Wednesday, January 8, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon C O M M U N I T 3 Y Festival offers songwriting retreat Sisters Folk Festival will host Sisters Songworks: An Intimate Writing Retreat, this spring. Registration for the limited slots is underway. The retreat is a new educa- tion initiative for the organi- zation in 2020. Using the successful plat- form of the Americana Song Academy, SFF is looking to offer a more intimate experi- ence with three songwriter instructors and 24 partici- pants in an immersive song- writing and poetry experi- ence focused on lyric writing and developing songs more deeply. Sisters Songworks will take place April 17-19. Teaching artists include N a s h v i l l e - b a s e d To m Kimmel, nationally touring Portland-based artist Anna Tivel, and 2019 Oregon Book Awards Winner, Beth Wood. Wood 4 currently staff direc- tor for the Americana Song Academy at Caldera 4 will serve as director of the camp. All instructors are poets as well as songwriters. The focus will be on the craft of songwriting as a literary art See SONGWRITING on page 22 PHOTO PROVIDED Ellsworth is double majoring in songwriting and music business in college in Colorado. Fire district names executive assistant The Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire District has promoted Julie Spor to the position of executive assis- tant. The executive assistant is responsible for office man- agement and advanced-level administrative functions for the Fire District. In addition to the advanced administra- tive functions, the execu- tive assistant performs some financial management duties for the District. Fire Chief Roger Johnson said,