WILLIAMSVILLE — I recently heard three independent filmmakers from Vermont lament both the difficulty of maintaining independence in an industry dominated by Hollywood, and the imperative to do so. Jay Craven, of Kingdom County Productions in the Northeast Kingdom, said, “We have the right to tell our own stories.”
A year earlier, I'd heard John Elder, writer, teacher, and sugar-maker, speak about how commodity maple sugar operations are edging out Vermont's independent sugar makers, essentially shifting the landscape of opportunities away from traditional Vermont agriculture and small producers.
Everyone's heard about the phenomenon and dangers of these ever-bigger corporations co-opting our local and regional enterprises with regard to food.
The localvore movement, at least, is gaining traction. In Windham County, we have a robust localvore culture, with increasing numbers of people choosing locally produced food - some even producing their own.
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Brattleboro is unusual in resisting the epidemic of big-box enterprise, and we're particularly fortunate to have a downtown lined with sole proprietorships, including several independent bookstores, whose inventory reflects independent thought and not the corporate shelf-lists designed and maintained by warehouse specialists.
Vermont, generally, has resisted the hegemony of national corporations that have homogenized American culture. Whether bucking the trend against conformity is a matter of isolating geography or an orneriness bred in cold weather hardly matters.
The fact is, Vermont is a specific location with a long tradition of independent thought and local ingenuity. Despite the Interstates and the Internet, Vermont is different. Our culture is different, our stories are different, our way of life is different (Town Meeting, for instance).
We're so different, in fact, that no one wants to produce our films or publish our stories, fearing they lack mass appeal.
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On this last point, I have firsthand experience. I've written two novels set in mid-century Vermont, both highly praised by the New York literati who, nevertheless, have declined to publish them, citing their very localness as a deficit against mass-market appeal. But, as Jay Craven said when he addressed the League of Vermont Writers in January, “It's a human right to be able to tell your own story where you are, and we need to understand our role in our sense of place.”
Just as local food enthusiasts are changing attitudes and access to food, so can local writers change attitudes and access to the narratives that enrich our lives.
At Kingdom County Productions, Craven and Bess O'Brien persist in producing films that are truly independent, and not boutique subsidiaries of enormous studios. In Windham County, we have this independent newspaper. In New England and other regions around the country, the number of small and independent book publishers is rising. These independent presses are committed to publishing independent thought. Additionally, electronic technology has made self-publishing an affordable option. There are ways for independent thinkers with unique stories to get their work out.
And now, for local writers, there's one more.
All writers in Windham County are invited to participate in Local Voices, an open reading to be held the last Wednesday of the month at the Moore Free Library in Newfane, starting at 7 p.m. Everyone is welcome, and everyone will have five minutes to read from any unpublished project of their own authorship. Sign-up is in person, starting at 6:45, and reading will be in order of sign-up. The program will last as long as there are readers or until 9 p.m., whichever comes first.
While Local Voices is admittedly a grassroots effort, it is deliberately so. As anyone who has attempted a poem, an essay, a memoir, or short story knows, writing can be lonely work. In addition to providing a live, local audience, we hope that the writers who attend might glean a modicum of encouragement, inspiration, even praise, allowing them to return to their desks with greater determination to write, and to write well, in their own home town.