Kopkind Colony

Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride in the stretch ahead – and no one has been tracking the political mood and the balance of forces more closely than the sparkling Laura Flanders, the featured speaker at Kopkind’s annual harvest fundraiser, a “late brunch” tapas feast, on Sunday, October 12, at 2 pm at the Organ Barn at Guilford, 158 Kopkind Road.

A longtime print and broadcast journalist, Flanders is the voice of “RadioNation” on Air America, and the host of GRITtv.org. Her latest book, Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics From the Politicians, follows the trail of small ‘d’ democrats across the country battling for social and economic justice, political representation, human rights and people’s power. She has been following the electoral campaigns and the economic crises through all their twists and turns, bringing a unique perspective from the grassroots to the commanding heights.

In her previous work on WBAI in New York and on Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting’s radio show “CounterSpin”, she covered everything from Reaganism to gay liberation, the wars in Central America to the wars in Iraq, labor, feminism, sex, media and more. Her books include Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species and Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting. She has written in numerous publications, from The San Francisco Chronicle to The Nation.

The first Harvest event, in October 1998, launched the Kopkind Colony as a living memorial to the late journalist and Guilford resident Andrew Kopkind, who wrote on politics and culture with a matchless style and depth for national and international publications until his death, in 1994. The project, which brings together journalists, activists, documentary filmmakers and the broader public, puts on summer retreat/seminars for its resident participants and hosts film screenings and lectures for the community.

This year’s event will celebrate ten summers of political and creative exchange at Kopkind, and will also honor the project’s founder and administrator, John Scagliotti, on his sixtieth year. Scagliotti, a documentary filmmaker who was Andrew Kopkind’s longtime companion, has been a pioneer in news radio and gay media, the creator of public TV’s “In the Life” and the maker of such landmark historical films as Before Stonewall and After Stonewall.

“We are so glad to have Laura with us this year to bring sense to this exciting-dangerous-maddening time”, said JoAnn Wypijewski, president of the Kopkind board. “But also sensibility, because she has the kind of radical energy that is fundamental to our project here, a spirit of resistance but also passionate, playful engagement, which John embodies and for which we are so grateful, especially in times like these.”

Tickets for the Harvest Late Brunch tapas feast are $30 which will help Kopkind begin its work for the another decade.

For reservations and directions, e mail stonewal@sover.net or call 802.254.4859.