Ra Press/Ra Films

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To contact RA PRESS RA FILMS:

email donahue.d@comcast.net

phone 802 399 2426

address RA PRESS

100 KENNEDY DRIVE #53

SOUTH BURLINGTON VT 05403

All Ra Press books $10 plus $3 postage.....

KARMA in the HIGH PEAKS is Ra Press's newest book of Adirondack Writings. This book features six writers: British poet David Parkinson, West Coast Sixties counterculture writer and playwright Charles Watts, poets Mary Anne Johnson, Mary L. Randall, Judith Dow Moore and Chuck Gibson. This and COLD EARTH WANDERERS form a classic duo of reading material for any hike into the wilderness!

UPDATES SUMMER 2010

AN ADIRONDACK TRILOGY

With the completion of WEDDING ON BIG HOLLOW we have now a trilogy of books about life in a small Adirondack town spanning nearly fifty years of its existence. Wedding is a collection of short stories by Dave Donohue with valuable assistance by Steve Coe and a beautiful poem from Judith Dow Moore. The book is graced with a lovely photograph of a wedding on Big Hollow by friends Janet and Mike Denney. This book, in conjunction with SAYING GOODBYE TO PORT DAVIS HIGH and CHRISTMAS IN PORT DAVIS, completes a literary experiment that we have worked on for over two years. Thanks again to everyone involved....

AT THE AWARDS:

At this year's Adirondack Writing Awards sponsored by the Adirondack Center for Writing, Ra Press had a great showing of its writers' work. Entered under the POETRY category were Judith Dow Moore's 12993, Judith Dow Moore's and David Parkinson's TWO HEADS, Chuck Gibson's SEVEN STORMS, and an ANTHOLOGY entitled COLD EARTH WANDERERS by Joan Frost, Mary Randall, Cathy McDowell, Judith Dow Moore and Chuck Gibson.

In the non-fiction category, a sleeper of ours YOUNG POETS OF PORT HENRY HIGH SCHOOL, was much appreciated by members of the jury. This history of the old Port Henry school through its yearbooks (1920's and 30's) was indeed a labor of love and could not have been completed without the help of town historian Joan Daby and Sherman Free Librarian Jackie Viestenz. The three of us will be signing that book at the library on July 10th from noon to 2PM and it will be on display at the PHHS Reunion that night at the Knights of Columbus in Port Henry.

The ACW Awards event was hosted by Nathalie Thill Director who was a marvelous host. Dinner after the event was at the HEDGES in Blue Mountain Lake - a fantastic feast!

BURLINGTON NEO - BEATS Last summer we kicked off a new group of writers in the Queen City with our Beat anthology WAKE-UP CALL. Since that time we have published Sean Tierney's MY ILL-READ OPHELIA POEM - a great little book of verse that is truly clever, lyrical and smacks of genius all in one. It is currently on sale in CROW BOOKS Burlington and CAROL's HUNGRY MIND CAFE Middlebury. A huge thanks to John at CAROL'S (where all our titles are available) and Keith at CROW for their support of our works...

Sean Tierney's second book for the neo-beat poets Burlington series is a series of cosmic poems he wrote while on a camping trip in Paul Smiths. Once again Tierney demonstrates his ease with lyrics and gift for poetic insight.

FOREIGNERS

I have recently published a travel memoir on teaching in Turkey in the 1970's. It is entitled YABANCI. It is one of three proposed books with the same title but with different authors. Boston area writer Steve Coe is working on his memoir about teaching at the school in Tarsus and that will be out this summer. Margie Arnold of Colorado Springs is shooting for a 2011 publishing date on the YABANCI finale. (Yabanci means foreigner in Turkish.)

ADIRONDACK WRITING continued:

In the six months ahead we are continuing to collect the works of David Parkinson, Judy Moore, Mary Randall plus a new work by local Crown Point poet Mary Anne Johnson. Maybe some individual books, maybe a new ADIRONDACK WRITINGS book

MOVIES:

June 2010 marks 40 years of independent film-making from Ra Films. This also marks the premiere of Zach Donohue's THE DANCE at film festivals around the country. It has been so much fun over the years working with so many people, making films in the Champlain Valley and beyond that there are no words to express both my gratitude and my happiness.

Our TV shows on Burlington Cable Access VACM 15 entitled THE ALMOST MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT MOVIE SHOW (Sundays 11:30 PM) and MOVIES FOR A FRIDAY MORNING (Fridays 10:30AM) have been running for over a year and a half, airing now in rotation some 32 films.

We are planning now a sequel to ROCCO'S NIECE with many of the cast members from the original film (with, of course, Donna Jerdo as Donna Maria) plus Burlington actor Shawn Karwan as Burlington Bad Guy NUMBER ONE. We are also working on the possibily of a film by Kate Mohanty.

Thanks again to the folks at Reprodigital in Winooski who have given our books a look all their own. Thanks to North Country books who have picked up four of our books for distribution and are currently considering another five. Thanks to Hoss's Country Corner in Long Lake (a very cool place), the Sherman Free Library, the Black Watch Library and the Inn on the Library Lawn for their support...

Update Fall 2009 David Parkinson and Judith Dow Moore have created a shared work of verse entitled TWO HEADS. A beautiful book now available at our website and at the Carol's Hungry Mind Cafe in Middlebury.
THE POETS OF PORT HENRY HIGH SCHOOL is a book about a small Adirondack school during the first three decades of the 20th Century as seen through the eyes of its students. This unique look into the past is now available at Hoss' Country Corner Bookstore in Long Lake, The Inn on the Library Lawn bookstore in Westport and the Hungry Mind Cafe in Middlebury. The entire history of the school is available in three parts at the Sherman Free Library in Port Henry.
THE BEATS ARE BACK AND IN BURLINGTON! NOW AVAILABLE AT CROW BOOKS - BURLINGTON! Esteban Folsom, Jodhi Reis, Devin Michael Courtney, Mary Randall and Dave Donohue have joined forces to create a very beat book of poetry, art and photography! The book is called WAKE UP CALL. Coming this October and hopefully available in many Burlington locales as well as our website and our main store of CAROL'S HUNGRY MIND CAFE in Middlebury!

Update June 2009	Our shows on VCAM Channel 15 are now on Friday Morning at 10:30 AM and the ALMOST MIDNIGHT MIDNIGHT MOVIE SHOW 11:30PM Sunday nites.

Three New Books out from Ra Press

Click on the images for more details.

CHRISTMAS IN PORT DAVIS is now available through the holidays at CROW BOOKS, Church Street, Burlington!

UPDATES November 2008

RA PRESS

CHRISTMAS in PORT DAVIS will be out December 2nd. This book includes stories by Dave Donohue, Mary L. Randall, Joan Frost, Cathy S. McDowell, Steve Coe, Zach Donohue and Brian Macalpine. The book will be at the Sherman Free Library by December 5th, if not sooner. It will be available at our website as well and you can contact us at donahue.d@comcast.net. Our locations for purchase in Vermont and New York will be added to our site next week.

Locations for purchasing CHRISTMAS IN PORT DAVIS

South Burlington Library

Sherman Free Library Port Henry

Black Watch Library Ticonderoga

RA FILMS

Catch our movies on VCAM Channel 15 with Burlington's Access station on Thursday: 5:30 - 6:00PM and on Sunday night at 11:30 PM until Midnight. Now showing are HIGH SCHOOL BREAK-UP, SOLDIER IN MOROCCO and PETROGRAD 1918. Other films that have been in rotation are BITTER, ROCCO'S NIECE and BIKERS.

And there will be more films to come on the local screen!

A few pages into Between Iraq and a Hard Place (Ra Press, 2007), Dave Donohue asks of President Bush's departed advisor, "Do you sleep well at night, Karl?" Later, Joan Frost posits, "There is no right or wrong anymore, just terror." This collection of poems from a half-dozen writers living in and around the Adirondacks takes on the war in Iraq and the politicians who decided to wage it with heaps of vigor. It is the only book to come through our office this year to approach the topic and it does so relentlessly, lobbing cutting questions at the administration and sending compassion to the soldiers. "I heard that war is when old men talk and young men die," Cathy S. McDowell writes in a letter to her nephew, in Iraq. "It troubles me."

Ned P. Rauch

ADIRONDACK LIFE

RA UPDATES: WINTER 2008

A new book of poetry entitled BRIDGES by David Parkinson is in the final draft and should be out sometime in March. This is the British-born, Ferrisburgh poet's third collection with Ra Press (CLUTCHING AT STRAWS and SEEKING). David is one of the most active and celebrated poets in the Champlain Valley.
Also in its final draft is Cathy S. McDowell's WINTERING GERANIUMS - a collection of poetic narratives describing her childhood years. This follows her acclaimed first work THE WAITING PLACE.
Zach Donohue's student film (and NYU's Oliver Stone Screenplay Award Scholarship winning film) BITTER has been showing in different Adirondack venues - Ticonderoga, Port Henry, and, most recently in Willsboro as part of the Champlain Valley Film Series. The film also won praise in last fall's ED WOOD FILM FESTIVAL in Albany. Zach's new film THE DANCE is now in pre-production in New York.

Ra Press Ra Films is now in the process of relocating in South Burlington, while at the same time keeping close ties to the Adirondacks.

Treatments for new film scripts are in the works. There are several ideas being played around with our cast of actors from ROCCO's NIECE and RA writer Mary Randall is working on yet another script - tentatively called 12 HAPPY WOMEN.

ROCCO's NIECE premiered at the Knights of Columbus in Port Henry, NY, on January 12th 2008. A nice crowd was on hand to watch this gangster film shot in the Adirondacks. Also shown at the film festival were Zach Donohue's BITTER, High School Break-Up with Mark Scozzafava and Maria Manfred, and HAUNTED DREAMS with Mark, Tom, and Mary Lou Scozzafava. Tom Scozzafava was on hand to celebrate the long history of Ra Films in Port Henry.