Tag Archives: Rita Banerjee

Happy New Year 2015 from the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop!!

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CWW-NY2015 Happy New Year 2015 from the directors and staff of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop! We hope you’re all as excited for 2015 as we are!  We’re planning a delightful, productive year for our writers and artists with plenty of opportunities to travel, write, practice yoga, and network, and we’re looking forward to seeing you at our retreats, workshops, readings, and literary fest events in 2015!

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop had a wonderful year in 2014.  Over the last twelve months, we’ve had a chance to hold retreats and readings across America and the world, meet exciting writers, yoga practicioneers, and artists, and have found new ways to inspire our own writing.  Our year began with the 2014 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Seattle, WA in February. At AWP 2014, we got a chance to announce our CREDO Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing, promote our new literary internships,  and discuss our Summer 2014 Château de Verderonne Yoga & Writing Retreat, and our AWP 2014 A Night at the Victrola Reading. At AWP 2014, CWW Directors, Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai signed copies of their books, Cracklers at Night and Parallel Sparrows, respectively.  And our A Night at the Victrola, featuring readings from authors such as Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokollyai, Peter Mountford, Anca Szilágyi, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Pattabi Seshadri, Susan Parr, Johnny Horton, Talia Shalev, Leah Umansky, Dena Rash Guzman, Kevin Skiena, Jessica Day, and Carrie Kahler.  Our AWP 2014 literary reading was even featured in Vanguard Seattle as a top AWP reading event.

After AWP 2014, we were off to our annual writing and yoga retreat to the Château de Verderonne in Picardy, France. The event, which was featured in Poets and Writers and Quail Bell Magazine, was a chance for writers to spend two weeks in the French countryside, participating in writing workshops and craft of writing seminars, yoga classes, and culturally tours of Paris and Chantilly. We liveblogged the entire event as well, sharing dozens of photos from our trip while also allowing our writers to share their thoughts on the experience.

Our New Yorker members also hosted an event as part of LitCrawl Manhattan in September 2014.  Our Literary Masquerade featured readings of poetry, noir, science fiction, and original songs from Diana Norma Szokolyai, Rita Banerjee, Gregory Crosby, Elizabeth Devlin, Jonah Kruvant, and Nicole Colbert.

We also hosted an annual Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga and Writing Cleanse in November 2014. The two day event kicked off with yoga lessons from Elissa Lewis, followed by fresh juice cleanses, and creative writing workshops and craft seminars from Diana Norma Szkolyai, Jessica Reidy, and Jonah Kruvant.  Some of the creative writing classes included on the retreat included “The Art of Withholding,” “The Art of Revision” and “Sense of Smell, Memory, and Narrative.”   Our Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga & Writing Cleanse was an opportunity for the participants to cleanse themselves mentally, spiritually, and creatively before the bustling holiday season, and was even featured in a piece in Quail Bell Magazine.

In 2014, we also began work on CREDO Anthology of Manifestos & Sourcebook for Creative Writing.  The collection will feature personal writer manifestos, essays on writing advice, and writing exercises to help spur creativity. Our staff has greatly enjoyed critiquing and conversing with writers on this publication, and more information about our featured writers will be announced shortly.

In 2014, we also welcomed our first interns to the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and these interns include the wonderful  Alex Carrigan, Katy Miller, and Megan Tilley, all of whom have helped the CWW greatly this year. They’ve helped manage our social media and written up post about our events, critiqued and edited submissions for CREDO, shown their talent for graphic design and corresponding with writers and hosts in French, Spanish, and English, and have provided much valuable assistance on our retreats and literary events this year.  We’re excited to have Alex, Katy, and Megan on our team, and we can’t wait to show you what they’ve helped us plan for 2015!

This was also a good year for our individual staff members getting published. Quail Bell Magazine featured plenty of creative writing from our staffers, including Jessica Reidy’s essay on novel research in Paris, Norma and Rita’s Mis/Translation poems, Megan Tilley’s poem “Puddle,” and Alex Carrigan’s poem “When I First Saw Her.” Reidy also had a series of trauma poems featured in Luna Luna Magazine and Tilley was featured in Fictionvale. Szokolyai was also named one of twenty Romani authors you should be reading by VIDA and published in the anthology Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History.

While 2014 proved to be a very exciting year for all of us, our staff is quite ready to move on to our next round of exciting events. The CWW will once again table at AWP in Minneapolis from April 8-11, 2015 You can find us at the AWP 2015 Bookfair at Table 954. We will also be planning an offsite reading, and more information about that will come as we get closer to the event.

Join us April 2-5, 2015 for our first annual springtime Writing & Yoga Retreat in beautiful and gilded Newport, Rhode Island.  Our Newport retreat offers the opportunity for writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors & editors to hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects.  Faculty includes internationally renowned author and writing coach Kathleen Spivack (fiction, poetry, nonfiction), Stephen Aubrey (playwriting,  screenwriting), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).  Registration closes on February 20, 2015 and spots are limited, so sign up on cww.submittable.com as soon as you can.

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Summer in Paris Writing Retreat will take place July 22-30, 2015 in France. The retreat offers participating writers of all genres and levels to work alongside award-winning authors and editors. Participating writers will hone their craft and expand their writing skills, while working on new or existing projects.  There will also be time to explore the city of Paris in all of its historical, literary, and romantic charm. Situated in heart of Paris’ Montparnasse neighborhood, amongst the fresh and popular open air markets and charming boutiques, the hotel where we will stay is full of charm and our Moroccan themed classroom will offer a wonderful oasis to practice the writing life.  Faculty includes internationally renowned author and writing coach Kathleen Spivack (poetry, fiction, nonfiction), David Shields (fiction, book-length essay), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).  If you’d like to join us in Paris, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by May 5, 2015.

And from August 3-10. 2015, join the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop on our summer writing retreat to the cultural oasis of Granada, Spain. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Andalucía, Granada is one of the gems of Spain and has inspired writers from Washington Irving to Salman Rushdie to Ali Smith. Let the old city stimulate your writing with its winding streets, Moorish history, and evocative landscapes. Or, indulge in delicious Andalucían cuisine and traditional Arab baths. Work with world-renowned authors on your manuscript, or look to the beauty and warmth of Granada to inspire all-new projects.  Faculty includes Rita Banerjee (poetry, fiction), Diana Norma Szokolyai (poetry, nonfiction), Jessica Reidy (fiction, poetry) and Elissa Lewis (yoga, meditation).  If you’d like to join us in Granada, please apply online at cww.submittable.com by April 20, 2015.

We hope you are all as excited for our 2015 events as we are. If you have any questions about our upcoming retreats, please view the pages linked above. If you have any questions we may not have answered, you can email us at info@cambridgewritersworkshop.org, and for inquiries, please email the CWW Directors, Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai, at directors@cambridgewritersworkshop.org.  You can also follow us on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter for more information and updates on any of these events. We look forward to making 2015 a year full of creativity, writing, and renewal, so join us as we make 2015 rock!

– Alex Carrigan & Rita Banerjee

Rita Banerjee & Diana Norma Szokolyai’s “Mis/Translations” feat. in Quail Bell Magazine

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Who-LambThis month, Quail Bell Magazine will be curating and publishing a series of “Mis/Translations” poems by Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai.  Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai are the founders and directors of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop (CWW). You can read about the CWW’s upcoming Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga, Writing, and Juice Cleanse Retreat in Quail Bell Magazine. In the interview, the CWW shares tips on creating a creative discipline of writing, yoga, and self-care.  Rita also discusses the creative writing invention exercise “Mis/Translations” and how it can help kick-start your writing. Rita’s poem, “Who Lamb” was inspired by a Mis/Translation exercise at the last CWW Verderonne retreat. Norma read her own poem, “hullám/wave” in Hungarian and Rita “Mis/Translated” based entirely on the sound and feel of  words that were foreign to her.  – Jessica Reidy

hullám/wave
by Diana Norma Szokolyai
(to be read out loud simultaneously in Hungarian & English)

Az állando hullám                                The continuous wave
igaznak hangzik                                     rings true
egymással keresztbe futó hullámok              cross sea
elmerülök a hullám sírban                       I am submerged in a watery grave
érzed?                                                   Do you feel it?
Már jön az érzelmi hullám                       The tidal wave is already coming
Az égbe nyúlik                                       It is reaching for the sky
és a felhök, gyáva mint a nyúl                   and the clouds, timid as rabbits
hallom a folyamatos hullámot                   I hear the continuous wave
beszélsz hullámositásokat                                    you are talking channelings
szeizmikus hullámok idógörbéje                time curve,
a hajadba, hullámos papirszalag             in your hair, streamers
hullám, hullám                                       wave, wave,
hullám                                                  wave

Who Lamb*
by Rita Banerjee

Who lamb.
Who’s into who lamb?
Igor likes Congo Music,
Caress my photo, who lamb.
He said Marion bring me a who lamb,
Sheared.

Azaleas on the bank,
Hollow as eggs
On the bank

Best who lamb with chocolate
Seismic who lamb
Igor likes to pay
For it with
Who lamb
Who lamb
Who lamb

* A “Mis/Translation” of Diana Norma Szokolyai’s poem “hullám/wave.”

Check out the on-going series of “Mis/Translations” poems by Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai at Quail Bell Magazine!  If you are interested in the CWW’s Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga, Writing, and Juice Cleanse Retreat (November 22-23), there is a limited time reduced registration fee. It will only last until Thursday November 20th, so apply now!

Rita Banerjee teaches Character Development Workshop at the Munich Readery – October 12

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CharacterDevelopment

Character Devleopment & Playing with Persona Workshop
Sunday, October 12, 2014 * 14:00-16:30
The Munich Readery, Augustenstraße 104, 80798 München

Femme fatales, gumshoe detectives, star-crossed lovers, wicked stepmothers, wise fools, empathetic anti-heroes: dynamic and archetypal characters can be key to making a good story or lyrical piece tick and pulling in the reader deeper into your creative work. In this workshop, we will discuss how dynamic and archetypal characters can help structure stories, propel narratives forwards, and how they can provide interesting ethical dilemmas and emotional spectrums to narratives and verse. We will learn about the building blocks of creating strong, unforgettable characters, and learn how playing with persona can help liberate nonfictional stories and lyrical poems. So if you’re currently working on a short story, novel, screenplay, theatre play, lyrical essay, memoir, or poem which has a strong and unique character at is heart, come stop by the Munich Readery on Sunday October 12 for our next creative writing workshop led by Rita Banerjee, Cambridge Writers Workshop’s Creative Director. Workshop fee: €25. To register, send an email to store@themunichreadery.com by October 8.

Rita Banerjee is a writer, and received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. She holds an MFA in Poetry and her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery, The Crab Creek Review, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum among other journals. Her first collection of poems,Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2010 and received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book at the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Book Festival. Her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op in 2011. She is a co-director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has been recently featured on HER KIND by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Oregon.

CWW Creative Director, Rita Banerjee, interviewed in Speaking of Marvels for her novella A Night with Kali

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KaliCoverWilliam Kelley Woolfitt, who runs Speaking of Marvels, a forum for interviews about chapbooks, novellas, and other short form literature, recently sat down to interview Rita Banerjee, the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Executive Creative Director, about her novella, A Night with Kali (Brooklyn Art House Co-op, 2011).  In the interview, Woolfit asked Rita a series of questions from which were her favorite chapbooks and novellas, to questions on her current writing projects, and her advice to writers working on new projects and book manuscripts.  You can read the full interview here.  Here is a selection of questions from the interview:

What’s your novella about?

A Night with Kali is at its core a coming-of-age ghost story. The novella is about a taxi-driver, Tamal-da, who explains why he left his fishing village near Krishnapur, West Bengal, to work on the dirty and crooked streets of Kolkata. Against an oddly purple mid-day sky, the narration opens on the rain-clogged streets of Kolkata, where Tamal’s car gets stuck in a flood. To pass the time and wait for help, he begins to tell his passenger of how he came to this city and his past, which is filled inexplicably with undead things.

What are some of your favorite novellas? How did they influence your writing or your desire to make a novella of your own?

Novellas seem to capture a magical middle ground between the poignancy and sharp edginess of the short story and the more decadent, sprawling ruminations available to novelists.  Some of my favorite novellas include Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, Leo Tolstoy’s Family Happiness, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, and Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49.  In Dostoevsky’s novella, the singular psychosis and at times, irredeemable actions of the narrator, an extremely likeable anti-hero, propel the narration forward.  In Tolstoy and Goethe’s novellas, both authors emphasize and exploit the desires and emotional uncertainties of their central characters to hook in the reader. And Conrad and Pynchon excel at exploring how objects, symbols, and terrain can reflect and provide commentary on the psychology and motives of characters.

What advice would you offer to an aspiring novella author?

First, read as much as you can, and don’t be ashamed to read those texts others may not consider “literature.”  Look back at the stories, essays, films, poems, speeches, etc., that inspired you the most.  Figure out what made them so effective.  Did it have something to do with the structure of the story?  The emotional authenticity and dynamism of certain characters?  The comedy and turn of events?  The ability of language to capture a lyrical moment persuasively and succinctly?  Figure out why you are drawn to certain narrative and lyrical works, analyze these texts for elements of their style, structure, and content, and from what you’ve learned, see if you can do it. Go ahead and experiment, grab some coffee or brandy if you need it, and write, write, write until you get it right.

excerpt from A Night with Kali

“By the time I reached the old Kali Mandir in the woods, I had lost sight of the shadowy white figure completely.  Walking by the main gate to the temple, I stopped in front of the arched entrance way.  The priest had not gotten up yet and had not opened the doors this early in the morning.  But through the grilled gates, I could see into the main temple hall, which rose majestically in the middle of the forest canopy.  Looking in, I saw the figure of Kali standing there, in the middle of the hall, with her wide and sinister grin. Her tongue was hanging out and in her hands, she carried a variety of weapons including a machete in one and a knot of severed heads in another.  Across her lithe, blue naked body a garland of skulls draped lightly over her breasts.  A short chain-mail skirt with links in the shape of human hands hiked up one of her hips as she stood with her legs parted wide on the body of her husband, Shiva.  Her tongue, thus, rolled down of its own accord.  Bracketed against the moonlight, she made a ferocious figure.  But there was something protective and eternal about her, too.  There was an air of mischief in her smile and the way her body posed provocatively for the spectator…

Watching the stationary figure watch me, I gave her a quick morning prayer… In the moonlight, the statue’s eyes glittered back at me.”

Full interview available at Speaking of Marvels: Rita Banerjee’s A Night with Kali

RBRita Banerjee received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard.  Her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Catamaran, The Crab Creek Review, and Amethyst Arsenic. Her first collection of poems, Cracklers at Night, received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book of 2011-2012 at the Los Angeles Book Festival and her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op.  She is Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has been featured on VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass.  You can follow her work at ritabanerjee.com or on Twitter @Rita_Banerjee

 

Literary Taboo Workshop with Rita Banerjee at the Munich Readery – April 27, 2014

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tabooLiterary Taboo Creative Writing Workshop
Sunday, April 27 * 14:00-16:00
The Munich Readery, Augustenstraße 104, 80798 München

Come join Rita Banerjee and the Munich Readery for an afternoon of literary games, riddles and creative writing!  Get ready to play Literary Taboo. During the game, you may be asked to describe a person, idea, object, or phenomenon without using certain taboo words. You are welcomed to create poems, short stories, theatrical sketches, first-person narratives, and riddles about the topics you encounter during the game, and everyone is invited to become a true literary detective! So join us for an afternoon filled with creative writing, sensorial riddles, and literary taboos!  Workshop fee: €20.  To register, send an email to store@themunichreadery.com

A Night at the Victrola: CWW AWP 2014 Reading, Seattle

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CWW-VictrolaFriday February 28, 2014
8:30-10:00pm
Victrola Coffee & Art
411 15th Ave E, Seattle, WA 98112

The Cambridge Writers’ Workshop presents “A Night at the Victrola,” an AWP 2014 Reading, featuring the talents of Peter Mountford, Rita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szokolyai, Pattabi Seshadri, Nancy Jooyoun Kim, Kevin Skiena, Jessica Day, Anca Szilágyi, Talia Shalev, Carrie Kahler, Dena Rash Guzman, Leah Umansky, Susan Parr, & Johnny Horton.  Join us as we celebrate some of Seattle, New York, & Boston’s best writers, and graduates from the University of Washington MFA program.

AWP 2014 Featured Book Signing – Feb 28 (10-11:30am) – Rita Banerjee

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ritaRita Banerjee will be a featured author at the 2014 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in Seattle.  She will be signing her book, Cracklers at Night (Finishing Line Press) on Friday February 28 from 10:00-11:30am at the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop table (BB29) in the AWP Bookfair.  Rita Banerjee’s writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal, Catamaran, The Crab Creek Review, Amethyst Arsenic, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum among other journals.  Her first collection of poems, Cracklers at Night, was published by Finishing Line Press received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book of 2011-2012 at the Los Angeles Book Festival.

Emergency INDEX: Documenting Performance Annually, V.2

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index2012-coverRita Banerjee, Diana Norma Szkolyai, Gregory Crosby, and Leah Umansky are featured in the new issue of Emergency INDEX: Documenting Performance Annually, for their 2012 Performance of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop Literary Cabaret.  Emergency INDEX, Vol. 2 includes contributions from artists, poets, scholars, activists, advertisers, computer scientists, theater ensembles and filmmakers presenting more than 300 performances made around the world in 2012.  Vol. 2 Editors: Yelena Gluzman, Sophia Cleary; Associate Editors: Andrew Ross, Michael Newton.

This is a bible of performance art activity. And if you are, like I am, a believer in performance art and the value of this ephemeral art activity to change the hearts and minds and consciousness of people, then you need to have this bible in your life. The end. —Martha Wilson

Emergency INDEX, Volume 2 is now available for order.

CWW Directors Featured in VIDA: Women in Literary Arts

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tumblr_mjq8ojgEOr1ris3y8o1_250On March 4, 2013, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts published the 2012 VIDA COUNT which cataloged the number of women writers being published in the nation’s top literary, journalistic, and academic periodicals.  You can read more about their findings and assessments by Amy King here: http://www.vidaweb.org/vida-count-2012-mic-check-redux

Also in VIDA news this week, writers Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai are featured guests on HER KIND, a blog powered by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts.  Check out their interview, “Community as Cathartic: A Conversation with Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai,” which was moderated by Rosebud Ben-Oni.

Boston Conservatory Performance

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thumb_conservatoryBoston Conservatory Performance
Featuring Diana Norma Szokolyai, Rita Banerjee, & Dennis Shafer

Judson Evans and the Garden hosts the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop & Chagall Performance Arts Collaborative for an evening of poetry reading with interdisciplinary performance of poetry, music, and movement.  Poetry performance intertwined with the live composing art of Soundpainting will feature poets Diana Norma Szokolyai and Rita Banerjee (CWW directors), and Soundpainter Dennis Shafer as well as Boston Conservatory students.