Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road

The Tour de France is Coming to Essoyes!

July 8, 2009 at 9:08 pm Leave a comment

The first clue was the dainty yellow bicycle trimmed with roses, parked on the sidewalk on rue Victor Hugo as we entered town.

“What’s with the bicycle?” I asked.

“The Tour de France is coming,” was the answer.

Wow.

Can it really be true?

It is. It is!

At around 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 16,  Etap 12  of the Tour de France (from Tonnerre to Vittel) will pass through Champagne, and right through the middle of our little village, Essoyes (that’s pronounced “ESS-wah”).

Unfortunately, I will not be there to see it!

I will be in Paris, where on that very day my students will have the incomparable pleasure and privilege of hearing one of America’s finest poets, James A. Emanuel, read his poetry to them.

Emanuel’s friend and artistic collaborator, Godelieve Simons, a Belgian printmaker, will also be present to show her work to the class and to talk both about the process of printmaking and the collaborative artistic partnership she and Emanuel have developed over the past decade or more.

Try as I might, and much to my chagrin in moments like these, I am simply not able to be in two places at once. So I won’t be able to do on-the-spot coverage of the Tour de France when it goes literally right by our house!!!!

Arggh!

However,  you can be sure I will be digging for information and that I will pass on to you whatever delicious details I am able to learn from my on-the-scene reporters.

Maybe we’ll even be able to post some videos on YouTube.

Of both events!

The Tour de France in Essoyes.

And the Emanuel/Simons poetry reading/art show  in Paris.

Talk about an embarrassment of riches!

So.  Stay tuned, okay?

Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor and teacher of writing and literature based in Silver Spring, Maryland.  She teaches literature courses in Paris and Hawaii for the Education Abroad program at Queens College, CUNY, and twice a year she offers Writing from the Heart workshops in a beautiful little village in the Champagne region of France.

Entry filed under: About Essoyes, About France. Tags: essoyes, james emanuel, tour de france.