Rubbing Elbows

–posted by Jennifer

One of the perks of being in an MFA program is meeting authors.  Sometimes its just the opportunity to hear him/her read work and participate in a Question and Answer, sometimes there is a workshop involved, and sometimes it is some serious elbow rubbing.

Last night we hosted Margaret Atwood and her partner Graeme Gibson for dinner. It was an intimate party coordinated by fellow MFAer Carmela Starace–  who is a most gracious hostess.  She arranged for Jennifer James 101 (one of Albuquerque’s finest restaurants) to host the event, and serve a gourmet vegetarian dinner featuring locally grown foods.

Both Atwood and Gibson were most gracious with their time and I know for a fact they’d been up and on the road to Albuquerque since the wee early hours.  That they weren’t nodding off mid conversation is a testament to their stamina and graciousness.

I had the good luck to be seated at a table with Mr. Gibson, and we had a great conversation about Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods…  though we didn’t talk about his book The Bedside Book of Beasts, an anthology of writings and illustrations that explore the relationship between predator and prey, he did read from his book this evening, and I for one am intrigued.   I also spent a few minutes with Ms. Atwood as well, and am not only excited to read her new book The Year of the Flood, but her last non-fiction piece, Payback, about the culture of debt…  published just last year.

AND for a “review” of the Atwood/Gibson reading, check out the Blue Mesa Review Blog.

Margaret Atwood at UNM

Margaret Atwood will be reading from her new book, The Year of the Flood

7 pm on Monday, November 16

at Woodward Hall on UNM’s main campus

Atwood is the author of many novels, notably The Handmaid’s Tale, and Oryx and Crake – the novel to which The Year of the Flood is written as a prequel.

She will be accompanied by her partner, Graeme Gibson who will discuss his book The Bedside Book of Birds a collection of writing focused on the connection between humans and the creatures they endeavor to tame.

Tickets for the event will be $10, of which 100% will be donated to the group Wild Earth Guardians.

More info at http://www.bkwrks.com/event/atwood

Don’t miss this! Margaret Atwood is one of the most award winning authors of our time….

October 23 Works in Progress

–posted by Jennifer

On Friday October 23, 2009 the 2nd of this semester’s WORKS IN PROGRESS readings, sponsored by the Creative Writing Department at UNM will be held.

Readers include:

Poet Erika Sanchez, who says, “Sometimes images seem to haunt me until I am compelled to write a poem around them; other times I do everything I can to “break my eye open” ….To break your eye open is exactly what it sounds like— to see the world in a new way, to make unusual associations.”

Part Time UNM Instructor Debra Goldberg who writes magical realism
fiction.  She has been published in literary magazines such as Inkwell
and Teferet.  Before teaching writing at NYU, Rutgers, UNM, FIT, and
Yeshiva University, she produced television shows for more than twenty
years. She is currently working on a novel and a completing a
collection of short stories.

and Me! Jennifer Simpson….   I write very creative, mostly non-fiction. In other words, I write stuff about my life and try to make it interesting.  I may read  a little poetry (it’s what I do when I’m avoiding homework).

Where?  RB Winnings Coffee at 7-8pm on Harvard 1/2 block south of
Central (right by UNM)

Church with Dana Levin

In case you missed Dana Levin at the last Works in Progress, or like me you can’t get enough of her…   come to Church of Beethoven this SUNDAY or WEDNESDAY:

Sunday, Oct. 11, 10:30am
Weds., Oct. 14, 6pm

1715 5th St NW

Albuquerque, NM 87102

AT:  1715 5th St NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102

MUSIC:  Mozart Concerto No.3 for Violin and Orchestra by Mozart. Violin soloist Roberta Arruda; Barber Adagio for Strings.

Poet Dana Levin will read.

If you haven’t met Dana yet, check out this interview from THE ALIBI:

Poet and new UNM prof Dana Levin talks teaching
By Erin Adair-Hodges

For 11 years, poet Dana Levin taught creative writing at the College of Santa Fe. Though CSF has managed to come back to life in an altered form after its near-total collapse, Levin has moved on. She is now the new Russo Chair of creative writing at UNM. Levin’s first book, In the Surgical Theatre, won the 1999 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, among many others. She is also the author of Wedding Day. Her third book, Sky Burial, is slated for a 2011 release from Copper Canyon Press.

Q:  What do you see as the connection between being a poet and being a teacher? Most poets teach; is that natural? How has that evolved?
read the answer online at THE ALIBI–>

Five Minutes MAX

BLUE MESA RELEASE PARTY….

Come to RB Winnings (on Harvard just south of Central)

7 pm FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9

for the

BLUE MESA REVIEW RELEASE PARTY

We’re celebrating the release of Issue 22

with Readings from the Blue Mesa Review,

..and..

LIVE MUSIC!

..and..

an open mic (5 MINUTES MAX)

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read

Posted by Rick

Do your part and write something ban-worthy next week!

__________________________________

Banned Books Week 2009.
September 26−October 3

Source: ala.org

Banned Books Week (BBW): Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where the freedom to express oneself and the freedom to choose what opinions and viewpoints to consume are both met. As the Intellectual Freedom Manual (ALA, 7th edition) states:

Intellectual freedom can exist only where two essential conditions are met: first, that all individuals have the right to hold any belief on any subject and to convey their ideas in any form they deem appropriate; and second, that society makes an equal commitment to the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas regardless of the communication medium used, the content of the work, and the viewpoints of both the author and receiver of information. Freedom to express oneself through a chosen mode of communication, including the Internet, becomes virtually meaningless if access to that information is not protected. Intellectual freedom implies a circle, and that circle is broken if either freedom of expression or access to ideas is stifled.

Although they were the targets of attempted bannings, most of the books featured during BBW were not banned, thanks to the efforts of librarians to maintain them in their collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores.  It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

For more information on getting involved with Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, please see Calendar of Events and Ideas and Resources. You can also contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org.

First Works in Progress for Fall 2009

The Works in Progress event, a reading of, well, works in progress of the students in the MFA / Creative Writing program alongside faculty, begins THIS FRIDAY, September 18 at 7pm at Winnings Coffee on Harvard just south of Central.

Come early to get a coffee or snack, and a good seat– the place fills up!

Featured readers for September 18th include:

MOLLY BEER, MFA/ CREATIVE NON-FICTION
Molly Beer’s writing on culture and culture clash has appeared in several magazines and journals, including Nimrod International, Calyx, Sycamore Review, Contemporary Verse 2, and Blue Mesa Review. Her essay “As You Set Out for Ithaka” was listed as Notable by Best American Travel Writing 2006. She is the co-author, with David Dunaway, of Singing Out: An Oral History of America’s Folk Music Revivals, forthcoming from Oxford University Press in March 2010. Her current works-in-progress include a memoir about living in El Salvador and an oral history about New Mexico’s 1979 Church Rock uranium spill, the largest nuclear accident in the world after Chernobyl.

DANA LEVIN, CW FACULTY / RUSSO CHAIR
Dana Levin’s first book, In the Surgical Theatre, was awarded the 1999 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize and went on to receive nearly every award available to first books and emerging poets. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including POETRY and The Paris Review. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN, the Witter Bynner Foundation and the Library of Congress, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the Whiting Foundation. A 2007 Guggenheim Fellow, Levin’s most recent book is Wedding Day (Copper Canyon Press).

RUDOLFO SERNA, MFA / FICTION
….bio forthcoming….

DAVID RUBALCAVA TALAMANTES, MFA/ FICTION
David Rubalcava Talamantes relocated to Albuquerque to attend the MFA Program in fiction at UNM. He has poetry published in the Normal Heart and the Rio Grande Review and erotic fiction published in several glossy porno mags. He lives with Lola, a feline diva who has sworn murder upon him one day. David has been slinging coffee for years, writing his shrinking heart out, and attempting to become a semi-optimist by figuring life out, halting his mutant Pisces-power of human manipulation and finally, finding a good man to love. He plans to live in Spain one day.

SAVE THE DATE(S): Works In Progress Readings

Each semester, the Creative Writing Program hosts Works In Progress readings featuring faculty and MFA students.

These readings will take place at at 7pm at R.B. Winnings Coffeehouse, on Harvard just south of Central

• September 18th
• October 23rd
• November 13th

Details forthcoming, but DO schedule these events into your calendar…

TIME TO WRITE

Julie Shigekuni has set up an informal writing time open to MFAs, undergrad creative writing majors, and faculty every other Wednesday, 12:00-1:30, beginning next week, in the Zimmerman Library Westwing Reading Room located on the north/west side of the library: 9/2, 9/16, 9/30, 10/14, 10/28, 11/11, 11/25, 12/9

I know I am looking forward to spending some time writing… in community… it is one of the things I miss most about San Diego and my writing mentor Judy Reeves, a strong proponent of writing together (and author of the book Writing Alone, Writing Together as well as A Writers Book of Days).

From Judy’s book:

Here’s what happens in writing practice groups: First, and most important for some, the writing gets done. More than a few participants have confessed that the only time they write is in their writing practice group, which is too bad because, more than anything, it’s the consistency, the daily doing of the thing, that ultimately makes for better and deeper writing and a more fulfilled writer.  Second, there is the celebration of spending time in community with others doing what we love – writing. No matter what we do before or after our writing group, this is the indissoluble time that fills us up….CONTINUE READING–>

I hope this is what we will find writing together in the Zimmerman Library… and maybe a little magic.

Heard of Church of Beethoven?

If not, this is one of the finest gigs a literary-and-music-loving audience can enjoy in Albuquerque. The performance series, started by Felix Wurman, has been running for over a year now and will actually move into a new space this coming Sunday. Each Sunday morning “service” combines classical music and poetry. Quartets, duets, solos–plus 14 member mini orchestras–perform so close you can see the strings vibrate and hear the breath of the musicians. Then words, slid between movements of music. A number of students and faculty have read there, including Diane Thiel, Chris Wrenn, myself, and others. And Laura Matter was one of the audience members interviewed by NPR when they ran a story on the series. Always a tight great hour-long show…and always all the espresso you can swallow comes with the ten dollar ticket price. I’m reading this coming Sunday March 15th with poet Tony Hunt. Show starts at 10:30 but come early to get seats and also to enjoy lattes etc. And if you’re interested in performing at this venue, my best advice is to come, check one out, and talk to Felix. (I used to book all the poets for him but stopped because I live in Moriarty and can’t make it to every Sunday’s show while I’m in school…) He’s always looking for readers, but you’ll need to have an idea of how the show works before you jump in… For details including info on upcoming shows and directions to space see this link.