Literary Events Calendar
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Young Writers!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009 6-8 PM at Intermedia Arts 2822 Lyndale Ave. S, Minneapolis MN 55408 $2 suggested donation for pizzaWith Daniel Muro LaMere and Kathryn Savage
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This monthly gathering is the spot for creative young voices! A place for young writers (ages 19 and under) to meet other youth writers, workshop their writing, work with local artists, participate in public literary readings and have fun! Grab your notebook and head over to Intermedia Arts to find out what Young Writers! is all about. -
The Carol Connolly Reading Series
Readings at Banfill-Locke
Friday, January 9, 2009 7:30 PM at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts 6666 E River Rd, Fridley Free and open to the publicHosted by Anna George Meek. Featuring:
TIM NOLAN was born in Minneapolis in 1954. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1978 with a B.A. in English. He and his wife Kate moved to New York City in 1978 where he obtained an M.F.A. degree in writing from Columbia University, worked as an archivist at the Whitney Museum, and read the poetry slush pile for The Paris Review. He returned to Minnesota in 1985 and received his law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in 1989. Tim is an attorney with the McGrann Shea law firm in Minneapolis where he practices in litigation, including real estate, eminent domain, and construction. He and his wife Kate live in South Minneapolis with their three teenagers-Elizabeth, Maeve and Frank. Tim's poems have appeared in many periodicals, including The Gettysburg Review, The Nation, Ploughshares, and Water~Stone. Garrison Keillor has read Tim's poems on The Writer's Almanac on National Public Radio. The Sound of It is Tim's first book of poems.THOR POLSON’s novel Childsong (Athena Press, London 2007) is set in the “me-generation” of a small liberal-arts college in the Midwest and explores the troubled territory of late adolescence and early adulthood. Polson was born in Kansas City in 1957, and, after his early years spent in Missouri and overseas, he studied at Grinnell College in Iowa, where he majored in English and music. He has since earned various graduate degrees in modern and classical languages and has spent most of his life working as a language teacher. Polson is currently working on a translation of short pieces by Franz Kafka, and he has two future novels in mind: Katabasis, a historical novel based on life of Xenophon, and Brothers, a novel dealing with the lives of three brothers as described by their children, their wives, their friends, and themselves. For further information, please visit his website at www.thorpolson.com.
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The Carol Connolly Reading Series
Speculations
Friday, January 16, 2009 6:30 PM at DreamHaven Books 2301 E 38th St, Minneapolis Free and open to the publicHosted by Eric Heideman
Featuring:
JOHN CALVIN REZMERSKI's poems and essays have been published in newspapers, magazines, and anthologies as varied as the Wall Street Journal, Mennonite Life, Nursing Outloud- and Tales of the Unanticipated. His books include The Fredrick Manfred Reader and What do I Know? New and Selected Poems (both Holy Cow! Press). Most recently he has served as co-editor of County Lines (League of Minnesota Poets), an anthology of Minnesota poetry, county by county, commemorating the state's sesquicentennial.Speculations is a co-production with SF Minnesota, a multicultural speculative fiction organization. Readings run until 7:15 and are followed by a reception with free soda pop and cookies. This Carol Connolly Reading is sponsored in part by DreamHaven Books.
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The Carol Connolly Reading Series
Readings By Writers
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 7:30 PM at the historic University Club of St Paul 420 Summit Ave, St Paul Free and open to the publicHosted by Julie Bates. Featuring:
The 42nd Street Irregulars. This group of writers has met regularly for 20 years and has produced the anthology Charlotte’s Table.JUDITH COGGINS, founding member of the Irregulars, has been writing poetry since she discovered that she had something to say, but wasn’t interested in running for office or becoming a public speaker. She writes to make sense of this mad and fascinating world.
RICK FOURNIER, after retiring from a decades long career as a teacher of literature, speech and drama in high schools and colleges, has had more than 60 poems published in a variety of magazines and journals, and has completed a novel. Rick is a two-time winner of the Minneapolis/Ibaraki haiku contest. His third play, A Matter of Honor, was read at the Playwright’s Center.
ROGER JONES, longtime University of Minnesota physics professor, has retired from teaching, but not from writing. He is a published author, working now on a memoir as well as travel essays, and work involving science, philosophy, and yes, poetry.
ELIZABETH LOFGREN, photographer, horse trainer and teacher, has devoted over three decades to writing memoir, short stories, and poetry.
JOYCE MELLSTROM, once an English teacher, has retooled and become a shiatsu practitioner. Her poetry, she says, may prevent her from repeating past mistakes and point her on the way to equally daring new adventures.
DIANE PECORARO, prize-winning poet, whose short poems have been read in many locales, says she mines the 24 hours in each day for material for her serious and not-so-serious poems about life and her work in the field of English as a Second Language/ESL.
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The Carol Connolly Reading Series
GLBT Reading Series
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 7:00 PM at Intermedia Arts 2822 Lyndale Ave. S, Minneapolis Free and open to the publicHosted by John Medeiros and Andrea Jenkins
Featuring:
CARLA-ELAINE JOHNSON enjoys taking the long way home, as evidenced by her steady progression west from Maryland to Minnesota via New York and Ohio. She graduated in 2007 with her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Minnesota. She is currently finishing her first book, Third Time Lucky: A Latebloomer's Spiritual Memoir. Third Time Lucky is a love story to a spiritual journey that blends childhood faith, adult realism and coming out. Through an exploration of the religious stops from Christianity through Judaism to Paganism, the book is a meditation on the importance of faith, the outer stance it takes in a person's life and the inner evolution. She has work in the forthcoming anthology, Growing Up Churched. Her work has appeared in Dislocate and on the Talking Volumes Book Club Guide series. Johnson lives in a funky old house surrounded by an urban Garden of Eden in St. Paul. She teaches at the College of St. Catherine and at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. When she isn't teaching or writing, she enjoys puttering with herbs, travel and reading. She is a closet fan of The Amazing Race, and would love to use the show as the backdrop for her next work.ALI SANDS began journaling her experiences since the day her partner announced, "I am transgender", three years ago. Gradually, she came to the awareness that information and support for partners of trans people was very difficult, if not impossible, to find. As she shared her vulnerable, and at times raw stories with friends and professionals in the community, the decision was made to publish the journals in book form. "I Know You Are But What Am I?" will be published in early 2009. In addition, two gender-related pieces were selected for publication by Queer Collections. In hopes of bringing together a community of people who are often times on the periphery, Ali has lead workshops and book readings to help support other partners of transgender individuals. Ali has two adult children, and lives and works in Uptown with her husband.
Funds for this activity are provided by the COMPAS Community Art Program through a grant from the McKnight Foundation. The Carol Connolly Reading Series is sponsored in part by The Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, DreamHaven Books, Patrick's Cabaret, SF Minnesota, and the University Club of Saint Paul.
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SASE/Jerome Grants for Emerging Writers
Annual SASE/Jerome Celebration
Saturday, January 31, 2009 7 PM at Intermedia Arts 2822 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis Admission by donationJoin us at Intermedia Arts for a spectacular evening of new writing from seven of the Twin Cities’ most talented emerging writers. The SASE/Jerome Celebration honors the passion and dedication of new and emerging writers, and brings to a close our 2008 grant year. Our goal is to provide financial assistance, professional encouragement, and recognition to a culturally and socio-economically diverse group of literary artists, in an effort to strengthen and support Minnesota's literary community.
Featuring 2008 Grant Recipients:
DHANA-MARIE BRANTON is a Minneapolis-based creative nonfiction writer. She will return to the New York State Writers Institute to study with Phillip Lopate. A native Chicagoan, Dhana-Marie is also an award-winning playwright whose work has been produced in Chicago and New York City.CHARLES CONLEY is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s MFA in Creative Writing program. He lives in Minneapolis and will use the SASE/Jerome grant to complete his short story collection.
ELISSA ELLIOTT received a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and her master’s in education from UCLA. Her first novel will be published by Bantam Books in the Fall of 2008. Her work has appeared in The Baltimore Review, and her book reviews have been printed in Books & Culture, Paste Magazine and Elle. She is a former winner of the Loft Mentor Series and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first screenplay is scheduled to begin filming in the Summer of 2008. She’s been a finalist for the McKnight Screenwriters Fellowship and a semi-finalist for the Nicholl Screenwriters Fellowship. She lives in Rochester with her husband.
LAURA FLYNN was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She is the author of Swallow the Ocean, a memoir of growing up in the face of her mother’s catastrophic mental illness, published by Counterpoint Press in February 2008. She received her BA from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, where she served as the inaugural fellow in the Scribe for Human Rights Project, jointly sponsored by the Human Rights and the Creative Writing Programs at the University of Minnesota. She has been an activist and human rights advocate all her adult life. She lived in Haiti from 1994-2000 and remains deeply involved in the struggle for democracy and human dignity in that country. She is the editor of Eyes of the Heart: Seeking a Path for the Poor in the Age of Globalization by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Common Courage Press, 2000. She currently teaches editing at the University of Minnesota, and lives in Minneapolis with her husband, poet Mike Rollin.
JOHN MEDEIROS is a writer living in Minneapolis. His work has appeared in Water~Stone, Gulf Coast; Willow Springs; Gents, Badboys and Barbarians: An Anthology of New Gay Male Poetry; Evergreen Chronicles; Christopher Street; Chiron Review; and Writers Against War. He is the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board grant; Gulf Coast's First Place Nonfiction Award; and the Blacklock Nature Sanctuary Fellowship for Emerging Artists. He is a recent graduate of Hamline University, where his memoir Self, Divided was awarded the Outstanding Creative Nonfiction Thesis of the Year, and his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts in Fridley, Minnesota.
RACHEL MORITZ received her MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her poetry chapbook, The Winchester Monologues, won the 2005 New Michigan Press Competition. Her work has been recently published or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Five Fingers Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Indiana Review and other journals. She edits WinteRed Press, a publisher of poetry chaplets and broadsides. She will use her SASE/Jerome grant to pursue a mentorship with an established poet and to work on her poetry manuscript.
MATT RASMUSSEN received a bachelor’s degree from Gustavus Adolphus College and a master’s degree in creative writing from Emerson College. He is a former Peace Corps Volunteer (Papua New Guinea ’99-‘01) and participant in the Loft Mentor Series (’06-’07). His poetry has been recently published or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Cimmaron Review, Passages North, Dislocate, New York Quarterly, LIT, and What Light: This Week’s Poem at mnartists.org. He currently lives in Robbinsdale and teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College and Rasmussen College. His chapbook, Fingergun, is available from Kitchen Press.
The SASE/Jerome Awards, presented by Intermedia Arts, are supported by the Jerome Foundation.
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For more information about any of our literary events, call or email (612) 871-4444 or julie@intermediaarts.org.