Tag Archives: literary reading

May 22: Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Benefit Reading for the Boston Resiliency Fund * Facebook Live, 8-9 pm EDT

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As part of ChagallPAC’s Fourth Fridays Literary Salon Series, the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents a COVID-19 Benefit Reading on May 22nd at 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. EDT. We are excited to have this event featured and broadcast on Creative Northshore Facebook Live Channel.

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop COVID-19 Benefit Reading will support the Boston Resiliency Fund, which raises money for providing food to Boston’s children, families and seniors, providing technology to Boston Public Schools for remote learning, and to provide support to first responders, front-line workers, and healthcare workers so they can effectively do their job and promote public health.

During our reading, we will be raising awareness for the cause and ask our audience members to make donations via the link that we have provided below. We are looking forward to supporting this cause and being able to give back to our community. We encourage our audience members to donate to the Boston Resiliency Fund with the link below. Please tune in to our Facebook Live event!

Donate to the Boston Resiliency Fund – https://bit.ly/2WoktmD
Watch on Facebook Live – https://bit.ly/2WO9MJ7

Featured Authors:

Rita Banerjee is the Director of the MFA in Writing & Publishing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and Creative Executive Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop.  She’s the author of several books including CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press, 2018), the poetry collection Echo in Four Beats (FLP, 2018), which was nominated for the 2019 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize at the Academy of American Poets, the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps (SPR, 2016), and the poetry chapbook Cracklers at Night (FLP, 2010).  She is the co-writer of Burning Down the Louvre (2021), a documentary film about race, intimacy, and tribalism in the United States and in France. Her work also appears in PANK, Nat. Brut., Poets & Writers, Academy of American Poets, Vermont Public Radio, and elsewhere.

Madeleine Barnes is a poet, visual artist, and doctoral fellow at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her debut poetry collection, You Do Not Have To Be Good, was Trio House Press’ open reading selection, and will be published in July 2020. She is the author of three chapbooks, most recently Women’s Work, forthcoming from Tolsun Books in 2021. She serves as Poetry Editor at Cordella Magazine, a publication that showcases the work of women and non-binary writers and artists. She’s the recipient of two Academy of American Poets poetry prizes, the Princeton Poetry Prize, the Gertrude Gordon Journalism Prize, and the Three Rivers Review Poetry Prize. She teaches at Brooklyn College. Visit her at madeleinebarnes.com

Ariel Francisco is the author of A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship (Burrow Press, 2020),  All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017) which was named one of the 8 Best Latino Books of 2017 by Rigoberto Gonzalez, and Before Snowfall, After Rain (Glass Poetry Press, 2016). Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, he was raised in Miami and completed his MFA at Florida International University. He now lives in Brooklyn and is completing a masters in literary translation. He was named one of the Five Florida Writers to Watch in 2019 by The Miami New Times. You can contact him at Ariel.Francisco.305@gmail.com for publication solicitations, manuscript consultations, translations, and reading opportunities.

GM Palmer lives with his family on a poodle farm in North Florida. His poems, stories, and reviews have appeared in The Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. Links to his work can be found on Twitter @gm_palmer.

 

 

 

Diana Norma Szokolyai is a writer/educator. Her books are CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing, Parallel Sparrows, and Roses in the Snow. Her poetry manuscript Milk & Water, was a finalist for Hunger Mountain’s 2020 May Day Mountain chapbook series. Her poetry was also shortlisted for the 2018 Bridport Prize and received honorable mention in the 87th Annual Writer’s Digest Competition. Her work has been published in MER VOX Quarterly, VIDA, Quail Bell Magazine, The Boston Globe, Luna Luna Magazineand has been anthologized in Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History, Teachers As Writers, and Die Morgendämmerung der Worte Moderner Poesie- Atlas der Roma und Sinti. Her poetry – music collaborations have hit the Creative Commons Hot 100 list and been featured on WFMU radio. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of Chagall Performance Art Collaborative and the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop.

June 2: Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Celebrates the 90th Anniversary of the Grolier at the Grolier Poetry Festival – Harvard Sq., Cambridge, MA

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On Saturday June 2, 2018, the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, the oldest poetry bookstore in the United States, will be celebrating its 90th Anniversary in Cambridge, MA. In order to celebrate 90 years of literary and intellectual activity, the Grolier will be hosting The Grolier Poetry Festival, featuring street performances, writing workshops, literary readings, food, and books in Harvard Square. The event was recently featured in The Boston Globe. The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop is delighted to be featured at the Grolier Poetry Festival on May 19 in Harvard Square.  Join us for our featured readings, performances, and CREDO Workshop!  The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop’s new anthology CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing (eds. Rita Banerjee & Diana Norma Szokolyai, May 15, 2018) can be purchased through C&R Press, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Information about our events and writers are posted below:

A 90th Anniversary Celebration
June 2, 2018, 12pm–8pm

Location: Outside Plympton St,
Between Mass Ave & Bow Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA
1:00-2:00pm                
Welcome and Opening Remarks, Ifeanyi Menkiti, Proprietor, Director, Grolier Poetry Book Shop
 
Poets Read
David Ferry, Kathleen Spivack, and Lloyd Scwartz and Lillian Yvonne Bertram
 
2:00–2:20pm             
Michael Mack, Performs from Hearing Voices, Speaking in Tongues 
 
2:20–2:40pm             
Jim Vrabel, performs from John Berryman’s The Dream Songs
2:40–3:35pm
Poets Read
Fred Marchand • Harris Gardner • Patrick Sylvain • Martha Collins • Ruth Lepson • Dan Tobin • Monique-Adelle Callahan • Gail Mazur

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Group : Diana Norma Szokolyai, accompanied by Audrey Harrer, Harpist • Kevin McLellan

 3:35-4:15pm  (off stage)
Diana Norma Szokolyai leads a workshop based on CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing, that she and Rita Banerjee edited. This newly released book will be available for purchase.

Featured Authors:

DianVersion 2a Norma Szokolyai is author of Parallel Sparrows (honorable mention for Best Poetry Book, 2014 Paris Book Festival), Roses in the Snow (first runner­up, Best Poetry Book, 2009 DIY Book Festival), and a feminist rewriting of a classic fairytale for Brooklyn Art Library’s The Fiction Project, entitled Beneath the Surface: Blue Beard, Remixed. Szokolyai’s poetry and prose has been published in MER VOX Quarterly, VIDA Review, Quail Bell Magazine, The Boston Globe, Luna Luna Magazine, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and has been anthologized in Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History, Teachers as Writers & elsewhere. Her edited volume is CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press, 2018). She’s founding Executive Artistic Director of Cambridge Writers’ Workshop. Szokolyai is author of Introduction, and the essay “What’s At Stake?” in CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press, May 2018).

Kathleen Spivack’s novel Unspeakable Things was released by Knopf in early 2016. Her previous book, the memoir With Robert Lowell and His Circle: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz and Others was published by the University Press of New England in 2012. Her chapbook, A History of Yearning, won the Sows Ear International Poetry Chapbook Prize in 2010, and she recently received the Allen Ginsberg, Erika Mumford, and Paumanok awards for her poetry. Her book won the New England Book Festival and London Book Festival Prizes. Published in over 400 magazines and anthologies, Kathleen’s work has been translated into French. She has held grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; Massachusetts Artists Foundation; Bunting Institute; Howard Foundation; Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities; is a Discovery winner and has been at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ragdale, Karolyi, and the American Academy in Rome. In Boston and Paris she directs the Advanced Writing Workshop, an intensive training program for professional writers. She has taught at conferences in Paris, Aspen, Santa Fe, Burgundy, Skidmore, and on the high seas, (Holland American Line). Spivak is the author of the Craft of Writing essays, “The Writing Exercise: A Recipe” and “Words As Inspiration” in CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press, May 2018).

Kevin McLellan is the author of Ornitheology (The Word Works, 2018), Hemispheres (Fact-Simile Editions, 2018), [box] (Letter [r] Press, 2016), Tributary (Barrow Street, 2015), and Round Trip (Seven Kitchens, 2010). He won the 2015 Third Coast Poetry Prize and Gival Press’ 2016 Oscar Wilde Award, and his poems appear in numerous literary journals. Kevin lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. McLellan’s essay, “Attributes: A Prompt,” can be found in the Exercises section of CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press, May 2018).

 

Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents “Books & Bones,” our AWP 2015 Reading!

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The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop hosting an offsite reading event during the conference. “Books and Bones:  A Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Reading” is a poetry and fiction reading at Boneshaker Books on Saturday, April 11 from 3-5 pm. We’ve got twelve readers who will come and share some of their best work with our captive audience. Below are our profiles on each of the readers:

IMG_7596Anca L. Szilágyi is a Brooklynite living in Seattle. The longer she lives in Seattle, the stronger her Brooklyn accent seems to get. Her writing has appeared in Gastronomica, Fairy Tale Review, Cicada, and the Ploughshares blog, among other publications.

mbgmdrbvox_qe83kocogslibryphqly9vlj7nuf1f1uA writer, teacher, and student of the world, Jonah Kruvant received his Bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College, his Master’s degree in Teaching from Fordham University, and his MFA degree from Goddard College. After living abroad in four different countries, Jonah settled in New York.

 

Current ThumbnailMicah Dean Hicks is a Calvino Prize-winning author of fabulist fiction. His work has appeared in places like Witness, New Letters, Indiana Review, New Orleans Review, and Baltimore Review. His story collection, Electricity and Other Dreams, was recently published by New American Press and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He attends the creative writing PhD program at Florida State University, where he studies fiction and folklore.

mm93kgAlex Carrigan has been an editorial and PR intern for the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop since May 2014. He holds a B.S. in Mass Communications: Print/Online Journalism and a minor in World Cinema from Virginia Commonwealth University. When he is not working for Cambridge, he is also the Staff Film Reviewer and a regular contributor for Quail Bell Magazine. He has had work published in Poictesme Literary Journal, Amendment Literary Journal, and Realms Magazine. He currently lives in Virginia and is looking for a career in publishing and art criticism.

10888391_10106225841395751_4542817941090068017_nMichele Nereim received her MFA from Florida State University. Her essay about the insanity of Florida football appeared on NPR, and, this past year year, she moved to Houston where she is working on her novel and her CRW Ph.D. at the University of Houston. Florida is her weird, colorful muse.

 

B (1)Bianca Stone is a poet and visual artist. She is the co-founder and editor of Monk Books, as well as the author of  Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Tin House/Octopus Books 2014), and Antigonick (New Directions 2012, a collaboration with Anne Carson. She lives in Brooklyn.

jungleJessica Piazza is the author of two full-length poetry collections from Red Hen Press: Interrobang–winner of the AROHO 2011 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize and the 2013 Balcones Poetry Prize – and Obliterations (with Heather Aimee O’Neill, forthcoming), as well as the chapbook This is not a sky (Black Lawrence Press.) She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California and is currently a contributing editor for The Offending Adam and a screener for the National Poetry Series. She is the co-founder of Bat City Review in Austin, TX and Gold Line Press in Los Angeles, and she teaches for the Writing Program at USC and the online MFA program at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. In 2015 she started the “Poetry Has Value” project, hoping to spark conversations about poetry and worth. Learn more at www.poetryhasvalue.com.

burnquistJess Burnquist was raised in Tempe, Arizona. She received her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Arizona State University. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Time.com, Persona, Clackamas Literary Review, and various online journals.(See more at http://www.jessburnquist.com) She is a recipient of the Joan Frazier Memorial Award for the Arts at ASU. Jess currently teaches high school in San Tan Valley and has been honored with a Sylvan Silver Apple Award. She resides in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area with her husband, son, and daughter.

IMG_4254Dena Rash Guzman is the author of Life Cycle—Poems (Dog On A Chain Press, 2013.) Her work can be found online and in print at The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Ink Node, Gertrude and others, as well as in anthologies from the United States to the People’s Republic of China. She is a disability rights advocate and a beekeeper. She resides in Oregon.

standing pic by edward brydonLeah Umansky is a poet, collagist and teacher in New York City. She is the author of the Mad Men inspired chapbook, Don Dreams and I Dream and the full-length collection Domestic Uncertainties.  Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such places as Forklift, Ohio, POETRY, and Coconut Poetry. She is also the curator of the Couplet reading series and her Game of Thrones inspired poems have recently been translated into Norwegian by Beijing Trondheim.

 

SMSheila McMullin is Assistant Editor for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts where she writes the column “Spotlight On!” celebrating literary magazines that publish a diverse representation of writers. She is Managing Editor and Poetry Editor for ROAR Magazine, as well as Communications and Outreach Coordinator for District Lit. She works as an after-school creative writing and college prep instructor and volunteers at her local animal rescue.  She holds her M.F.A. from George Mason University. Follow her on Twitter @smcmulli.

 

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Brenda Peynado has work appearing in The Threepenny Review, Mid-American Review, Black Warrior Review, Pleiades, Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, 3rd Place in Glimmer Train‘s Fiction Open Contest, and others. She received her MFA from Florida State University and her BA from Wellesley College. Last year, she was on a Fulbright Grant to the Dominican Republic, writing a novel. This year she is a PhD student at the University of Cincinnati.