Twenty Summers

A writing workshop, poetry discussion, and contemplative practice.

“I write the body, yet once someone attempted to correct my English to say that I must have meant that I write about the body. No. I give the body voice. Or rather, I honor that the body innately has voice and create the conditions that allow me to connect to that voice.

This embodied journey can then expand until I touch the ancestral edges of myself to find the stories embedded in my DNA. And if I am willing to continue the journey, I can gently brush against the voice of collective bodies that often feel like wind, or the storms. There were stories buried in the tumor that the doctors cut out of me. There are generations worth of stories that have yet to be told, that do not know how to be told, and even when told, have no witness for the telling. The body has infinite stories to tell, and as one who moves through the world in a Black female body, writing her is an act of reclamation. As one who occupies a world built on the exploitation of our Black bodies, writing us is an act of reparation. As one who has disembodied often in order to survive, writing the body is an act of love. Black notions of resistance and fugitivity include the retention of memory.”

Antoinette Cooper is a writer, rainmaker and TEDx speaker committed to the liberation of Black bodies through the arts, ancestral healing, social justice, and medical humanities. She was born on the island of Jamaica, and raised on the island of New York in the New York City Housing Projects. She holds a B.A. from Cornell University, a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University, and sits on the board of Narrative Medicine at CUNY School of Medicine. She understands that there is no separation between all the realms of the body, the earth, and the arts so her work explores the intersections of these multiple dimensions. She is currently at work publishing a multi-genre collection that documents the historical and present day violences on the Black female body.

Pascuala Ilabaca y Fauna present a magical evening in concert at the historic Hawthorne Barn, Provincetown, MA, June 3rd, 2023.

Hailing from Valparaiso, Chile, singer-songwriter Pascuala Ilabaca is a unique and treasured voice in both the Latin American and World Music scenes. Her music is rooted in traditional Chilean sounds while effortlessly integrating jazz, pop and rock, and wider global influences. Accompanied by her formidable band Fauna, her unique stage presence conjures up sweetness and empowerment at the same time, setting her songs alive with both fragility and verve. In little over a decade, she has released six albums and performed on multiple world tours.

Local newspapers have been dying in America’s towns and cities for a decade or more. The losses are not confined to tens of thousands of jobs: an essential foundation of democracy — independent, reliable sources of news — is crumbling. But small-town journalism based on hard-hitting reporting is hardly dead. Join Provincetown Independent founders Ed Miller and Teresa Parker, Vineyard Gazette publisher Jane Seagrave, and former New York magazine editor Adam Moss to find out why.

Jane Seagrave has been the publisher of the Vineyard Gazette for the past 12 years. The Gazette covers the six towns on Martha’s Vineyard and is one of the most distinguished small newspapers in the U.S. and the winner of numerous awards. It was founded in 1846. Jane is president of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association. Before going to the Gazette, she was Senior Vice President and then Chief Revenue Officer of the Associated Press.

Adam Moss was editor-in-chief of New York Magazine from 2004 until he stepped down in March. The vast digital expansion he oversaw for parent company New York Media led to the creation of five other publications—Vulture, The Cut, Intelligencer, The Strategist, and Grub Street—and grew to reach 50 million visitors each month. During Moss's tenure, New York and nymag.com won 40 National Magazine Awards. Moss first rose to prominence in the early 1990s as founding editor of the legendary weekly 7 Days, after which he took on a succession of leading editorial roles at the New York Times. Advertising Age named him Editor of the Year in 2001, 2007, and 2017; Adweek gave him the same honor in 2018. In 2012 he won the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.

The Provincetown Independent is Outer Cape Cod’s only locally owned newspaper — and the most widely read paper here, too. They believe high quality homegrown news can bring you closer to your neighbors and to this outermost community.

Join Chef Jon Kung for an exploration of Chinese American cooking, highlighting the seasonal bounty of the Outer Cape.

Jon Kung is a content creator and chef hailing from Detroit, Michigan. A self taught Third Culture* cook, Jon combines his lifelong experiences growing up in Toronto and Hong Kong as well as his life lived in his adoptive home of Detroit to create a cuisine he truly sees as Chinese American. His current focus is on creating content and teaching people on new media platforms like Tiktok and Youtube how to express themselves in the kitchen.

*Third Culture refers to the mixed identity that one assumes, influenced both by their parents' culture and the culture in which they are raised.

“The world makes you something that you’re not, but you know inside what you are.” Thus begins Geena Rocero’s earth-shifting TED Talk in March of 2014, a speech she wrote when the impulse to hide her truest self from the world—once deemed necessary—became unbearable. Born in 1983 in Manila, Geena began competing in local beauty pageants at the age of 15, winning local, then national adulation as she claimed trophy after trophy. With mounting fame came pressure and harsh criticism, and thus the necessity to harness the grit and strength of spirit that would ensure her continued ascent. From Filipina pageant queen to American model; from effeminate child dodging hateful taunts on the street, to transgender advocate imparting wisdom at the United Nations—this spring, Geena Rocero shares her singular journey in HORSE BARBIE: A Memoir (The Dial Press, 5/30/23).

Born and raised in the Philippines, Geena Rocero is an award-winning producer, director, model, public speaker, trans rights advocate, and television host. She was named by Time magazine as one of the “Top 25 Transgender People Who Influenced American Culture,” and her TED Talk “Why I Must Come Out” has been viewed more than five million times and translated into thirty-two languages. Geena made history in 2020 as the first trans woman Playboy Playmate of the Year, and again as the first trans woman ambassador for Miss Universe Nepal. In 2020, she was honored on Gold House’s A100 List of the most impactful Asians and Pacific Islanders. Geena’s directorial debut, her limited series film Caretakers, was nominated four times at the 65th Annual New York Emmy Awards held in October 2022.

Bob Keary is a Provincetown-based writer and talkshow host who has been living and working in town since 2005. His morning show “Wake Up! In Provincetown” airs every Friday at 9am on YouTube, and his late-night stage show “Good Night, Provincetown” is fast becoming a summer staple. When he’s not interviewing someone, you can still find him running his mouth and shaking cocktails behind the bar at THE red INN.

No-No Boy is an immersive multimedia work blending original folk songs, storytelling, and projected archival images all in service of illuminating hidden American histories. Taking inspiration from his own family’s history living through the Vietnam War as well as many other stories of Asian American experience, Nashville born songwriter Julian Saporiti has transformed years of doctoral study into an innovative project which bridges a divide between art and scholarship. By turning his archival research and fieldwork into a large repertoire of folk songs and films Saporiti has been able to engage diverse audiences with difficult conversations performing with a revolving cast of collaborators everywhere from rural high schools and churches to Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.

Saltine and Sullivan are a creative duo based out of Provincetown and Boston MA. Saltine is the host of Eggs Isle, a radio show about the rejects of Ptown.

At this very moment Saltine is looking through a spyglass preparing her return to Provincetown. The journey from her home on Eggs Isle, the island home to all who are now “too ugly and too poor” to live in modern-day Provincetown, is in mileage short, but is nevertheless fraught with peril as the only way to and from this oasis for the displaced is a rickety skiff with a broken motor. Nevertheless, she’ll find her way here. She always does, eventually planting her busted high heels into the sands of Provincetown to share the gospel of bohemia and broadcast tales of the ravages of nouveau-riche capitalism and the devastating effects of a society awash in competitive consumption, frozen rosé, and Botox.

Cody Sullivan and his godmother Saltine are a creative duo based in Provincetown Massachusetts. Sullivan writes stories, performs solo theater, makes drawings with pastel, and is a student of herbalism.

Saltine and Sullivan do not use social media for their own mental health, and to not connect their work to mind numbing/revolution depressing algorithms.

Rosanne Cash & Julian Zelizer in Conversation with musical accompaniment by John Leventhal at the historic Hawthorne Barn, Provincetown, MA, June 10, 2023.

One of the country’s pre-eminent singer-songwriters, Rosanne Cash has released 15 albums of extraordinary songs that have earned four Grammy Awards and 12 additional nominations. Cash is also an author whose four books include the best-selling memoir Composed, which the Chicago Tribune called “one of the best accounts of an American life you’ll likely ever read.” Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Oxford American, The Nation, and many more print and online publications. Her most recent book, Bird on a Blade (2018), was published by University OF Texas Press, combining images by acclaimed artist Dan Rizzie with Cash’s lyrics.

In addition to regular touring, Cash has partnered in programming collaborations with Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, SFJAZZ, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Library of Congress. She served as artist-in-residence at New York University last year. In 2017–2018, she was a resident artistic director at SFJAZZ and continues her partnership with them in 2022/23. Along with many other honors and awards, Cash received the 2021 Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded since 1960 to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture. She is the first woman composer to receive this prestigious honor.

‘I consider artists to be in the service industry; the premier service industry for the heart and soul. I am curious to a pathological degree and the Sword of Time hangs over me, and those two things— curiosity and the hourglass— make me feel more urgent than ever to connect, to find community, and to create. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks, it only matters that what is unsaid and what is unseen is given form and has a voice.’ – Rosanne Cash

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New York Times best-selling author Julian E. Zelizer has been among the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and a CNN Political Analyst and a regular guest on NPR’s "Here and Now." He is the award-winning author and editor of 25 books. Zelizer, who has published over 1200 op-eds, has received fellowships from the Brookings Institution, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the New York Historical Society, and New America.

Mali Obomsawin

Magdalena Abrego

Antonija Subat

Charles (Chuck) Roldan

Mali Obomsawin is an award winning songwriter, bassist and composer from Odanak First Nation. With an eclectic background in indie rock, American roots/folk and jazz, Obomsawin carries several music traditions. A Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist, Mali has toured internationally, receiving acclaim from NPR and RollingStone and several Boston Music Awards nominations with her band Lula Wiles. Obomsawin frequents the folk/roots circuit as a frontwoman and sidewoman, appearing several times at Newport and Philly Folk festival, and also performs as bassist/singer in the creative music scene with Peter Apfelbaum, Taylor Ho Bynum and with her Sextet project, Sweet Tooth. Known for her striking, sardonic lyricism and sonic dreamscapes, Mali’s songwriting delivers the lush, anti-imperialist rock show we’ve all been craving.

IG & Twitter: @featherbitchxx

Facebook: facebook.com/maliobomsawin

In Pending Memories, Adrian Fernandez combines photographic media, three-dimensional installation, digital art and elements of architecture and engineering software to achieve images that challenge the viewer's perception by proposing a new imaginary reality. The viewer is called to consider the motives that led to the existence of each construction, reframing a fabricated past to dream of a utopian future.

Adrian Fernandez studied visual arts at the San Alejandro Fine Arts Academy (2004) and later at the Superior Institute of Arts (2010) in Havana. From 2010 to 2012, he trained at The Ludwig Foundation of Cuba and New York University, Tisch School of the Arts Special Programs, where he also taught. He has exhibited extensively, from Berlin to New York, Houston to Antwerp, including ongoing representation at Provincetown’s Schoolhouse Gallery.

"From a conceptual point of view, I believe this work connects with my perception of the Cuban reality and the crisis this country has lived with for such a long time. The current paradigm crisis, from a social and ideological point of view, drives the creation of these photographs. The accumulation of similar images reveals a reality that shows structures in disuse, abandoned within the idleness of a depleted territory. The ‘photographed’ constructions function as metaphors for the inert remains of a society sustained by the spectral foundation of memory. The residues of the epic past and the current precariousness of the current moment appear as ruins of the fiction that we still have to live with today. "

—Adrián Fernández Milanés