On Saturday, February 9th at 9am, FOKUS is having a family affair with storytelling and art making at Dee and Ricky’s in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn (503 Myrtle Ave).

The FOKUS Family Affair will take kids and families on an exciting trip using the books “Peter’s Chair” and “The Jones Family Express” during a morning of artmaking and reading at Dee & Ricky’s Home Cooking.

If you are interested, reserve a ticket now: http://fokusfamilyaffair.eventbrite.com.

FOKUS will read both books and then guide the children in an artmaking workshop where they will create collage postcards based on themes from each book. They will supply all needed materials, but feel free to bring old magazines that you were planning to throw away because we are promoting reusable materials as a source of art.

Nice.

Dee and Ricky’s will also have a special Breakfast menu available at this event.

Story Time Art: A Celebration of Family

Dee & Ricky’s Home Cooking

Saturday February 9th 9am – 11am

503 Myrtle Ave

Brooklyn, NY, 11205

Free

http://fokusfamilyaffair.eventbrite.com

www.fokus.org

Join us on the last day of February for the last word on the new and the bold in Brooklyn’s theatrical universe.

On February 28, 2013 at 8PM, BRW is thrilled to present this annual compendium of excerpts of staged readings of new plays by Brooklyn playwrights curated by Rosemary Moore.

Here’s your chance to see vital and provocative new work as it’s being developed. Always an entertaining and compelling evening, the playwrights will do a Q&A following the performances.

This year, plays by Scott Adkins, Robert Michel, Chris Nelson and Valerie Work

When: Feb. 28, 2013 at 8PM

What: Brooklyn Reading Works Presents New Plays by Brooklyn Playwright curated by Rosemary Moore

Where: The Old Stone House: 336 Third Street between Fifth and Fourth Avenues in Park Slope. F train to Fourth Avenue, R train to Union Street.

What else: A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine.

This handsome fellow is Ben Michaelis, a PhD, clinical psychologist , and author of the new book Your Next Big Thing.

His writing has been featured in The Huffington Post, Parents magazine, Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times. He’s also a popular weekly blogger on Psychology Today.

When he and his wife lived in Manhattan, they realized that all their friends lived in Brooklyn and they were spending all their time traveling to and from the borough of Kings. In less than  week of that realization they found a place on this side of the river.

That focused energy and get-up-and-go exemplifies his concept of 10 small steps that get you MOVING and HAPPY.

I spoke to him on the phone recently and had the feeling that he might be very good at what he does.  Then I looked at his new book, Your Next Big Thing, and I was pretty sure he has something to offer.

In the book, Ben provides visionary yet practical strategies, quizzes, and exercises to teach you about your true self. In the book, which is bright orange and really nicely designed, he’ll pinpoint exactly what you need to realize your purpose and progress toward your goals.

Get this: Whether you’re in need of business or personal guidance, this ten-step plan helps you look forward without fear—so you can achieve joy, passion, and the enriched life you never thought possible.

Playing at 5PM on Sunday night at Roulette: The Joshua Shneider Love Speaks Orchestra is a 19 piece ensemble comprised of some of NYC’s most illustrious and adventurous improvisers, interpreting the music and arrangements of Joshua Shneider. Melodic, grooving, searching and harmonically inventive, the music draws inspiration from Jazz, R&B, Classical, Latin and American Pop elements.

Sunday’s concert will feature the premiere of a new piece by Shneider entitled “Madness and Joy,” a meditation on the relationship between the essential familiar and the unknown. The program will also include material from a new CD to be released this Spring which features vocalist Lucy Woodward and guitarist Dave Stryker. Acclaimed vocalist Carolyn Leonhart will join The Love Speaks Orchestra for this performance. Leonhart, a Sunnyside recording artist, is also a session singer and veteran of tours with Steely Dan, Donald Fagen, and many others.

 Sunday at 4PM, the Grace and Spiritus Chorale of Brooklyn, a 75-member chorus, will present three settings of the Latin mass from three continents. This program features an eighteenth century Austrian setting, a late twentieth century Canadian setting, and a mid-twentieth century Congolese setting.

Grace & Spiritus Chorale of Brooklyn will perform Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson’s Missa Brevis, and Miss Luba, a Congolese adaptation of the Mass, based on Congolese folk songs, which is rarely performed. These cultural expressions of rhythm, harmony, and melody bring the text to life in wildly different ways. African Drummers and Saint Ann’s School dancers will accompany this mass. South African singer, Peter Ncanywa will sing the tenor solo in the Missa Luba.

4pm Sunday, Jan. 27, Saint Ann & the Holy Trinity Church,157 Montague Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201-3587

The group is dedicated to promoting and cultivating the art of choral singing in Brooklyn by presenting a wide variety of choral music, including newly commissioned works, to audiences through concerts, partnerships and educational outreach. They offer amateur singers the opportunity to study the art of choral singing under dynamic and professional leadership.

Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents The Truth and Publishing, a panel discussion about the future of books, publishers, authors, agents and readers, curated by the truth seeking and erudite John Guidry.

We often think of writing as a lone pursuit, a lone artist or dedicated journalist pursuing the craft with every ounce of dedication they can muster. If we think in the plural, it’s usually in pairs. Yet behind the work of writers is a larger cast of professionals every bit as dedicated to the written word and concerned about its future. They include editors, agents, publishers, critics, and others whose work helps make the printed word possible. On this panel, we will meet editors, publishers and agents who will share their perspective on the process behind the written word and what lies in store for those in the publishing industry.

And what a gathering of publishing luminaries:

With Rob Spillman of Tin House, Tamson Weston an editor of children’s books, agents Jonathan Lyons and Renee Zuckerbrot and Josh Rolnick author and editor of Shma.

The panel will be moderated by John Guidry who publishes the blog The Truth and Rocket Science. This is his fourth event at Brooklyn Reading Works. Previous events have included The Truth and Money, The Truth and Oral History, the Truth and Ghost Writers and now The Truth and Publishing.

Date: January 17, 2013 at 8PM at 8PM

Location: The Old Stone House 336 Third Street between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope. F train to Fourth Avenue. R train to Union Street.

A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine

More info: Louise Crawford 718-288-4290 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com