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By: Sharon Ledwith,
on 9/14/2015
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Sharon Ledwith: I came. I saw. I wrote.
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The beginning of September proved to be a busy start for myself and 5 other authors who celebrated our summer of new releases through Mirror World Publishing. I also got a chance to meet long time author peep, Rita Monette who came all the way from Tennessee. Even the Nordic god Thor showed up via the brilliant flashes of light behind the authors as they read from their most recent book. When all was said and done, the night was quite profitable for all the authors, so a big thank you to all those who braved the traffic and the thunder storm to attend our special night!
Throughout the evening, I noticed a few glitches during the readings, plus listened to some good advice from the people in attendance. So I compiled a list of dos and don’ts from what I gleaned during our author reading event...
Do speak up. I know this is a no-brainer. The venue we were reading in had poor acoustics, so that made it even harder for a soft spoken person. Perhaps having a microphone or
Karaoke machine on hand would eliminate this problem in the future for similar venues.
Do introduce yourself. Tell your readers (or future readers) a little about your past and how you got into writing. Keep it short and simple and interesting.
Do thank everyone for coming. Again, a no-brainer. Practice the attitude of gratitude.
Do pick an excerpt that will hook your audience. I did not, according to a few comments, and now thinking about it, I must agree. *Head desk* Make your reading exciting, not boring. I did manage to change my voice and mannerisms for certain characters, so I get a thumbs up for my performance.
Don’t forget to shut off your cell phone, or turn off the ringer. Um…should be a no-brainer, but obviously a couple of people did not do this. One person actually answered his phone DURING A READING. Not cool. Please be respectful to the authors and audience.
Don’t forget to acknowledge your publisher. After all, you wouldn’t be there without them!
Don’t forget to mingle and mix with the audience. You want them coming back to your next book reading event!
So there you have it, my dos and don’ts based on my first experience participating in a group author reading event. Whether you’re an author or a reader, do you have anything else you could add to this list? Would love to read your comments! Cheers!
Review: Martin Limón. The Iron Sickle. NY: Soho Press, 2014.
ISBN: 9781616953911
Guided serendipity led me to find a Martin Limón novel on the new books shelf of the library and in a flash I realized I hadn't seen a Sueño and Bascom novel in a while. Turns out I've missed two since enjoying 2009's G.I. Bones. Finding The Iron Sickle went ahead and made my day.
Reading a Sueño and Bascom crime novel comes with everything, and more, readers find in the best cop novels: Intriguing setting, local color, irrepressible heroes, insurmountable odds, ingenious plotting. The add-ons include an outcast Chicano detective, Korea, and the U.S. Army in the 1970s.
Martin Limón weaves all the elements together in
The Iron Sickle, latest novel in the long-lived cop series. One needn’t have read other titles to enjoy everything
The Iron Sickle offers, but Limón consistently alludes to events happening in earlier novels, head-turning, momentous stuff, dropped into a paragraph in passing. Limón gives a reader plenty of motivation to seek other titles in the series.
The Korea and Army setting will be completely foreign to all but a tiny fraction of U.S. readers. This makes the author responsible for a lot of explaining about language, culture, and attitudes, both Korean and Army. Limón uses that as a way to enrich the novels with fascinating local color and military slang.
George Sueño is the only Chicano in the novels, so his East LA background is noted only spottily in the series—he has no contemporaries at work, no one to talk to, so it doesn’t come up. Such is the life of being “the only one.” Plus, he’s a cop. But Limón isn’t glorifying cops shooting U.S. civilians. The cops in
The Iron Sickle battle the Army as much as criminals.
In the novel, it’s been twenty years that events spun out of control on a remote mountainside during war, launching a murder spree for revenge and ruining lives. Sickled necks and a butchered rat lead the CID agents to a remote commo site in the middle of nowhere to discover a morally ambiguous criminality.
Bilingualism singles out the agent for going against the Army’s monolingual grain. In series novels, he speaks a little Spanish, but that’s not the issue. Sueño is the only CID agent in country who speaks and reads Hangul. Knowing the language inevitably leads to cracking the case while providing interesting insights into local language and culture. It’s also a signal that Sueño not only is a lifer, he’s addicted to Korea. Sueño’s so alienated from The World, as overseas GIs call the US, he’s never coming home.
Military culture puts obstacles in the investigation’s path. Hardheaded Officers and Senior NCOs follow the Army way which is uniformity and chain of command. Sueño and Bascom hold that in contempt and are the opposite of STRAC troopers expected of high headquarters minions.
Their results make them immune to all but spite, no matter how wild and impetuously the detectives act. Limón gives them lots of ways to act up; Bascom, a ville rat and short-fused jerk, Sueño, the oddball who thinks too much and hooks up with the wrong woman. When Sueño’s thinking too much he misses clues or gets his ass kicked.
When the boss or some general gets a case of the ass, the pair catch their ration of shit details, like arresting housewives for buying too many toothpastes. What really irks the chain of command is having the Koreans request Sueño and Bascom work a case.
Limón tirelessly exposes mindless military rivalry between US forces and local authority. These cops are righting wrongs despite established power, not to further the military’s goals. Solving crime often gives a well-deserved black eye to military politics. Higher ups prefer to keep matters quiet and tidy. Sueño and Bascom are loud and unruly, and that’s only half the fun of reading a Sueño and Bascom mystery.
The Iron Sickle treads on forbidden territory, cannibalism. While fiction can take readers into the most perverse territory, it won’t stop them from getting queasy at the horror of the crime, the imperative of revenge, and the unasked question, “how many wrongs make a right?”
The Iron Sickle is a great companion for a winter read. Curling up next to a fire and whiling away the hours until 2015 might be just the ticket for mystery readers with a hankering for off-the-wall travel writing.
 |
| Korean farmer at DMZ 1970. foto:msedano |
La Palabra Has Last WordGente crowd into the main gallery at Northeast Los Angeles' Avenue 50 Studio. Here for the final La Palabra reading of 2014, the prospect of hearing three of the city's most distinctive poetic voices draws them in well after the Open Mic is underway. Late-arrivers line up against the wall between the art or step gingerly into the space between the circled chairs to sit on the floor. SRO means "sitting room only" for Poet Laureate Luis J Rodriguez and friends Peter J Harris and Hector Flores.
Today's reading culminates the first year of emcee Karineh Mahdessian's service organizing the monthly series.
La Palabra at Avenue 50 Studio has enjoyed a thirteen-year run showcasing high calibre art and engaging an Open Mic poetry community nurtured by the social churn of working class eastside L.A.
 |
Karineh Mahdessian |
Mahdessian's high spirits spark the already energized crowd as she gets the Open Mic started. The day offers wonderful examples of the "community" in "poetry community." Visitors today include people from Arizona and the U.S. midwest. One reader is making her debut in front of an audience today. People exchange abrazos and introduce new friends.
The first speaker doesn't read. He's a social scientist with a book and rambles for awkward minutes before audience members interrupt him with applause. He's reluctant to finish but the relieved Mahdessian steps in and the fellow fills his chair. The presentation offers one of the awful moments in an emcee's role, how to use the hook.
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| Rudy Calderón |
Rudy Calderón works from memory, in Spanish and in rhyme. The packed house and floor eliminate the lectern and lets speakers choose reading in situ or using the constricted bit of open space.
Calderón stands and projects with excellent resonance. There's so much energy in his body aching to break loose if allowed a stage. He controls it well and redirects much of that energy into the reading.
 |
| C.E. Jordan |
C. E. Jordan is the fourth poet after Calderón. Jordan stands in place to share a holiday piece that makes an appreciated change-of-pace. That microphone is ironic because Jordan projects sonorously with crystal clear enunciation that serves her words well. One reader uses the mic and it doesn't go over well. No reader uses the mic again.
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| Juan Carlos Valadez |
Juan Carlos Valadez follows Jordan in one of those change-of-pace presentations that keep audiences coming back to La Palabra.
Mahdessian announces the next reader. From his chair, Valadez introduces his wife and daughter. He walks into the open space, and asks the teenager's permission to read a poem letter he wrote her from prison.
 |
| Rosalio Muñoz |
Rosalio Muñoz is the final Open Mic reader. He selects a few paragraphs from the Laguna Park section of
Stella Pope Duarte's movimiento novel,
Let Their Spirits Dance. Muñoz is sitting next to me so I point and shoot hoping for a good moment. This is approximately the perspective the crowd had of Rosalio up on the podium that day in Laguna Park.
Muñoz is the final name signed to the Open Mic. A number of poets have asked for a slot so Mahdessian announces a second Open Mic after the three featured readers.
The featured poets have conferred and adapted to the setting and audience. Rather than do three stand-ups, Hector Flores, Peter J. Harris, and Luis J. Rodriguez will do a round-robin. Harris goes first.
 |
| Peter J. Harris |
The round-robin is a wonderful way to treat an audience. People universally appreciate variety, whether within a single poem or a set. The three featured writers each performs with unique voice and distinctive style. Harris and Flores read so deeply moved by their own emotions that their words come out as heartfelt music.
 |
| Hector Flores |
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| Hector Flores |
Luis J. Rodriguez greets his audience today as a proud father, local poet, and Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. The Laureate vows to infuse LA with poetry during his tenure, though the exact program remains in development. Today's reading signals an important development.
It's not that Luis forgot his stuff back at the house and will read old stuff. Rodriguez' good stuff is timeless and he keeps working on them, if not in the craft in the performance.
Rodriguez has rarely read these poems with the kind of sustained energy he displays in the packed space today.
He's loud, he's angry, he's emotional, ya se cansó. Thoughts and emotions in words come out in his arms, eyes, brow, posture. He fills the space allowed. He reads today focused on content over form, breaking at thoughts instead of lines.
Media aren't the Laureate's friend today. One poem comes from an orange quarter-fold booklet, another from a telephone screen, two from a book. He needs his anteojos, plus he's getting off the floor every third reader.
Rodriguez, like Harris, works to personalize the reading through eye contact. Reliant upon their text, it's sparse and momentary. Their work has enough power that audiences don't miss what they're not getting. But because these poets could do these poems from memory without the prop, there's a lost opportunity to magnify their audience's enjoyment of the work.
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| Luis J. Rodriguez |
 |
| Luis J. Rodriguez |
 |
| Luis J. Rodriguez |
The Gluten-free ChicanoGood Mexican Girl Hits the SpotEarlier in December, The Gluten-free Chicano sat around feeling sorry for himself that gluten-free analogs are crummy and he needed a snack. The Gluten-free Chicano, in a fit of antoja, wrote about a gluten-free bakery that sounded like it would hit the spot, the
Good Mexican Girl's cookies.
The Good Mexican Girl herself took the column as a challenge, to get some of her cookies to The Gluten-free Chicano. She did it. And he's glad.
GMG gluten-free Mexican Wedding Cookies aren't quite the powdery puro butter and wheat flour nuggets of yesteryear, but GMG Mexican Wedding Cookies are number hana, as they say in Korea, number one.
They hit the spot.
GMG discovered the secret to a velvety texture on the tongue. Other GF treats have a raspy grit to them like 440 sandpaper on the tongue. Yuck. Bite into the crumbly texture of a GMG Mexican Wedding Cookie and all the flavor and a pleasing tooth greet one. Savor it and allow the crumbs to work their magic. Smooth all the way down. Next: GMG chocolate chip cookies.
¡Ajua! Good Mexican Girl. Te aventastes.
Late-breaking News!https://www.facebook.com/events/484993604975550/Click link to get your tickets.Floricanto for Michele Serros Sunday, January 4, 2015at 6:00pm
Alumni House, UC Berkeley
1 Alumni House, Berkeley, California 94720
La Bloga encourages readers to purchase tickets to support Michele Serros' challenges during her health crisis. Gente in the Bay area will want to appear in-person for this important event. Here is the latest organizer report.
Hosts/MCs: Joseph Rios- friend of Michele and poet
Jennie Luna- friend and Cal State Professor of Xican@ studies at Cal State Channel Islands
Readers/Friends of Michele: Melinda Palacio- author and friend
Joe Loya- author and friend
Cindy Cruz- close friend of Michele and professor of education at UCSC
Alberto Ledesma- friend, UC Berkeley professor and DREAM artivista
Silent Auction at the event with works by: Malaquias Montoya
Maceo Montoya
Melanie Cervantes
Mitsy Avila Ovalles
Santos Shelton
Lalo Alcaraz
Ester Hernandez
Jessica Sabogal
Signed vinyl records from the band, Chicano Batman
From LatinoStories YouTube Channel
The Macondo workshops started in 1995 at the kitchen table of the poet and writer Sandra Cisneros in San Antonio. These yearly workshops aimed to bring together a community of poets, novelists, journalists, performance artists, and creative writers of all genres whose work is socially engaged. Their work and talents are part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change. What united them was a commitment to work for under-served communities through their writing. Since 2006 The Macondo Foundation proceeded to organize the workshops, which continued to provide its participants with an oasis to concentrate on their writing and improve their skills in a demanding atmosphere of support and kinship.
The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center has taken over the administration of the Macondo workshops with the blessing of its founder and the board of the Macondo Foundation.
This unique environment is unlike any other literary initiative in the United States. It is premised in Cisneros’ vision to create a homeland for writers who are working in underserved communities. Many times writers work alone and feel isolated. Macondo has fostered a vibrant and growing community of writers who view their writing as way of giving back to the community and changing lives by fostering literacy. This reading featured: Gabriela Lemmons, Joe Jimenez, Jose B. Gonzalez, Miguel M. Morales, Rene Colato Lainez, B.V. Olguin, Carmen Tafolla, and Laurie Ann Guerrero.
By:
Amanda,
on 9/13/2013
Blog:
The Open Book
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Lee & Low Books will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival next Sunday, September 22, and we’d love to see you! Stop by booth #129 (next to Bank Street Books) and say hello.
Brooklyn Book Festival will be at Brooklyn Borough Hall and Plaza, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn NY 11201.
SIGNINGS
11:00am-12:00pm, 2:00-3:00p
Lulu Delacre, illustrator of How Far Do You Love Me? and Arrorro, mi niño: Latino Lullabies and Gentle Games
3:15pm-4:00pm
George Ford, illustrator of Paul Robeson and Ray Charles
3:15pm-4:00pm
Javaka Steptoe, illustrator of In Daddy’s Arms I Am Tall and author/illustrator of The Jones Family Express
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By: msedano,
on 10/15/2012
Blog:
La Bloga
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Late Breaking News
Memorial Honors Frank Sifuentes, QEPD
Tempus fugit que no?
Frank's long-time friend, Jesus Treviño, has compiled a memorial including messages from all five of Frank's friends, and a video. Click the links to Frank's spoken word recordings at the USC digital library and Nuestrafamilia.
http://latinopia.com/latino-history/latinopia-hero-frank-sifuentes/QEPD, Frank.
Michael Sedano
Over there, across a couple of blinded-by-the-light grey roofs and assorted HVAC ducts, underneath the canopy, all old and faded. Behold the remains of
América Tropical, a mural painted on a Los Angeles wall by David Alfaro Siqueiros 80 years ago and whitewashed shortly thereafter.
"In a way, the whitewashing preserved it," one docent avers, pointing to the richer coloring at the right, a section that had been whitewashed earlier by disillusioned patrons whose vision of tropical America included lovely colorful people and happy native dancing girls.
What America got from el maestro is an undulating jungle surrounding a native nailed to a double cross upon whose crown perches a fierce eagle. ¡Ajua!
The mural also signals the benefits of painting on wall substrates. Nelson Rockefeller jackhammered a Diego Rivera fresco off the walls of that arts patron's building in Manhattan. In El Lay, where easy solutions prevail, city powers tagged the wall with their own gang color.
The mural, the only publicly accessible Siqueiros mural in the United States, is conserved. Numerous visitors ask about preservation, or repainting. The mural, whitewashed and exposed to ample ultaviolence by its south-facing wall, has faded past the point of ever being more than what it is.
A Getty-led conservation team has managed to remove the obscuring layer of paint and some tar stains, and has protected what remains from further degradation now that it once again finds the sun and elements. Black and white fotos exist of the mural, making impossible any ill-conceived wild hair notion to repaint.
Visitors to the observation platform must simply marvel at what that wall once said in its own voice. Downstairs, in the interpretive center, a trio of Siqueiros' muralist descendants--Barbara Carrasco, Wayne Healy, John Valadez--recreate
America Tropical in grand scale, reproducing those B&W frames taken back in 1932.
Opening day packed the space shoulder-to-shoulder. Such heavy demand must account for the elevator being out of service on my second visit. Access to the viewing deck, without that elevator, is restricted to able-bodied gente.
The spectacular corn mural in the stairwell is the compensation for stressed knees. Below, Angelica Garcia, a principal in a
Fontana tax firm, takes a breather for a snapshot with her daughter.
ATIC adds an important cultural dimension to school field trips to the birthplace of Los Angeles. I visited in 4th grade around '54. The place remains largely unchanged, a single file of curio and dulces-selling puestos down a cobbled pasillo flanked by restaurants, mid-scale boutiques, and recuerdos. ATIC fills a space midway down the street, next door where my primos' shop, Casa de Sousa, used to sell quality artifacts and espresso.
Thelma Reyna Reviews Pat Mora's Borders
La Bloga friend and guest columnist Thelma Reyna continues with
her exploration of classic works by Chicanas, a project Thelma's engaged in conjunction with Latinopia. The multifaceted Latinopia features historical and historic video features picked from filmmaker Jesus Treviños exhaustive archive of the movimiento, along with coverage of art, food, music, literature; la cultura en general.
Among the beauties of reassessing classic works is the likelihood of introducing readers new to these seminal expressions, to foundation literature that has influenced what they read today. Beginning at the beginning helps develop an informed critical understanding of everything read.
Among the classics Dr. Reyna has reviewed are
House on Mango Street, Nilda, Loving In the War Years. Latinopia currently features Thelma's appreciation of Pat Mora's poetry collection,
Borders.
Her book goes on to evoke and explore borders large and small, known and unknown, old and new, faint and glaring. The poet draws on her lifetime of living on and near borders, beginning with her birth in El Paso, Texas, her home for most of her life before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, Mora has straddled the border between cultures and languages, has navigated the “like” and “unlike” for her entire life. As her book depicts, borders can be cruel or innocuous, but they ultimately reveal us to ourselves.
Cruel Borders of Hardship
Her book is filled with snapshots of people from all walks of life, people identifiable for their hardships as much as for their triumphs. Mora starts with the famous pioneering author and university leader, Tomás Rivera, whose hands “knew about the harvest,/ tasted the laborer’s sweat” but also “gathered books at city dumps
You can read Thelma Reyna's full review at
Latinopia here. The classics series also features
polymath Luis Torres, who reviews male writers, with Thelma Reyna covering women writers. La Bloga encourages gente to visit Latinopia's literary cornucopia.
Count on La Bloga to continue our de vez en cuando
reviews of the old stuff, too. You can join in as a reader, or a
guest columnist. For comments and questions, click the Comments link below, and be sure to subscribe to your comment to receive reader comments.
The Closet of Discarded Dreams Book Tour Makes Pasadena Stop
Author Rudy Garcia joined a handful of guests--writers and artists--in Pasadena to talk books, science fiction fantasy writing, Rudy's novel, and the upcoming Latino Book & Family Festival.
 |
Hugo Garcia tells J. Michael Walker and
Alfredo Lascano about La Dolce Vita. |
One aspiring novelist arrived early, expressly to quiz Rudy on the mechanics of getting his first book published.
Garcia replied with the classic question, "what's your book about, in 25 words or less?"
Rudy stopped the novice around the 800th word. The lessons from pro to beginner: know your own stuff and get it written, then worry about the rights.
Rudy Garcia noted the rarity of Chicana Chicano science fiction and fantasy titles, making
The Closet of Discarded Dreams a pleasingly unique opportunity for scifi readership, but uniqueness an obstacle to publisher decision-making.
Discussion ranged widely across writers, titles, and story lines, then divagated to revolutionary new waves in film, and authenticity in historical fiction, and other genres.
Discussion segued into an ideal moment for Rudy to take the floor and read two passages he selected that illustrate his book's surreal exposition and the author's ability to write funny.
Short story writer and poet Angel Guerrero basks in the ambiente of good friends, new friends, good reading and listening. Then cracks up at one of Rudy's funny passages.
Painter,
cartographer,
portratist, J. Michael Walker absorbs the performance from his artist's eye.
Novelist Sandra Ramos O'Briant observes as Jesus Treviño documents Rudy Garcia's reading in this living room setting. Treviño will showcase the reading in a future
Latinopia.
Beyond the reading at Casa Sedano, Rudy appeared at Tia Chucha's Open Mic on Friday, the LB&FF, then a reading at Tia Chucha's Sunday afternoon.
The Closet of Discarded Dreams heads to a science fiction writers conference in Colorado then San Antonio.
Banned Book UpdateStill banned.
No big news out of Tucson. Vote like Freedom depends on it, because it does. Give Obama a Democratic Congress and let the nation see the return of bipartisanship to government. Give the GOP power and they will ban more books, just as a beginning.
On-Line Floricanto Mid-October 2012Avotcja, Sharon Elliott, Tara Evonne Trudell, Andrea Mauk, Tom Sheldon
ALGO DE TI, Avotcja
The Fence, Sharon Elliott
Dual Citizenship, Tara Evonne Trudell
Second Story, Andrea Mauk
Columbus through tiny eyes, Tom Sheldon
ALGO DE TIby AvotcjaTu pelo,
Abrazando su propia negrura
Como el color de medianoche en la manígua
Tu ser,
Un cuento vestido en sabiduría anciana
Una sabiduría agridulce
Sabiduría con sabor a colores de miles de flores
Bestial y arrogante
Una seda desenvoltura
A la vez inmóvil, pero misteriosa
Y como la noche de luna
Esclava de nadie
Eternamente libre como el viento
¿Y Otoño?
Siempre hay otoño,
Riendo, llorando, y bailando
En la negrura de tus ojos Indios
Tus ojos sabios
Tus ojos orgullosos
Tus pies ya caminaron por unos miles de siglos
En las tierras de tres continentes
Por los sueños de los afortunados
Por las pesadillas de los que nos engañan
Y porque tu eres quien eres tu,
Crecen las flores donde caminaste
Los Dioses me dicen
Que tu piel tiene el sabor de miel salvaje
Mientras que el viento canta tu nombre
Como yo ..… como yo
Y tu eres el color de amor
El color Moreno
El color prieto
El color Indio
El color de mi felicidad
El color de amor ….. eres tu
SOMETHING ABOUT YOUby AvotcjaYour hair,
Embracing its own blackness
Like the color of a jungle midnight
Your being,
A story dressed in ancient wisdom
A bittersweet wisdom
Wisdom that
Tastes like the colors of thousands of flowers
Arrogant & wild
A smooth flowing freedom
That's at the same time stubborn, but mysterious
And like the moonlight
A slave of nobody
Infinitely free just like the wind
And Autumn?
Autumn is always laughing, crying & dancing
In the blackness of your Indian eyes
Your wise eyes
Your proud eyes
Your feet have walked
Through thousands of centuries
On the lands of three continents
Through the dreams of the fortunate
Through the nightmares of those who deceive us
And because you are who you are,
Wherever you’ve walked flowers grow
The Gods tell me,
That your skin tastes like wild honey
While even the wind sings your name
And so do I ….. so do I
And you are the color of love
The color brown
Very dark brown
A dark red Indian brown
The color of my happiness
You ….. are the color of love!
The Fenceby Sharon Elliottsin vergüenza
Germany pulled theirs down
artifact of Nazis
with joy
celebration
Berlin united
pieces of brick
and stone
now inhabit the globe
in memory
of tyranny overcome
we
construct new fences
of wire and steel
to keep out ciudadanos
los que son
dueños de esta tierra
quienes que nos dieron
una bienvenida de corazón
nos cuidaron
nos regalaron una cama para acostarnos
nos alimentaron
con maíz y amor compartido
y que hicimos nosotros?
what did we do?
we accepted their gracious gifts
then stole their land
pushed them off
enslaved them
and their children
treated them as interlopers
in their own home
now we build fences
to keep them away
from what is rightly theirs
what hardened our hearts
blinded our eyes
withered our souls
money is a simple answer
privilege and power
more complex
yet the
foundation of those fences
bears more scrutiny
es una pobreza de alma
corazones sin sangre
como podemos vivir así
sin lo que alimenta a uno o el otro
tear those fences down
stand in our humanity
wield sledgehammers
wire cutters
bulldozers
machetes
y en un solo golpe
tear those fences down
until we do
we will not be whole
we will continue to be ghosts
fragmented spirits
alone
disconnected
and afraid
Dual Citizenshipby Tara Evonne TrudellAnswers lie
when their truths
don't add up
whitewashing politicians
diluting
intelligent thoughts
puppet shows
debating
who's in control
slandering smiles
blinding white
control
Americans hanging on
to every word
taking their minds
off humanity
the wanting
of righteous law
breaking politics
playing ping pong
hitting hard
manipulating tactics
of manifest destiny
corporate sponsors
running the game
monopolizing
earth
colonizing
brown
people backed up
against
invisible walls
guns drawn
border agents
playing warfare
targeting migrants
killing softly
our song
500 years
of proving
we belong
to our earth
erasing their borders
in sand
willing breaths
we fall
before we stand
in barrios
in canyons
in homes
uniting
dual citizenship
past
their make believe
land
their misleading debate
loudly continues on
in a world
our spirits
do not belong.
Second Storyby Andrea MaukNo matter where you live,
you exist on top of a
failed, conquered civilization.
You walk upon footsteps of buried wisdom,
upon people who understood
the whispers of the winds,
the nutritional medicinal value of
each plant and
the reason to respect each animal,
upon 'pagan' engineers, architects and astronomers
who learned the formulas taught
by the sun and moon and stars.
You walk on the skulls of those
sacrificed in ceremonies
we will never fully understand,
you guffaw at their Gods and
their nectars and their dances
as you marvel at the
modern technology that
distracts you away from the fact
that our planet, our earth,
our way of life is spinning out of control,
and you are standing on top of
land grabbed without regard to
the wisdom of civilizations
who may have understood
our existence
better
than we.
Columbus through tiny eyesby Tom Sheldonsister Marie taught us about an Italian sailor
who shaved every day and carried a bible
he brought us pork n beans
warm blankets n fry bread
he brought farmers and soldiers
and discovered us
bringing Original sin and horses n dogs too
all on ships sent to aid the white man’s domination of Mother earth...
Is it entirely appropriate that this most auspicious day, be a day of mourning, ashes and weeping.
biosALGO DE TI by Avotcja
The Fence by Sharon Elliott
Dual Citizenship by Tara Evonne Trudell
Second Story by Andrea Mauk
Columbus through tiny eyes by Tom Sheldon
Avotcja (pronounced Avacha) is a card carrying New York born Music fanatic/sound junkie & popular Bay Area Radio DeeJay & member of the award winning group Avotcja & Modúpue. She’s a lifelong Musician/Writer/Educator/Storyteller & is on a shamelessly Spirit driven melodic mission to heal herself. Avotcja talks to the Trees & listens to the Wind against the concrete & when they answer it usually winds up in a Poem or Short Story.
Website:
www.Avotcja.org Email: mailto:
[email protected]Born and raised in Seattle, Sharon Elliott has written since childhood. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism. As an initiated Lukumi priest, she has learned about her ancestral Scottish history, reinforcing her belief that borders are created by men, enforcing them is simply wrong.
[email protected]
Andrea García Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She calls Los Angeles home, but has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, and is currently finishing two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her poems and a memoir are included in the 2011 anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality, and her poetry is featured in the 2012 Mujeres de Maiz “‘Zine.” She is also a moderator of Diving Deeper, an online workshop for writers, and has written extensively about music, especially jazz, while working in the entertainment industry. Her production company, Dancing Horse Media Group, is currently in pre-production of her independent film, “Beautiful Dreamer,” based on her original screenplay and manuscript, and along with her partners, is producing a unique cookbook that blends healthful recipes with poetry and prose.
October 6th, 2012
featuring best-selling authors and music performances, including Denver Sound’s
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
concert with Rocky Mountain PBS Channel 6
In anticipation of the new 2013 Americas Latino Festival to take place in Boulder, October, 2013, a preview event will be launched today, October 6th, 2012 on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.
The preview event features a presentation by festival director Irene Vilar, a Guggenheim Fellow and Latino Book Award winner, and a talk by best-selling author Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., recognized as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature.
The program includes a piano recital of Music across the Americas, a musical intermezzo of the Colombian folkloric group Tucandirá, and a performance of Denver Sound band Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. All events take place inside the Black Box theater of the ATLAS Institute building on campus. Events are free and open to the public, with the exception of the Slim Cessna’s Auto Club concert, which will be recorded for Rocky Mountain PBS Channel 6 as part of the newly released Boulder Box Set series. Tickets for that event can be purchased at $20/$50 through www.americaslatinofestival.org.
The America for the Arts festival will take place October 3-6, 2013 at the University of Colorado Boulder. Over 75 speakers in the areas of human rights and justice, conservation, science, literature, music, visual arts, and film will participate in this event committed to promoting a panamerican consciousness and cross cultural understanding. The 2013 region: Mexico & the Caribbean. Theme: The Exhaustion of the Earth.
Among those confirming attendance for the 2013 event are: Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Junot Diaz, best-selling authors Isabel Allende, Mayra Santos Febres, and Cristina Garcia,
Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, Guggenheim Fellow and International Literature Award Winner Daniel Alarcon, author and film director Lucia Puenzo, Babelfilm director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Future of Food producer Deborah Garcia, actor and film producer Benicio del Toro, Guggenheim Fellow Laura Restrepo, Pulitzer Prize winner playwright Nilo Cruz, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and NPR Latino USA anchor Maria Hinojosa, Latin Grammy Award winner Nestor Torres, PBS NewsHour anchor Ray Suarez, and McArthur Genius Grant fellows: installation artist Pepe Osorio, percussionist Dafnis Prieto, jazz saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenon, photographers Camilo Jose Vergara and Susan Meiseles, and Nobel Laureates Derek Walcott and Mario Vargas Llosa. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Mirta Ojitowill cover the event for the national press.
---------------
Bloguero authors in L.A.
Rudy Ch. Garcia will be joining fellow Blogueros Daniel Olivas, author of The Book of Want and children's books author René Colato Laínez (his latest,
Let's Play Football / Juguemos al futból
) at the Latino Book & Family Festival, next Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, on the Calif. State University campus, Dominguez Hills.
Olivas' panels: Writing in Multiple Genres (10:00am) and How To Get Published (1:00, Garcia, too!). Laínez' panels: Using Multicultural Literature in the Home & Classroom (10:00am) and What's New in Children's Picture Books (1:00). Garcia will also be on the Great Young Adult Fiction panel (3:00). This year the event is being held in conjunction with La Feria Es El Momento - Edúcalos, presented by KMEX Univision. Check the program at the event for readings or signings.
After that, Garcia heads to San Anto, Austin & Houston, Oct. 25-31 on his book tour: River Oaks Bookstore, Fri. Oct. 26 in Houston; and Southwest Workers Union, Sun. Oct. 28 and Palo Alto College, Tue. Oct. 30 in San Anto.
The fine folks at Absinthe have come back after a year or so hiatus to get their Festival of International Film & Writing back into what plans to be an annual affair.
Last night I was able to attend the writing portion of the first night's events, catching reading from Benjamin Paloff, Chris Tysh, and Dunya Mikhail, as well as a short q&a session afterward.
The event is held in Farmington, MI, at the Masonic Hall, and it was really a nice set-up. There were probably close to 50 people in attendance, which all three writers commented upon. Dwayne Hayes, founder of Absinthe Arts 21, the 501(c)3 (that's right folks, you can donate and see it become a tax deduction) created to promote and provide access to international art and writing, was the host and MC for the evening.
Paloff read from both a collection of poetry he'd translated (Lodgings: Selected Poems of Andrzej Sosnowski), but also from a just released book he'd translated (Transparency by Marek Biencyzk), which is a book length essay on, well, transparency. He compared Sosnowski's work to that of Ashberry, and read three of the poems and then the first section from the essay. Both were very interesting--I do believe I'll find myself ordering the essay.
Chris Tysh read next, maybe a dozen or so pages from what she's calling a transcreational effort. She's reworking French novels into verse--what she read from was based on a novel by Duras that she had reworked into verse couplets. It too was very interesting, both the description of the idea, and the writing itself.
Dunya Mikhail read three poems from her collection, The War Works Hard, and then noting that because Benjamin had told her he'd read her book, she would read some new work. She noted though that she wrote her poetry in Arabic, and did not consider her own translations to be the best translations of her own work--it was very interesting, she believes that when translating, one must be true to the work, but this is something she doesn't find herself very capable of doing when the original work is her own--it's her own, so she feels free to tweak when changing the language. But she ended up reading a few more of these new, uncollected poems, including reading the last one both in Arabic, and then in English, to give the audience a flavor of the different languages, the different rhythms, etc.
All three poets (and the MC) came across as very likeable and approachable and it seemed that the crowd all was enjoying what they'd come out to see. Were it not for surprise tickets to a Tiger/Yankee game this evening, I'd be back to see the reading froms Mariela Griffor, Anca Vlasopolos, and Jeffrey Angles this evening.
It's an unfortunate fact, but not all great authors are great readers/performers. This, however, is not a statement you will think if you get the opportunity to attend a reading by any of the quartet that read at the Detroit Artists Market last night. The title of this post comes from third reader, John Rybicki, who noted that at great readings like this you just need a break, that poetry is a form of prayer and has the ability to overwhelm you and because shit just keeps coming and coming at you, you need a bit of a break. Fortunately, last night, none was to be had.
Norene Smith was first up, after a quick intro to the evening by Nancy Sizer, the DAM Director, and then an introduction of Norene by Peter Markus. I've had the pleasure of reading Norene's work and seeing her read in the past and enjoyed it, but last night she transformed into something truly amazing. Peter's introduction included bits about magic and a whale, and a huge grin broke over Norene's face and she noted how strange it was that Peter would mention these as they encompassed two of her planned topics. She began with a quote from Alan Moore about magic and literature and then proceded to weave some magic of her own, sharing poems, stories about recent visits with Bhuddist Monks and chanting, and the poems these visits have inspired and a poem about a recent visit home by her daughter. Again, I've seen Norene read before and enjoyed it, but last night she seemed more confident, to enjoy the experience more, and again was simply mesmorizing.
Anna Clark was next up and she had possibly the most difficult job of the evening. While later reader, Peter Markus, also writes fiction, the stories he would read are typically under five pages and frequently only 1 or 2 in length. So, where the others were reading short works to fall into and get captured quickly, Anna read a longer short story, which is truly hard to pull off. She was also the new girl to the crowd last night--most there had seen the others read their work, were maybe more familiar with it. Anna had to win over the crowd that for the most part may not have known all that much about her. And to her absolute credit, she did just that. Reading a story about the making of a fairy tale that felt like a fairy tale itself, everybody in the crowd hovered on every word. It's a story I look forward to seeing in print soon.
Next up was John Rybicki and why he isn't a Poet Laureate of something huge I have no idea. John ranted and raved for the first ten minutes of his time about stories from his past, the greatness of Peter Markus, and many other things and each story was so personal, so impossible not to feel the passion behind it--he's what I think a Poet Laureate should be. I'm one that comes to poetry dragging my heels, not always feeling I get it and why spend time doing that if there's a work of fiction I'll dig right under the poetry collection on the pile. John Rybicki had me coming home looking for a poetry collection to read. He's a writer that peels back his own skin to let you see what's inside and makes you want to come back over and over. I cannot imagine how exciting it would be to have him for a teacher.
Last up was Peter Markus, and as he began to read stories from his new work, We Make Mud, I was sent back in time to a reading at Book Beat. I'd gone to see another writer, an
Bob Crelin assures me that his blog entry is forthcoming. Meanwhile, as you can see at the left, he's busy sharing Faces of the Moon with young readers who are eager to find out more about a planet's best friend.
I believe the Happy Endings Reading Series, hosted by the lovely and talented Amanda Stern, has been mentioned here at the EWN before. This time it's both a celebration and, well, a different celebration. The Happy Endings Reading Series is soon to be moving - after this fall season, the series is moving to Joe's Pub in January (a necessarily larger venue!).
I've had the extreme pleasure of attending exactly one HERS event and it was fantastic. Looking over this line-up, it's one of the rare times I wish I lived elsewhere for a period of time. That premiere reading looks astounding, and readers here know I'd love to be at the October 22 reading with Keith Lee Morris and Deb Olin Unferth as I've raved about their work here before. Not to mention Porter Shreve, and last of all, but certainly not even close to least, Allison Amend!!!!! (Who, by the way, just might have the nicest looking website welcome page of any author right now).
So, the final season goes as such:
September 10
SEASON 6 PREMIERE
Darin Strauss
Andrew Sean Greer
Hannah Tinti
with music from
Moby
September 14
Brooklyn Book Festival
Porochista Khakpour
Said Sayrafiezadeh
Manil Suri
with music from
Nina Katchadourian
September 24
Roland Kelts
Linda Robertson
Porter Shreve
with music from
Howard Fishman
October 8
CANCELLED for YOM KIPPUR
October 22
Deb Olin Unferth
Cristy Road
Keith Lee Morris
with music from
Bronwen Exter
November 12
Sadia Shepard
Ben Markovits
Sana Krasikov
with music from
Randy Kaplan
November 19
Alice Elliot Dark
Stacy D'Erasmo
Allison Amend
with music from
Jamie Leonhart
December 10
Ammon Shea
Marion Winik
Joan Wickersham
with music from
TK
December 17
LAST SHOW EVER at HAPPY ENDING
TBA
Happy Ending Bar
302 Broome Street
Between Forsyth and Eldridge
212-334-9676
Look for a hot pink awning with the words Health Club on it
J,M,Z,F to Delancey
B,D to Grand Street
Detroit's Write Word Write Now, an incredible collection of poets, and the group responsible for the fantastic quartet of Snowbound Readings in the fall of 2006/winter 2007, are back!!!
The following comes from the Detroit Poetry Collective, and I can wholeheartedly recommend you attend all four of the readings they've set up for this summer as I've seen at least one of the performers that will be present each of those nights and all are well worth your time.
DETROIT, Mich., May 24, 2008 - Detroit Poetry Collective & Music Hall Center for Performing Arts Presents the Write Word Write Now Summer Solstice Series for 2008. This year’s Solstice Series is scheduled for June 20th, July 18th, August 22nd, and September 19th at the Jazz Café inside the Music Hall, Detroit MI. Artists include world renown poets such as Carl Phillips, Allison Joseph, Ross Gay, Janice Harrington, Vievee Francis and emerging writers, Dwayne Betts & Ashaki Jackson; while also presenting our Detroit-based talent, the Write Word Write Now coterie. The writers may be available for interviews upon request."By integrating spoken word with the written word, we're creating a new hybrid poet/writer...and there's a need to cultivate artists who have been able to combine the two, they are the future of Detroit's poetic legacy...soon we'll be a literary mecca..." said Christina Archer, President of Detroit Poetry Collective. "We would like to put Detroit on the map as one of the great cultural cities among many other things. And I am excited to continue my efforts, exposing the community to, not only poetry in our own backyard, but poetry across the world."
We present this reading series to create a poetic, literary atmosphere in the Detroit area that attracts & sustains the hybrid academic and spoken word poet/writer. We are celebrating and cultivating creative, multicultural, critical thinkers in the Detroit area by recognizing artists abroad and at home; providing a safe-haven; and developing an outlet for the groundbreaking voice.
DOORS & DINNER AT 6PM; READINGS START AT 7PM.
LOCATION: Jazz Cafe at Music Hall, 350 Madison, Detroit, MI 482226
June 20th: Kahn Davison, Ashaki Jackson, Jamaal May, Vievee Francis
July 18th: Will Copeland, francine J. harris, Ross Gay, Allison Joseph
Aug. 22nd: Nandi Comer, C.M. Archer, Dwayne Betts
Sept. 19th: D. Blair, Tommye Blount, Janice Harrington, Carl Phillips
About The Detroit Poetry Collective
The Detroit Poetry Collective was formed to cultivate urban artists through creative writing (poetry, fiction, and non-fiction); to develop, provide and support literary programs that foster multicultural literacy and creative critical thinking. Its purpose is to provide a safe-haven for Detroit writers by way of academic readings, scholarships, stipends, awards, poetry slams, writer’s retreats, conferences, guest speakers, workshops and public events.
The University of West Florida had Jeff Parker come down and read from his fantastic debut novel, Ovenman, last week, and have very kindly, for those of you like myself, who were unable to procure tickets to either Florida, or the event itself, have placed a video of the reading online. Wander on over and view it.
As Dzanc Books author Roy Kesey is bouncing merrily across this country, in a two weeks from hell version of the book tour, he's been reading the story "Interview" from his collection, All Over. The story involves some 56 replies to job interview questions. No questions, just the responses. It's a great read, and even better possibly seeing Roy read it aloud. Roy was kind enough to provide a little background on this particular story for the EWN:
“Interview” owes a fairly huge (and, I hope, clear, or else I shouldn’t have cut the epigraph) formal debt to Donald Barthelme’s “The Glass Mountain.” As it happens, there was a period in my early thirties when I would dip into 60 Stories like it was God’s own guacamole--great huge handfuls at a time, smears down the front of my shirt, pushing the bowl across the table to friends and grunting, You have to try this guac. And within that period, there was a much shorter period when it seemed like every time I dipped in, I’d see a trick I wanted to try.
It’s embarrassing to admit that it took me so long to discover his work, and painful to think of certain less enjoyable books I limped through when I could have been reading him instead. But in a way, I’m glad I didn’t come to Barthelme any earlier--if I had, I’d have become a hopelessly shoddy clone. Even as it was, resisting the urge to mimic his voice was sometimes beyond my strength; I threw those stories away, but didn’t regret writing them. In other, luckier moments, I had the common sense to try only to sort out the mechanisms that allowed him to pull certain rabbits out of certain hats, and then to explore how those mechanisms might work with my own particular weasels and wastepaper baskets. Sometimes it came off and sometimes it didn’t. In the end, “Interview” borrows little more, I think, than the sequential numbering and a touch of mental/social stance--which, let me be the first to say it, is plenty.
In terms of the content, several years before writing the story, I had taken a job as the director of a language center at a university in northern Peru, and at some point it became clear that we needed more professors who were native English speakers. We couldn’t offer much in the way of salary or benefits, so I was leaning hard on the “Come to Exotic Peru!” angle. Also, I had no idea what I was doing. I put advertisements up on a couple of list-servs, and was flooded with applications that I duly sorted and spindled.
I originally planned to do the interviews by phone, and then received word from above that they all had to be in person. Most of the applicants were from the U.S. and Canada, so I worked up a preliminary list and itinerary, gave it to my boss, and was in turn handed a frighteningly large stack of U.S. currency, and told to go try to find some teachers.
Which I did.
But I wasn’t very good at it.
I drew up a numbered list of questions, most of them so vague (What’s your theory of teaching? No, yes, I know, but your theory of teaching? Your teaching theory? What is it?) that they were impossible to answer in a way that would give me any more information than I already had from the candidates’ resumes. My only immediate hire from that trip was a guy who was later fired for gross misconduct, then submitted a misguided application for political asylum to the Peruvian government, was subsequently deported, and in only one of several bizarre coincidences, served as a case study that my wife had to analyze at the Diplomatic Academy five or six years later.
More to the point of “Interview,” though, was what happened in the course of other people I talked to on that trip. I did a number of pre-interview chats over the phone to narrow the field, and in the middle of one of those phone calls, an applicant offered that his previous job had ended when he was made the scapegoat for a scandal he’d had nothing to do with. Before I could respond to that, he said, “And the funny thing is, the same thing happened in the job before that. And the job before that!”
That guy didn’t get an in-person interview, but I will always be grateful for the material and voicing he gave me. That, combined with the structure I ripped off from Barthelme, gave me something that, at the beginning, was nothing more than a reasonably amusing job interview with the questions suppressed but figure-outable. Over the course of a dozen drafts, it morphed into what it is now, something weirder and bigger and sadder, or so I allow myself to hope.
Sorry for the recent lack of posts, I went on the road with Roy Kesey, Dzanc's first author, for the first few readings on his current tour for All Over. While glad to be home, and not envying Roy the remaining two weeks he has away from his own, it was a fun time while it lasted for me.
Roy arrived in Detroit on Monday the 22nd and I picked him up and took him to the house of an old friend of his. The next morning I picked him up and drove him to the campus of the University of Michigan where he participated in a roundtable with about a dozen students in the MFA program there, along with Program Director, Eileen Pollack. It was a very interesting hour or so - great questions from Eileen and the students and it became even more apparent to me, sitting in the background and listening, just how much time and effort Roy has put into his own writing over the years.
Later in the afternoon, I introduced Roy to my Dzanc partner, Steve Gillis, and his family, and then Steve, Roy and I headed back towards campus. We met with future Dzanc author, Michael Czyzniejewski (who drove up from Bowling Green, OH), for dinner and great conversation. As the clock moved towards 7 p.m., we wandered across the street to Shaman Drum Bookstore where All Over would be officially launched. We wandered into a fantastic crowd of about 50 people or so. I apologize in advance to any names I miss but I remember seeing/talking to Eileen Pollack, Keith Taylor, Ray McDaniel, Matt Bell and his wife, Jessica, Dwayne Hayes, Jessica Bomarito, Aaron Burch, Pasha Malla, Keith Hood, Potter, Sarah Sala, Elizabeth Dougherty, Natasha Stagg and her friend, Don, Randy Devita (meaning along with Roy and Eileen, Shaman Drum had three authors from Best American Short Stories 2007 within five feet of each other) and Tamara Christie-Glynn, plus many faces I didn't recognize. Not to mention the fantastic Kyle Minor and his wife and two children, including budding young writer Ian, who I had the pleasure of buying a short book from. All they did was drive up from Ohio to support Roy and Dzanc.
Ray gave his usual fantastic introduction, and Roy read both "Interview" and "Hat" and to our excitement, is a truly great reader. Even though Shaman Drum was one of the heaviest purchasers of Roy's titles, they sold out of All Over that night! Many of the aforementioned then headed over to a party thrown by Elizabeth Ellen and Aaron Burch at their home, and a few who couldn't make the reading showed up there - Stefan and Sanaz Kiesbye, and Barry Graham and his wife as well. It was a great night.
Fairly early the next morning (though not as early as the rest of the mornings for Roy on this tour), Roy and I met back up at the Detroit airport and hopped on a plane headed for New York (well, actually Washington D.C. for a connector, but NYC was the ultimate destination). As Roy is only in country for two and a half weeks, he's barely been alotted 24 hours per location on this trip, so it was really convenient that everything we had to do in New York was within five short blocks of each other.
We took a cab to our hotel, The Windsor Hotel, and cleaned up and organized a little bit. We then walked over to McNally Robinson where the lovely Jessica Stockton Bagnulo is the Events Coordinator and she introduced us to Stuart, one of the booksellers there and had Roy sign the two copies of All Over they had in stock. What a fantastic looking store - a front table with many independent press titles on it such as a stack of signed Garth Risk Hallberg novellas, and titles from Milkweed and Coffee House Press and McSweeney's. It was great to see. They also had a wonderful selection of literary journals, which is where we bumped into/introduced ourselves to store owner Sarah McNally.
From there Roy and I walked to 88 Orchard, a great little cafe/diner where we had a quick bite to eat (great sandwiches by the way) before Ed Champion showed up. We headed downstairs where Ed set up his elaborate taping machinery and did his usual fantastic job of interviewing. It was interesting seeing some of the same questions pop up as they had during the roundtable, and watching Roy thinking while replying, yet giving nearly verbatim responses as he had done the day before. It was obvious they weren't simply canned answers by how he was thinking and pausing while replying. Ed also found many questions to ask that weren't anywhere near the minds of those at the roundtable, as he always does, and it was a fun conversation to watch, and even be pulled into a little bit at the end.
We headed back to the hotel for another bit of re-organizing and then walked around the corner (maybe 30 feet) to the Happy Ending Reading Series bar. This series, run by Amanda Stern, has to be one of the best run, most interesting, and entertaining literary reading series in the country. It was packed, but why wouldn't it be? The writers there besides Roy, who some were definitely there to see, were Benjamin Percy (currently featured in Poets & Writers) and bestseller, Min Jin Lee. Any one of this trio would have been worthy of a great crowd, but all three? As per the rules, each author must perform a public risk, something they've not done before - Ben bench pressed Amanda, Roy sang "America the Beautiful" while having the lower half of his right leg waxed, and Min told a dirty joke while balancing a spoon from her nose (much better descriptions of these, with photos, can be found at Susan Henderson's LitPark).
The crowd was full of faces I recognized (and occasionally and embarrassedly, did not) including Lauren Cerand, Ed Champion, Sarah Weinman, Levi Asher, Mary Dell, Ami Greko, Garth Risk Hallberg, Judy Heiblum, Susan Daitch, Susan Henderson, and those I'd not met before like Justin Taylor, Kimberly Wetherell, and I'm sure many others that I apologize for not remembering at this moment (just chastise me in the comments section).
Afterwards, a group of us went out looking for food, only needing to go to three restaurants to find one with the kitchen still open!
The next day started out bright and early as Roy and I cabbed to JFK around 6:30 a.m. or so to catch a flight to Chicago (well, Detroit actually, but final destination, Detroit). We arrived in Chicago and cabbed to Gail Siegel's place of employment to drop our bags off (just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how nice Gail was this particular day). We then took Gail out to lunch to the Rosebud Steakhouse for a lunch of ridiculously good cheeseburgers and returned to her office where she even outdid the earlier effort of allowing us luggage storage - she found computers for Roy and I to use and catch up on things (only 286 emails in the ol' inbox).
We then headed to the Fixx Coffee Bar for the reading, hosted wonderfully by Amy Guth (who, like Amanda Stern, you can just tell is an awesome reader of her own work). Besides Roy, Elizabeth Crane read a great story about a woman who turned into a zombie after being bitten by one (while shopping at JoAnne Fabrics no less!), including wonderful zombie speak, and Jonathan Messinger, who read the story "Bicycle Kick" from his collection, Hiding Out. This was attended by other literati like the aforementioned Gail Siegel, Hobart's Aaron Burch and Pasha Malla, who drove in together from the Ann Arbor reading Tuesday, along with Pasha friend Nicole, and Doug Wilson. Again, those who I had the opportunity and pleasure to speak to and have forgotten to include you, just chastise away in the comments section.
Then, I bailed on Roy. Since then he's read at Burke's Books in Memphis with Corey Mesler and signed books at Malaprop's in Asheville, and dined with CAAF of Tingle Alley, along with Mr. Tingle and the great Dzanc publicist, Lauren Snyder, and her fiance Seth. But, I couldn't handle the pace and bailed. Good thing I don't write anything worthy of a book tour!
He’ll be reading in the Midwest, on both the West and East Coasts, and the South as well. He’s hitting big cities and smaller ones as well. Bookstores, Reading Series, and universities. Find the event closest to you, spread the word, and show up in force. The full schedule is below, but first – where you can find Roy’s All Over!
Amazon has begun showing the collection (Dzanc’s debut title) as in stock, though they only have five left! Get yours now!
You can also purchase it from the Dzanc website and it will soon be in Barnes & Nobles, Borders, and independent stores across the country. You can also have your favorite local independent order it if they’ve not done so yet – let them know they can get it through Baker & Taylor, or direct from Dzanc (they can email Dan at [email protected]).
Back to the schedule for where you can see Roy!
Tuesday 10/23 – Shaman Drum – Ann Arbor, MI – 7 p.m.
http://www.shamandrum.com/bookshop/index.php?main_page=calendar&view=296
Wednesday 10/24 – Happy Ending Reading Series – New York, NY – 8 p.m.
(with Benjamin Percy and Min Jin Lee and music by Max Gabriel)
http://www.amandastern.com/happyending.html
Thursday 10/25 – Fixx Reading Series – Chicago, IL – 7:30 p.m.
(with Elizabeth Crane and Jonathan Messinger)
http://www.guthagogo.com/FixxReadings.html
Friday 10/26 – Burke’s Books – Memphis, TN – TBA
http://www.burkesbooks.com/
Saturday 10/27 – Malaprop’s – Asheville, NC – 3 p.m.
http://www.malaprops.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=358205
Monday 10/29 – Turnrow – Greenwood, MS – TBA
http://www.turnrowbooks.com/
Tuesday 10/30 – Octavia Books – New Orleans, LA – 6 p.m.
http://octaviabooks.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp;jsessionid=abcLjEKuHzaK1-dttbxwr?s=storeevents&eventId=357136
Thursday 11/1 – Saturday 11/3 – University of Iowa – Iowa City, IA
Non-Fiction Now Conference
http://english.uiowa.edu/nonfiction/nonfictionow07/index.html
Friday 11/2 – 8:45 – 10:15 a.m. – “Travel Writing: To Simmer or Not to Simmer”
Monday 11/5 – UIUC – Illini Union Bookstore – 4:30 p.m.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/mfa/content/events.shtml
Wednesday 11/7 – UC-Davis – 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Thursday 11/8 – Mendocino College Library – CA - TBA
No, not with this post. Don't be silly. I'm barely keeping up with the Poetry Month Works of the Day. But, soon, I will be posting about some great readings attended in recent months (man, I used to be able to say weeks there, but, not really any longer).
So, tune back in soon to read about Liesel Litzenburger's return to the UM, catching Christina Kallery at Poet's Follies in Grosse Pointe, the last Snowbound Series reading with JoAnna Karner, Kawita Kandpal (all she did was bring about 80 people to tears with her words), and Vievee Francis (her second books is going to be a freaking MONSTER), then there was the Thomas Sayers Ellis reading, and an Inside Out Literary Arts Project reading with Nandi Comer, Vievee Francis and Matthew Olzmann.
In the past four weeks I've had the pleasure of hitting Ann Arbor one night in the middle of each. This was to catch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Tom Bissell, Ander Monson and Arthur Phillips. For the last three you readers will get some bonus information as I was fortunate enough to be asked to tag along to their post-reading activities - let's just say Bissell's got an entourage like one Vinnie Chase. The other two, slightly smaller, yet no less cool to hang out with.
Looking forward to sharing my impressions and notes soon.
Author Readings - January 31, 2007 - Work In Process Series - Crazy Wisdom in Ann Arbor
Dubbed the EMU WIP Reading as two professors from their faculty were pulled in for the evening: Christine Hume and Jeff Parker.
Jeff introduced Christine and told a story about seeing her for the first time and noticing her tattoo of a mosquito, which reminded... At this point, Christine let Jeff know that the tattoo was of a Crane Fly, completely destroying his introduction plan.
Christine read 9 new poems:
- Ambient Flowers (in which she channeled Carolyn Burgenet - you can rest assure I've butchered the spelling of that name)
- Nocurnal Dimensions of the Future
- Nine Stitches and Liquid Morphine
- You May Find This Night
- One that I completely missed the name of - though she did lead in with the mention that it might have become obvious to the audience by this point that she suffered from insomnia
- Field of Suspicion (This was led into with a comment that her poems were building tension which would be broken by Jeff's humor)
- Recurrent Curse
- Ward
- Noctoluscent Elegy
Christine then introduced Jeff, who read a story called 2 Hours 53 Minutes, which was written for an anthology about love letters called Love is a Four Letter Word.
The WIP series appears to be a very well attended series as I arrived about ten minutes early and only found a seat due to the kindness of another. Christine's poems were hit and miss with me - some of those that may have been heavily results of her insomnia didn't click with me - not that I strongly disliked them, I just didn't get them - didn't have that excited moment in them where the poem just grabs my attention front and center. A few of the poems did just that though. And Christine's reading style was very smooth - looking up frequently and reading in a strong voice.
Parker's story did hit home with me - written in the from of nothing but emails from the protagonist to his wife and some former girlfriends, all of which occur in the slightly less than 3 hours indicated in the title. This story is great, and Jeff tackled it with his usual self-depreciating style.
The Poet's Follies was held last night at the Grosse Pointe Art Center and this month there was a full line-up. The band The Luddites (or at least 5/11 of them) were the house band for the night, playing a few songs, playing back-up for spoken word poet, Marsha Carter. International Womens Writing Guild founder/director, Hannelore Hahn read a few passages/experiences from her autobiography. Mariela Griffor was there as M.C. and poet, and Peter Markus was the headliner.
Marsha Carter was the first reader to perform, and as stated the partial-Luddites played a nice slightly jazzy background for her spoken word efforts - So What Do You Do? and Broccoli Don't Taste Like Peach Cobbler, both of which were highly entertaining and thought provoking.
Hannelore Hahn read about five sections, or episodes, from her autobiography after flying in from New York for this event. She and her parents were German refugees and she discussed what she felt the differences were between refugees and exiles.
Mariela Griffor read five pieces (though one was incredibly short) from her debut collection, Exiliana:
- I was coughing when she read the title and couldn't tell - though it might be Robust (about her grandfather)
- How <word not heard> Begins
- Heartland (about both her native land, and her first husband)
- Love versus Man (which was the original title of the book - and was about her first husband)
- Valentine's Day in Detroit (for Edward)
Mariela read these poems, which could be both dark and very emotional, in a strong, confident voice. They were very touching poems.
Then Peter read. He was announced as the Wayne State University 2007 Detroit Urban Writer-in Residency a few days back. He started by reading the first and last pages of an essay he's written entitled "Why I Can't Say Yoknapatawpha County," a piece on place and how important Markus finds it to be in regards to one's writing.
Stories read came from what could very well be Peter's fourth installment in his books of mud.
- What the Fish of the River Tells Us To Do
- Fish Head, or The Fish That Got Away
- We Eat Mud
- Our Mother is a Fish (which takes as its title, his favorite sentence ever, of course, from Faulkner)
- The Sound the Hammer Makes
I've expounded greatly on this blog over the past few months in regards to my appreciation of Peter's work. Hearing bits from that essay were interesting, allowing for some more understanding of his work. I strongly suggest you go out and find some of his work, much is available online (see below about three posts for example), and try to go see him read.
This reading was one of the University of Michigan Zell Reading Series efforts - in the East Quad's Residential College Auditorium. The occasion brought back to UM MFA graduates - Elwood Reid and the more recently graduated Rattawut Lapcharoensap (or, kindly, A, to his friends). Both have seen post graduate success.
Lapcharoensap was introduced first and read a new effort. Like the stories in his collection, Sightseeing, this new one was set in Thailand. It concerned some locals working as valets (the title of the story was Valet) at an authentic Thai restaurant that was getting its ass kicked by a newer, flashier restaurant across the highway - one with an animatronic dragon outside, blowing propane flames every so often.
Lapcharoensap does a nice job reading - looking up frequently and finding a nice rhythm. The story was pretty long, which is hard to do with a new work and keep attention, but Rattawut did a nice job. The story might not have been his best (though, I always have a hard time telling just how good a longer story is when listening and not reading) - but since his best are award winners, that's not all that bad, but it had some great lines and moments throughout.
Next up was Elwood Reid, who was in a class with me way back when. He remarked how generous the university had been with him as it was the third time he'd been invited by Eileen Pollock. The other two times he had to bail at last second and was shocked the university asked him a third time.
He read a story that was published in GQ a year and a half ago or so - Deck Ape. It's a story fans of Daniel Woodrell might enjoy, and much more humorous than the typical Elwood Reid fare. It's apparently one of many Elwood has written with these characters and will probably be looking for a home in future years.
The Zell series is looking to be quite good this semester so take a look for more details online and try to arrange your schedule for a visit or two.
The third session of the four monthly readings that are to be known as the Snowbound Series was this past Wednesday night. Two more Write Word, Write Now students, Tommeye Blount, and Scheherazade, as well as Detroit area poet, Robert Fanning, all read from their work.
The word is obviously getting out as there had to be between 75 and 100 people jammed into the already cozy Fireside Lounge in the Scarab Club, and as with the previous two months' readings - those who made the effort, got way more than their money's worth (hell, had they had to actually pay something they still could have said that!).
Detroit Free Press columnist, Desiree Cooper once again took the hosting reins and had a nice introduction, and the event was even semi-sponsored as coffee was provided by Shawn of Cafe 1923 of Hamtramck, a wonderful spot frequented by poets, writers and readers alike.
First up was Tommeye Blount, who noted that this past year or so, he's been thinking about what is man and how does he deal with the answer - either accepting or rejecting it.
The first poem was inspired by the work of Jean Michel Basquiat, and was titled, Man, Myth and Demons. He followed this first poem with:
- The Uncertainty of a Man in Men’s Fragrance
- Neil Armstrong’s Missing Article Found Underneath the Static
- The Lifeboat Foundation – a Non-Profit Foundation
- The Moth Man’s Lament
- How to Dismantle Superman – My Father, Detroit, 2005
- Keepers of the Aviary
- Drawing of a Birthday Party While Eating Bread Putting at a Family Buffet
- A Father Runs Away with the Circus and Other Tales
- A Man Who Cleans Up Road Kill Talks About Earning a Living
- He Died of Heroin Abuse and a Weak Heart Which Made His Extremities Swell
- Cleaning Father’s Kitchen Cabinets
Blount is a performer. He uses inflection of voice, cocked head and facial features to draw the reader into his poem, and not just sit there thinking Tommeye Blount is talking to them. He spent a lot of time in his poems working through childhood and family issues, as well as pop culture, art and the daily headlines.
Next up was the quite pregnant, Scheherezade (I want to say Parrish, please correct me if I'm wrong), who noted that Driftwood issue number 9 is coming soon and contains two of her poems!
She read:
- I’m From
- On Wanting to Have a More Common Name Like My Godfather, or my Neighbor Whom I Loathe
- A Patty Cake for Miss Mary, Little Sally, and Rachel, the Hooker That Lived Down the Street
- Birds of a Feather
- <I missed it, but it had to do with a Patient having a 16# tumor removed from her face and getting a new life>
- The Better Half – A Wife’s Love
- I Love You
- The Zen of Birthing Class (with the near classic lines “Do not urinate on the instructor’s furniture,” and “If there are snacks, partake.”)
Another rock solid reader, often drawing laughter from the crowd, both with her poetry, and her in-between poems comments. She even had a bit of a self-reflective "hmpf" after reading The Better Half.
Last, but not least, was EWN favorite, Robert Fanning. Robert has begun to concentrate on writing again recently - as Program Director of InsideOut Literary Arts Project, he's quite busy, even without the writing. He read:
- Dying Star
- One and a Half Miles Away From Dying
- The Boy Who Taught Me How to Whistle (about his older brother who committed suicide nearly two years ago, without leaving a note)
- The Man Who Names Wars
- Limbo’s Babies Softly Falling
- A Deer in the Target
- Aurora Borealis
- Tributary
- The Darkness, Literal and Figuratively – for Gabriel Fanning, 19 months
- Lights Bought Lies
Robert is a fantastic reader, one who brings voices to his various characters. his poems bring forth a great deal of laughter, but also come around to that moment when you as a reader catch the deeper meanings, and they are there.
I'm planning on posting the Q&A session that all three readers particpated in, sometime later today.
Overall, again, just a fantastic reading series and wonderful environment to get to hang around for a couple of hours. The next, and currently final, one is Wednesday, February 21st, again at 7 p.m. and again, free.
Don’t forget to shut off your cell phone, or turn off the ringer. Um…should be a no-brainer, but obviously a couple of people did not do this. One person actually answered his phone DURING A READING. Not cool. Please be respectful to the authors and audience.
