A LIVELY TIME AT WORD ON THE STREET

The annual Word on the Street Festival in Halifax, N.S., 23 September, 2012, was a busy day for the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia. Thousands of people throng the waterfront, attending readings and talking with all the exhibitors. Suzie LeBlanc and Sandra Barry were the keepers of the flame that day, with help from several enthusiastic EBSNS members. We all had a great time chatting with old and new friends. We were delighted to see how many people (local and from away) knew something about Elizabeth Bishop and were eager to talk with us about her. We were able to promote the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy recording, one of our main aims, as well as the other EB100 legacy projects. We even raised a little money for the recording. The purpose of this kind of event is to spread the word, to publicize our activities, and hundreds of people went away from our festive table with a bright shiny red, blue, green or purple pencil with “Home-made, home-made! But aren’t we all?” and the EBSNS website address or this blog's address on them. Purple was the favourite colour!

A reminder about the wonderful perks available when you contribute

to the Elizabeth Bishop Legacy Recording

(check them out on the EB Legacy Recording site)

Thank you to the volunteers who came by to help out, Janet Maybee, Brian Bartlett, Susan Kerslake and John Barnstead. A special thank you to writer Mary Ellen Sullivan and her husband Jim Stewart for help with the early morning set up. A heartfelt thank you to musician Joanne Hatfield who came by in the afternoon as our energies were flagging and treated us to some lovely Brazilian music!! There was a spontaneous jam session with Suzie and John Barnstead joining in, doing harmony. We had the loveliest-sounding exhibit in the whole place! We will be updating about the EB Legacy Recording in the near future (www.eb100legacyrecording.blogspot.ca).

 Left to Right: Sandra Barry, Suzie LeBlanc, John Barnstead, Joanne Hatfield,

at WOTS! Photo by Susan Kerslake