SHRUB-STEPPE POETRY JOURNAL

The Wenatchee River Bluegrass Festival, kicking off summer on the third weekend of June for the last few decades, has found a good home at the Chelan County Fairgrounds and Expo Center. As always, after the daytime instrumental and youth workshops there’s a full slate of top-flight bands for evening concert goers.

This year the national award-winning quartet Sister Sadie is the headliner, with Kenny and Amanda Smith, Rock Ridge, Authentic Unlimited, Nick Dumas & Branchline and Rusty Hinges the other featured bands.

But the organizers want you to know that all during the preceding week, when 300+ campers start pulling into the Chelan County Expo Center, Appalachian music might also break out spontaneously anywhere, like an echo from the hills and hollows of the mountain South. It might come from a solo serenader in the meadow, a grandkid taking a 10-minute tutorial, or a circle of old and new friends in a late-night fiddle fest. (They also remind you that your $40 full weekend pass gets you campground wandering rights.)

Marie Vecchio, a fiddle player, is a veteran festival co-planner, along with Bill Dobbins and Chuck Egner. “Almost 90% of the people who camp here are musicians themselves,” she said. “Most of them are attendees, a few are regional bands. They come early from all over the northwest, California, Montana. Some caravan from Tennessee, and it feels like a big family reunion. There’s music all the time, everywhere. It’s magic.”

Cashmere Community Coffeehouse sponsors the annual Bluegrass Festival, as well as other smaller gatherings that celebrate and encourage acoustic roots music. Last year’s festival drew 1,500 people, which matches pre-pandemic numbers, and attendance by local music lovers has grown exponentially.

The emphasis of the weekend is on making music together, but another key ingredient is wholesome family participation. Marie said, “It is so amazing to remember some of the little kids who were playing in family bands when we first started, like Nick Dumas and Steve Burwell. Now both them of are headliners with their own bands and play all around the country.”

Wenatchee River Bluegrass Festival, June 16-18. Chelan Expo Center (Fairgrounds), 5700 Westcott Avenue, Cashmere. See cashmerecoffeehouse.com for more details

The fifth edition of The Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal is now available.

One distinction of SSPJ is that it’s the only print publication highlighting Central Washington poets.

A second distinction is its scope. The panel of judges read a total of 129 poems by 48 poets who live in Chelan, Cle Elum, East Wenatchee, Ellensburg, Kennewick, Kittitas, Leavenworth, Mabton, Malaga, Moses Lake, Moxee, Naches, Richland, Roslyn, Twisp, Wenatchee, Winthrop, Yakima and Zillah. The poets chosen for the publication will have an opportunity to share their work with their fellows, reading aloud at a book launch party in Wenatchee on June 3.

Founded in 2019 by Susan Blair of Wenatchee, who collaborates with an editing team, SSPJ is an adjudicated publication that for five years has sought out and published the best poetry written in the region.

Order a copy at shrubsteppepoetry.org or email Susan Blair at sfblair61@gmail.com. (Your $12 is taxdeductible, as SSPJ is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.)