Marge Piercy To Give Reading at UNM

Poet/Author Marge Piercy

May 21st at Noon

Domenici Building, Room 2012 on the UNM HSC North Campus.

Everyone is welcome.

Ms. Piercy is the author of seventeen novels including The New York Times Bestseller Gone To Soldiers; the National Bestsellers Braided Lives and The Longings of Women and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time; seventeen volumes of poetry, and a critically acclaimed memoir Sleeping with Cats. Born in center city Detroit, educated at the University of Michigan, the recipient of four honorary doctorates, she has been a key player in many of the major progressive political battles of our time, including the anti-Vietnam war and the women’s movement, and most recently an active participant in the resistance to the war in Iraq.

A popular speaker on college campuses, she has been a featured writer on Bill Moyers’ PBS Specials, Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, Terri Gross’ Fresh Air, the Today Show, and many radio programs nationwide including Oprah & Friends. Praised as one of the few American writers who are accomplished poets as well as novelists – Piercy is one of our country’s best selling poets – she is also the master of many genres: historical novels, science fiction (for which she won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction in the United Kingdom), novels of social comment and contemporary entertainments. She has taught, lectured and/or performed her work at well over 400 universities around the world.

“Marge Piercy is not just an author, she’s a cultural touchstone. Few writers in modern memory have sustained her passion, and skill, for creating stories of consequence.” -The Boston Globe

Thursday, May 21st at 12:00 Noon

Domenici Building, Room 2012
UNM HSC North Campus.

Everyone is welcome.

Ms. Piercy is the author of seventeen novels including The New York Times Bestseller Gone To Soldiers; the National Bestsellers Braided Lives and The Longings of Women and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time; seventeen volumes of poetry, and a critically acclaimed memoir Sleeping with Cats.

Born in center city Detroit, educated at the University of Michigan, the recipient of four honorary doctorates, she has been a key player in many of the major progressive political battles of our time, including the anti-Vietnam war and the women’s movement, and most recently an active participant in the resistance to the war in Iraq.

A popular speaker on college campuses, she has been a featured writer on Bill Moyers’ PBS Specials, Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, Terri Gross’ Fresh Air, the Today Show, and many radio programs nationwide including Oprah & Friends. Praised as one of the few American writers who are accomplished poets as well as novelists – Piercy is one of our country’s best selling poets – she is also the master of many genres: historical novels, science fiction (for which she won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction in the United Kingdom), novels of social comment and contemporary entertainments. She has taught, lectured and/or performed her work at well over 400 universities around the world.

“Marge Piercy is not just an author, she’s a cultural touchstone. Few writers in modern memory have sustained her passion, and skill, for creating stories of consequence.” -The Boston Globe

Write-to-Heal Poetry Reading & Talk

When: Tuesday May 12th, 2009, 7-9pm

Where: The Harwood Art Center 1114-7th St. NW (242-6367)

Cost: Free or donations 

Join Mary Oishi, Michelle Otero, & Lisa Gill

This reading and talk will address violence against women as well as everything from healing from trauma with words to celebrating the strength and vitality of women surviving against odds. Physical, emotional, and mental health and wellbeing will be addressed. The trio of speakers will provide a wide range of stylistic takes on the issues and help develop and discuss myriad strategies for incorporating writing into recovery processes.

An open mic, poetry-round-robin, led by Mary Oishi will follow.

Mary Oishi is a lifelong cultural activist, personally writing and performing lyrics and poetry of struggle, as well as organizing events honoring women, protesting war, combating racism, and championing human rights. She served as an NGO delegate to the U.N. World Conference Against Racism. She was honored by Pridefest 2007 for her Queer Poetry Series and her work with GLBT teens. Oishi has worked in community and college public radio since 1995, and serves on staff at KUNM. She is dedicated to giving people voice, whether on the airwaves or in a coffeeshop or stage.

Michelle Otero is the author of Malinche’s Daughter (Momotombo Press, 2006), an essay collection based on her work with women survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Oaxaca, Mexico. She is a founding member of The Women Writers’ Collective, an El Paso-based group that raises awareness of women’s issues. She holds a B.A. in History from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Vermont College.

Lisa Gill is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and the author of two books of poetry, Red as a Lotus and Mortar & Pestle. Her essays appear in Blue Mesa Review, The Truth About the Fact, and Room Magazine and one was a finalist in the Writers@Work competition sponsored by Quarterly West. She was the artistic director of STIR: A Festival of Words and is currently serving as an intern for the Governor’s Women’s Health Advisory Council to plan events for National Women’s Health Week.

Amanda Eyre Ward reads at Bookworks

A reading recommended by Michael Wolfe:

Time: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 6:00 p.m. ; Location: Bookworks Phone: 505-344-8139

Amanda Eyre Ward has written some great novels, including How To Be Lost. Meet Amanda and hear all about her latest collection of short fiction, Love Stories in This Town.

link to bookworks event site: http://www.bkwrks.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=storeevents&eventId=416954
link to Amanda Eyre Ward’s book: www.lovestoriesinthistown.com

International Day of the Books, Friday April 24

Friday, April 24th from 5-9pm: UNM Press authors Nasario Garcia, Gloria Zamora, Melody Groves, Pari Noskin Taichert, Ana Baca, Cristina and Armando Ortega, Susan Gardner, Jason Yurcic, and Marianne Broyles read from and sign their books as part of Old Town’s Second Annual International Day of the Books. The readings and signings will take place in Old Town Plaza in Albuquerque, NM.

Idris Goodwin Break Beat Poetica

Not to be missed….

Friday April 24th & Saturday April 25th @ 7pm

“Join me at the Q Staff Theater for two nights of my best stuff as a solo performer, spoken word artist, hip hop man of the people, blah blah blah…”

Featuring Special Guest Openers:

Friday – New Mexico Spoken Word Icons Danny Solis & Jessica Lopez
Saturday – Beat Box Artist Zack Freeman & UNM Poet Carmelita Jaramillo

Q Staff Theater
4819 Central Ave NE
(east of UNM on Central, across from the Highland Theater)

$10 General, $8 Student

Idris Goodwin is an award-winning hip hop playwright, break beat poet, recording artist and teacher committed to making work that incites, inspires, and engages. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Idris a Playwright-in-Residence grant to explore hip-hop aesthetics in theater. Idris’ break beat poetry was featured on season six of Russell Simmons’ HBO Def Poetry as well as the Spoken Word Revolution Redux Anthology. Idris frequently teaches and lectures at institutions across the country on themes of art and activism. Visit www.idrisgoodwin.blogspot.com for free music and video clips.

Check out Idris on YouTube:

April 17: Friday Fun

LOTS of events to choose from this Friday, April 17

7 pm WORKS IN PROGRESS at RB Winnings
Featuring Valerie Santillanes, Marisa P. Clark and Julie Mars

6:30 pm WEST END NEW SERIES LAUNCH at The Harwood Art Center a reading in celebration of the launch of the New Series, a poetry venture devoted to emerging writers, West End Press will host a reading Friday, April 17, at 6:30 PM at the Harwood Art Center. Poets reading include Jason Yurcic, Marianne Broyles, Sy Hoahwah, and Jenifer Rae Vernon.

Following the reading will be a discussion of poetry’s cultural
influence in recovering meaning in hard economic times. Books will be
available for purchase and signing. While a $5 donation is suggested,
no one will be turned away for lack of money. The Harwood Art Center is located at 1114 7th St NW, in Albuquerque. For more information, please contact Amanda Sutton, Publicity for West End Press, at
amandaasutton@hotmail.com or 505-400-3898.

and last, but NOT AT ALL least…

6-9 pm La Tierra y El Aqua at the South Valley Economic Development Center
Arts of Aztlán presents “La Tierra y El Agua,” an art show celebrating community and our connection to the land, to benefit Connecting Community Voices, a non-profit dedicated to building positive social change through creative community expression. Join us for art, poetry, music, food and community on Friday, 6-9 at the South Valley Economic Development Center, on Isleta, south of Bridge, right next to the Blake’s.

Featured literary readers include UNM’s own  Tanaya Winder (MFA/poetry) and Michelle Otero (visiting creative non-fiction professor and author of Malinche’s Daughter)

For Fans of Walt Whitman

“Pure Grass” a dramatic performance in honor of Walt Whitman comes to UNM:

April 8th at 7:00 p.m.
Student Union Building, Ballroom A
University of New Mexico campus.

PURE GRASS, a dramatic interpretation by Dr. Bruce Noll honoring nineteenth-century poet Walt Whitman’s American classic “Leaves of Grass,” will once again be performed at UNM. For nearly 40 years, Dr. Noll’s program has received wide acclaim from audiences in 26 U.S. states as well as in China, Iceland and Korea.

Noll’s program, composed entirely of excerpts from Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” weaves together the poet’s words and themes, striving always through vivid oral interpretation to bring this highly influential work of literature to life.

For more information about visit Bruce Noll’s website:
http://www.unm.edu/~banoll/index.htm

UNM Poets and Writers Series Presents: Irving Weinman

Irving Weinman will be reading Monday, March 30 at 7:00 pm in the Student Union Building – Luminaria Room

Irving Weinman was born in Boston and educated there and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dublin, Ireland, and Cambridge, England. He has spent much time attempting to overcome the benefits of this education by working on boats in the West Indies, playing jazz piano in various dives and continents, and finally, and in this order, by writing poetry, short stories and novels. His four published novels are character thrillers filled with action large and small. He has also written reviews for major US and British publications and taught fiction and led workshops in English and American universities. He has been Chair of the Poets’ Workshop at the British Poetry Society, and he is the founder and Executive Director of the Key West Writers’ Workshop.

UNM Poets and Writers Series Presents: Blas Falconer

Blas Falconer will be reading Tuesday, March 31 at 7:30 pm in the Student Union Building – Luminaria Room

Blas Falconer is the author of A Question of Gravity and Light (University of Arizona Press) and the chapbook, The Perfect Hour (Pleasure Boat Studio). He is currently an assistant professor in Languages and Literature at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, where he also serves as the poetry editor of Zone 3. Falconer won the New Delta Review Eyster Prize for Poetry in 2000 and was a semifinalist for The Nation Poetry Prize in 1998, 2002, and 2003.

Michael Datcher coming May 9th!

Michael Datcher is the author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times Bestseller RAISING FENCES — a TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB Book of the Month pick. The film rights were optioned by actor Will Smith’s Overbrook Productions, who hired Datcher to write the screenplay.

He is co-editor of TOUGH LOVE: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur. Datcher’s latest play SILENCE was commissioned by and premiered at the Getty Museum. He has appeared on both news programs’ Nightline and Dateline as an analyst and is a frequent commentator on BBC Radio. He is co-host of the weekly public affairs news magazine BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE on 90.7 FM KPFK.

Datcher’s writing has appeared in the Washington Post, LA Times, Baltimore Sun, The Source, Ladies Home Journal, Vibe among many other publications. He has curated and/or presented his work at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hammer Museum and other art institutions. Datcher is the former Director of Literary Programs at the World Stage Writer’s Workshop in Leimert Park. He now sits on their board of directors. Datcher has also served on the boards of PEN USA and Beyond Baroque Literary Center. He is Editor of THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FACT: International Journal of Literary Nonfiction. Datcher is a professor of English at Loyola Marymount University.

AND HE’LL BE HERE FOR 516 Words MAY 9th!!!

The event is sponsored by 516 Arts, UNM Creative Writing, and the Outpost Performance Space.

Watch for fliers, and more details to come…