The new Hotel Vermont has been winning praise from all quarters for its architecture and décor, cuisine and use of local resources and products, from granite to soap to original art (including the found-wood “painting” by Duncan Johnson pictured at right).
Now, along with that warm blankie from Johnson Woolen Mills, all 125 guest rooms will offer a small book filled with Vermont words. Writing, that is, by members of the Burlington Writers Workshop.
In an announcement today, BWW organizer Peter Biello said, “Our writers get a wider audience, and Hotel Vermont’s guests get a pleasurable reading experience. It’s a win-win.”
It would be especially winning, Biello added, if one of those guests had the power to advance any of the writers’ careers.
Regardless of serendipitous “discovery” by a visiting publisher, the writers can at least hope hotel visitors will choose their poetry, stories or essays for bedtime reading.
These pieces — I’m calling them “locavore lit” — will be chosen by staff at Hotel Vermont and and compiled into a modest publication on a quarterly basis, said the announcement.
Hotel Vermont marketing coordinator Tori Carton added, “The arts are an integral part of the Hotel Vermont experience and we hope that our partnership with Burlington Writers Workshop will continue to advance the arts in our community, and give our guests a well-rounded and unique stay in Burlington.”
By the way, a member of the BWW, Michael Freed-Thall, has a fiction story in this week’s Winter Reading Issue of Seven Days. You can read “Fort Stockton Blues” here. And here’s a glimpse at a past BWW workshop.
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Manager: “Front desk may I help you?”
Guest:” This is Mr. Jones in 218. Someone has left an inappropriate metaphor on my pillow.”
Manager: ” I’m so sorry Mr. Jones. We do strive to please all our guests. I’ll send our staff editor up to remove it at once. Can you describe it for me please?”
Jones: “It’s inappropriate. I don’t want want to describe it.”
Manager: ” Perhaps you could allude to it then?”
Jones: “I don’t want to allude to it either. I just want it gone.”
Manager: “It’s important that our editor knows what she’s dealing with, perhaps you could tell me- is it an allegory, a parable or a pun?”
Jones: “It’s a mixed metaphor, possibly an accident but I think he meant it, the bastard.”
Manager: “Oh my, that sounds like a Catachresis. She may need to bring a bucket…”
Jones: ” Wait, are you alluding to something? Or is that another goddamn metaphor? “
Manager: ” Sir let me assure you that at Hotel Vermont we use only the finest sobriquets, locally sourced and vetted, sprayed with rosewater and frosted with fresh exigesis”.
Jones: “Now you’re just being facetious.”