Click here to download Word Document |
| March 2006 |
Jon Lohman, Director, Virginia Folklife Program... Click
here to download Word Document |
| March 2006 |
Sally Van de Water, Folklife Program Coordinator, Bayshore Discovery Project, Port Norris, NJ... Click
here to download Word Document |
| February 2006 |
Harold Anderson, Independent Folklorist/Ethnomusicologist, One World Living Art, Greenbelt, MD... Click
here to download Word Document |
| January 2006 |
Laura Botinelli, Deputy
Director, Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art, Salisbury, MD... Click
here to download Word Document |
| October 2005 |
Michael Miller, Manager, Delaware Folklife Program... Click
here to download Word Document |
| August 2005 |
Nancy Solomon, Executive Director,
Long Island Traditions, Port Washington, NY... Click
here to download Word Document |
| July 2005 |
Iveta Pirgova, Director of the Down Jersey Folklife
Center... Click
here to download Word Document |
| June 2005 |
Betty Belanus, Education Specialist,
Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage... Click
here to download Word Document |
| May 2005 |
Jon Loman, Director, Virginia Folklife Program... Click
here to download Word Document |
| April 2005 |
Terry Liu, Arts Education Specialist,
National Endowment for the Arts... Click
here to download Word Document |
| March 2005 |
Kelly Armor, Folk Art Coordinator and Education Director,
Erie Art Museum... Click
here to download Word Document |
| February 2005 |
Catherine Hiebert Kerst, Folklife
Specialist/Archivist, American Folklife Center, Library
of Congress... Click
here to download Word Document |
| January 2005 |
Carrie & Michael Kline, Independent Folklorists, Talking Across the Lines, WV... Click
here to download Word Document |
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