This Thursday March 6th at 7:30, poet Sally Bliumis-Dunn, of whom Billy Collins wrote: "The best poems in Sally Bliumis-Dunn’ s Talking Underwater proceed tentatively, one line at a time, a pace that reassures us there is no agenda here, only the faith that one utterance will lead to another. Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s readers are lucky to be part of this adventure, this pushing forth in the direction of revelation", will be reading at Seventh Avenue’s Community Bookstore.

Her poems have appeared in Lumina, Nimrod, The Paris Review, Poetry London, RATTLE, and Spoon River Poetry Review. Her book, Talking Underwater, was published by Wind Publications in 2007, and has been a finalist for The University of Arkansas Press’ First Book Prize in 2006, a semifinalist for The Kenyon First Book contest in 2002, the Bright Hill Press in 2005 and a finalist for the Richard Snyder Poetry Prize from Ashland Press in 2006. She teaches Modern Poetry and Creative Writing at Manhattanville College.

She will be joined by poet Van Hartmann’s, who’s poetry has appeared in multiple journals. His first book, Shiva Dancing, is a collection of lyrical poems set in motion by a concrete observation or recollected moment that releases its own organic stream of poignant associations. The result is an embodiment, in each poem and in the collection as a whole, of the complex energies and perceptions that define our most human experiences. Van Hartmann teaches literature and film studies at Manhattanville College, in Purchase, New York.

AWP: The Association of Writers and Writing Programs, an annual conference and book fair is in town and some of the participants are coming out to Brooklyn on Thursday night at 8 p.m. That’s January 31st at 8 p.m.

BROOKLYN READING WORKS AND THE OLD STONE HOUSE WELCOME AWP 2008 (The Association of Writers and Writing Programs).

Come on out to Brooklyn for a a great reading. There are many great restaurants and bars right nearby on Fifth Avenue. Brooklyn Reading Works is located at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope. Take the F-train to Fourth Avenue or Union Street and walk. The R train to Union Street. Directions are here. For information or questions: 718-288-4290 (if you get lost or need better directions).

WORD GIRLS with poets published by Word Tech: BARBARA CROOKER, MEREDITH DAVIES HADAWAY, KIM GARCIA, ERIN MURPHY. OPEN MIC TO FOLLOW. Starts at 8 p.m.

BARBARA CROOKER is the author of more than 575 poems published in over 1675 anthologies, books, and magazines She is the recipient of the 2006 Ekphrastic Poetry Award from Rosebud, the 2004 WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the 2004 Pennsylvania Center for the Book Poetry in Public Places Poster Competition, the 2003 Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award and many more. A twenty-six time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, she was nominated for the 1997 Grammy Awards for her part in the audio version of the popular anthology, Grow Old Along With Me–The Best is Yet to Be (Papier Mache Press).

MEREDITH DAVIES HADAWAY’S collection of poetry, Fishing Secrets of the Dead, was a Word Press First Book Selection in 2005. Her poems have appeared in Poet Lore, Spillway, Bayou, Isotope, Gulf Stream, Margie, California Quarterly, the South Carolina Review, River Oak Review, and the Delmarva Quarterly as well as in the Literary House Press anthology entitled Here On The Chester. She is a contributing editor for Hunger Mountain and a book reviewer for Poetry International. She is also a musician who has performed in the U.S. and Ireland.

KIM GARCIA lives and writes in Boston. Her poetry collection Madonna Magdalene was published by Turning Point books in the fall of 2006. Her work has appeared in many publications and she is the recipient of an AWP Intro Writing Award, a Hambidge Fellowship and an Oregon Individual Artist Grant.

ERIN MURPHY’S poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Field, Nimrod, The Paterson Literary Review, Literal Latte, Kalliope, and elsewhere. She received her M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she was a Poetry Fellow. Her awards, include the 2003 National Writers Union Poetry Award judged by Donald Hall; a Pushcart Prize nomination; and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award. She lives in Pennsylvania and teaches at Penn State-Altoona. She is the author of three books of poetry: Dislocation and Other Theories (Word Press, 2008); Science of Desire (Word Press, 2004); and Too Much of This World (forthcoming)

Brooklyn Reading Works presents SIDE STREET, a staged reading (with actors) of a play by Rosemary Moore directed by Ian Morgan of the New Group.

A woman discovers that her dead mother has been living in a studio apartment on the Upper East Side for the last 30 years. And she’s still the same age she was when she died. A mother/daughter reunion you won’t want to miss.

Thursday, January 17th at 8 p.m.
at the Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue and Third Street
8 p.m.

Brooklyn Reading Works presents Roy Nathanson and Jason Weiss reading spoken word, fiction, and non-fiction. Mulled cider, cookies and candy canes.

ROY NATHANSON founded the Jazz Passengers and is a renowned jazz artist, spoken word poet and teacher of music at The Institute for Collaborative Education.

JASON WEISS will read from a new novel, Faces By the Wayside. He is the author of Conversations with Steve Lacy and Writing At Risk: Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers (University of Iowa Press, 1991)

The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street (the stone house in JJ Byrne Park)
8 p.m.
It’s the Snowflake Celebration. The Old Stone House sells great stocking stuffers!

Brooklyn Reading Works presents Jazz Writing, Writing Jazz with Roy Nathanson and Jason Weiss. 8 p.m. December 13 at the Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street.

Roy Nathanson will read his jazz/spoken word poetry and author and Jason Weiss will read from his fiction and non fiction.

ROY NATHANSON founded the Jazz Passengers and is a renowned jazz artist, spoken word poet and teacher of music at The Institute for Collaborative Education.

JASON WEISS will read from a new novel, “Faces By the Wayside.” He is the author of “Conversations with Steve Lacy” and “Writing At Risk: Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers” (University of Iowa Press, 1991).

Stop in at the Old Stone House on Snowflake night — DECEMBER 13th at 8 p.m and catch some culture with Park Slope treasure (and one of 2007’s Park Slope 100) ROY NATHANSON— jazzy, spoken word poet and novelist JASON WEISS who will read from new novel and "Conversations with Steve Lacy."

Brooklyn Reading Works presents: Jazz Writing, Writing Jazz with wine, hot cider, candy canes, books and shopping at the Old Stone House. In JJ Byrne Park  on Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street at 8 p.m.

PS The Old Stone House has great stocking stuffers for sale. You can pick up some books, too.

On December 13 at 8 p.m.

Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House presents: JAZZ WRITING, WRITING JAZZ

JASON WEISS will read from a new novel, Faces By the Wayside. He is the author of Conversations with Steve Lacy and Writing At Risk: Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers (University of Iowa Press, 1991).

ROY NATHANSON founded the Jazz Passengers and is a renowned jazz artist, spoken word poet and teacher of music at a New York City high school.

It happens to be on Snowflake night. But stop into the Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue and Fifth for a glass of wine or warm cider and listen to some jazzy writing and spoken work brought to you by Brooklyn Reading Works.

Brooklyn Reading Works
presents author Jason Weiss and jazz/spoken word artist, Roy Nathanson
on December 13th at 8 p.m. This should be quite a show. Hope to see you
there.

The Old Stone House is located in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue and Third Street.

JASON WEISS will read from a new novel, Faces By the Wayside. He is
the author of Conversations with Steve Lacy and Writing At Risk:
Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers (University of Iowa Press,
1991).

ROY NATHANSON has a varied career as a saxophonist, composer,
band-leader, actor and teacher. He is leader and principal composer of
the Jazz Passengers, a six piece group that he founded with Curtis
Fowlkes in 1987. They have toured Europe many times and played at major
festivals in Finland, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland—as wll as
the J.V.C. Festival in New York, the De Maurier Festival In Canada and
in clubs and concerts throughout the U.S. and Canada. The band has also
recorded eight albums.

Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House presents:
POETRY PUNCH WITH LYNN CHANDHOK, CHERYL B, ZAEDRYN MEADE, MICHELE MADIGAN SOMERVILLE, AND MARIETTA ABRAMS.

Punch with be served.

The Old Stone House is on Fifth Avenue and Third Street in JJ Byrne Park. It is an old stone house behind the playground.

Lynn Chandhok’s book "The View from Zero Bridge" was published in
September 2007.  Her poetry has appeared in The New Republic, Tin
House, The Antioch Review, The Missouri Review, and Sewanee Theological
Review.

Cheryl Burke a.k.a. Cheryl B., is writer, editor and literary series curator from NYC.

Zaedryn Meade has produced two chapbooks and one CD, and her work has been
included in various anthologies and literary magazines, including The Seattle Review, Monkey Bicycle, Our Truths, Benthology, Best Lesbian Erotica 2006 and 2007, and others. 

Michele Madigan Somerville is
the author of Wisegal from Ten Pell Books. Her verse has appeared in
Mudfish, Puerto del Sol and Hanging Loose. She was the 2000 First Place
Winner of the WB Yeats Society’s poetry competition. She has a blog
called Poetry Fresh Daily

Marietta Abrams, is a Brooklyn poet who runs the Go Green Initiative at PS 321.

Author Jonathan Lethem will be reading and talking about his work at the Brooklyn Public Library on Saturday at 4 p.m. They have a new auditorium called the Dweck Center. It might be fun to take a look.

Saturday, November 3, 4:00 PM
Central Library, Dweck Center

Jonathan Lethem: In Conversation

Jonathan Lethem received critical accolades for his novels Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, both of which were set in Brooklyn, where he was raised and spends part of every year. His most recent novel, though, You Don’t Love Me Yet, is set in L.A., where he worked as a young man. Lethem has written in a range of literary genres and is known for his fondness for popular culture. In this free-ranging interview, Lethem will discuss his ideas, his life, and his work. This program is co-sponsored by Con Edison.

And next week at the library:

Saturday, November 10, 2:00 PM
Central Library, 2nd Floor Meeting Room

Brooklyn Writers for Brooklyn Readers: Michael Thomas

Thomas is interviewed by Leonard Lopate and reads from “Man Gone Down” about a man who finds himself broke and estranged from his wife and children. Brooklyn Writers for Brooklyn Readers is supported in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), a state agency

Novelist Regina McBride, author of The Nature of Water and Air, The Land of Women, and The Marriage Bed comes to Park Slope once a month to teach a one day, intensive workshop, Inner Lives Developing Characters.

Register now to reserve a place in her November 10th Workshop from 10 am until 5 pm that is designed for writers of all levels. The cost is $125.

NOTE FRM OTBKB: I have studied with Regina McBride since 1998 and I recommend her classes to all writers wherever you are in your process. Using relaxation and sense memory, her technique is wonderful whether you are just beginning to write, embarking on a novel or memoir, or very experienced and in the midst of a novel or short story.

For inspiration, character development and incredible writing exercises, Regina’s course has been vital to my development as a writer as it always propels me to my best writing. Especially great when your work needs a little jump start.

If you are interested, please email nightsea21@nyc.rr.com

Inner Lives: Developing Characters

An Intensive Workshop with the Focus on the Fictional Character

With Regina McBride

Using relaxation, sense memory, and emotional memory (Stanislavski acting techniques transformed for the writer) a variety of exercises will be offered to enable the student to find a deeper, richer connection to the character he or she is creating.

Exercises will be followed by writing periods, and opportunities for people to read and share their work. The atmosphere will be safe, with the focus on exploration. The class is designed to help the student break into new territory with the character, and with the story itself.

I just heard from Scott Adkins of the Brooklyn Writer’s Space and Room 58 that Scripts in Progress, the new screenwriters reading series continues at Room 58.

According to Scott, the last one of these was so much fun, they’re doing it again. There will be beer and munchies. But the real reason to go says Scott: There’s some great writing happening.

SCRIPTS IN PROGRESS
On Monday November 5th Room 58 presents a night of scripts in progress.
You are invited to come and listen to excerpts from scripts written by established and emerging
screenwriters, playwrights, and TV writers.

Room 58 is located at 168 7th Street btw 2nd and 3rd Aves.
F train to 4th Ave Stop or R train to 9th Street stop.

Lynn Chandhok will read from her book, View from Zero Bridge, which was selected for the Phillip Levine Prize. That’s a big deal.

Congrats to Lynn, who lives in Park Slope, has taught middle and high school, and travels frequently to India.

Mark Jarman says of Chandhok’s writing: “Lynn Chandhok’s are poems of two worlds, united by the poet’s eye for detail and ear for the iamb’s narrative music. She seems constantly aware of what is happening, as she says, ‘a hemisphere away.’ The View From Zero Bridge, honest and necessary, could not come at a better time.”

Community Bookstore reading: November 1, 2007 at 7:30 p.m.

Brooklyn Reading Works: November 15th at 8 p.m.

Lynn will be part of Poetry Punch at Brooklyn Reading Works on November 15th. That reading will also include: Michele Madigan Somerville, Cheryl B., Zaedryn Meade, Marietta Abrams, and possibly Rachel Vigier.

Last night’s Brooklyn Reading Works was recorded by Hepcat with his nifty new Zoom recoring device and will be available soon for those who missed it as well as those who were there.

Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn was the featured book of the evening. Four poets who’s work appears in the book, Phillis Levin, Patricia Spears Jones, Tom Sleigh, and Michael Tyrell, read their poems as well as their favorites inside the book.

Everyone agreed that the collection, published by NYU Press, is an unusually strong representation of poems about Brooklyn. Tyrell revealed that he and his co-editor, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, tried to avoid nostalgic poems about Brooklyn, what they called knish poems.

Not that there’s anything wrong with poems about knishes.

The book includes contributions from the American poets commonly associated with Brooklyn like Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, and Marianne Moore-as well as memorable poems from Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, George Oppen, and Charles Reznikoff.

It also includes a wide range of contemporary works from both established and emerging poets: Derek Walcott, Galway Kinnell, C.K. Williams, Amy Clampitt, Martin Espada, Lisa Jarnot, Marilyn Hacker, Tom Sleigh, D. Nurkse, Donna Masini, Michael S. Harper, Noelle Kocot, Joshua Beckman, and many others.

Patricia Spears Jones read her poem, Halloween Weather (A Suite), as well as a poem by June Jordan called Grand Army Plaza.

Philis Levin did a beautiful reading of a Brooklyn poem by Frederico Garcia Lorca, as well as her own piece about the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She also read a startling poem called The Fire by a Croation poet named, Goran Tomcic.

In addition to his own poem, Tom Sleigh read poems by Hart Crane and Walt Whitman.

In his introduction to the evening, editor Tyrell spoke of the years he and his co-editor spent hunting and gathering poems for the book. He grew up on Manhattan Avenue and still lives in Greenpoint. He said the book was dedicated to Enid Dane, a Brooklyn poet of longstanding, who edited, Home Planet News, a Brooklyn literary tabloid “filled with poetry and gossip.” She died in 2003. Tyrell read his poem, “Against Angels” about St. Anthony’s Church in Greenpoint.

Phillis Levin read the last poem in the book, a beautiful poem called, After We Make Love by Melissa Beattie-Moss. Here’s the final stanza:

To comfort me, we lie in bed and talk of our three-year-old-son.
You’ve taught him his full name, address and number, to say
Brooklyn
correctly which he tries in his mouth again and again
Mommy, he says, it’s Baruch, Baruch-lyn, finding the Hebrew word Baruch
meaning Blessed in the old Dutch town of Brooklyn which you
remind me
also means a broken land

You can order Broken Land from the Community Bookstore (they may have it in stock).

The podcast will be available here and at Brooklyn Reading Works.

Don’t miss next month’s Brooklyn Reading Works on November 15th at 8 p.m. Poetry Punch with Lynn Chandhok, Michele Madigan Somerville, Zaedryn Meade, Cheryl B., and Marietta Abrams.

At the Old Stone House in JJ Byrne Park. 3rd Street and Fifth Avenue. For directions check the Old Stone House website.

On October 18th at 8 p.m., Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House presents BROKEN LAND: POEMS OF BROOKLYN with poets, Phillis Levin, Andrea Baker, Patricia Spears Jones, and Tom Sleigh.

Brooklyn,
crouching forever in the shadow of Manhattan, is perhaps best known for
a certain bridge or for the world-renowned tackiness of Coney Island.
When it comes to literary history, Brooklyn can also seem dwarfed by
its sister borough-until you take a closer look. As unlikely as it may
sound, for more than two centuries Brooklyn has inspired poets and
poetry. Although there are plenty of poetry anthologies devoted to
specific regions of the United States, Broken Land is the first to focus exclusively on verse that celebrates Brooklyn. And what remarkable verse it is.

Edited
by poets Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Michael Tyrell, this collection of
135 notable poems reveals the many cultural, ethnic, aesthetic, and
religious traditions that have accorded Brooklyn its enduring place in
the American psyche. Dazzling in its selections, Broken Land
offers poetry from the colonial period to the present, including
contributions from the American poets most closely associated with
Brooklyn-Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, and Marianne Moore-as well as
memorable poems from Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, George Oppen, and Charles Reznikoff. Also included are a
wide range of contemporary works from both established and emerging
poets: Derek Walcott, Galway Kinnell, C.K. Williams, Amy Clampitt,
Martin Espada, Lisa Jarnot, Marilyn Hacker, Tom Sleigh, D. Nurkse,
Donna Masini, Michael S. Harper, Noelle Kocot, Joshua Beckman, and many
others.

With its expansive array of poetic styles and voices, Broken Land
mirrors the borough’s diversity, toughness, and surprising beauty. The
requirements for inclusion in this volume were simple: excellent poems
that pay tribute in some way to the land that Dutch settlers,
translating from the Algonquin, called "Gebroken landt." But it is the
phrase emblazoned on borough billboards that best serves to entice
readers into entering this book: "Welcome to Brooklyn, Like No Other
Place in the World."

Published by NYU Press, it is the first poetry anthology dedicated
exclusively to verse about Brooklyn. Editors Julia Spicher Kasdorf and
Michael Tyrell have culled 135 poems that chart the boroughs long
history as a place of danger and beauty, dreams and disappointment.
Sure, there are several references to Brooklyns bridges and Coney
Islands beaches — and even a few to the Dodgers — but the book also
encompasses a diversity of lives lived among and between the boroughs
icons.
—Brooklyn Daily Eagle

In the excellent and surprising anthology Broken Land,
poets and editors Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Michael Tyrell take a
chronological and panoramic look at the New York borough of Brooklyn as
portrayed in poems.
—Publishers Weekly

"This book
isn’t only for Brooklyn residents but for all those who value
community. . . . Reading this collection is a moving experience because
the poems feel home-grown. It doesn’t matter where they were written,
each one makes Brooklyn come alive, and the poems find a home inside
you."
—From the Foreword by Hal Sirowitz, author of Mother Said

BROOKLYN READING WORKS
AT THE OLD STONE HOUSE
Curated by Louise Crawford
Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope
Info: brooklynreadingworks.com or theoldstonehouse.org

SEPTEMBER 20
HOT NEW AUTHOR, HOT NEW BOOK with Rudy Delson

OCTOBER 18
BROKEN LAND: POEMS OF BROOKLYN
with Phillis Levin, Andrea Baker, Patricia Spears Jones, and Tom Sleigh

NOVEMBER 15
POETRY PUNCH
with Lynn Chandhok, Zaedryn Meade, Cheryl B, Michele Madigan Somerville and Marietta Abrams

DECEMBER 13
JAZZ WRITING, WRITING JAZZ
with Jason Weiss and jazz/spoken word artist Roy Nathanson

JANUARY 17:
RAW THEATER
Side Street: a  reading of a new play by Rosemary Moore

FEBRUARY 28
MEMOIRATHON
with Branka Ruzak, Mary Warren, Carla Thomas, Marian Fontana and Nica Lalli

March 27
INNER LIVES OUT LOUD
Readings from Regina McBride’s Inner Lives, Developing Characters Intensive Workshops

APRIL 10
FUN WITH PUPPETS, SCISSORS AND FICTION
Barbara Ensor and Martin Kleinman

MAY 8
THIRD ANNUAL_BROOKLYN BLOGFEST (location TBD).

JUNE 12
ANNUAL READING OF THE 808 UNION WRITER’S GROUP

All readings at 8 p.m.

On October 13, Regina McBride is coming to Brooklyn for her monthly Park Slope workshop, INNER LIVES, DEVELOPING CHARACTERS.

At a convenient location near subways and Seventh Avenue. 10 am until 5 pm., the workshop costs $125. To register: nightsea21(at)nyc.rr(dot)com.

A writing workshop with the focus on the character. Good for writers at all levels and styles.

Using relaxation, sense memory, and emotional memory (Stanislavski acting techniques transformed for the writer) a variety of exercises will be offered to enable the student to find a deeper, richer connection to the character he or she is creating.

Exercises will be followed by writing periods, and opportunities for people to read and share their work. The atmosphere will be safe, with the focus on exploration. The class is designed to help the student break into new territory with the character, and with the story itself.

Rudy Delson’s reading at Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House really was SPECIAL. There were over 100 people there and there was a palpable sense of good feeling and excitement for Rudy’s debut novel, Maynard and Jennica.

Benjamin Kunkel, co-founder and co-editor of N+1, played rabbi at this Bar Mitzvah of a reading and spoke eloquently about Delson’s ambitious book that has 35 narrators.

Rudy read excerpts from the book, which is really a series of monologues, with his agent and editor. Not only were they great readers, but their faces couldn’t hid their sense of pride and accomplishment about this masterful and funny book.

Rudy called his editor and agent the book’s midwives. It was a beautiful and truthful acknowledgment of the collaborative nature of book publishing. Something that is rarely acknowledged, I think.

Rudy also read sections of his book solo like the stand up comic he could be. He’s dramatic, funny and really ON when he reads and that really makes the book’s fictional interviews come alive.

I missed some of the reading because I was so nervous that we didn’t have enough open bottles of wine. I went downstairs and starting corking wine bottles and pouring glasses. Rudy brought a delicious selection of cheeses from the Coop ("only cheeses I’d never heard of," he said) and two lovely women from  Community Books were selling books.

The party went on until 11 p.m. Rudy asked everyone to sing Happy Birthday to the person that the book is dedicated to, who happened to be there. The book was released on his birthday last Tuesday. An appropriate coincidence. Rudy  mentioned that in his thank you speech, in which he thanked just about everyone in the room. Not really.

But it was a gracious night. And a special one.

Come this Thursday to Brooklyn Reading Works and hear Rudy Delson and friends read from his brand new book, Maynard and Jennica.

Afterwards, party down and schmooze with neighbors, friends, and the literati of Brooklyn. Rudy will be bringing cheese (and wine). Here’s the note from Rudy:

I ordered two and a half cases of wine at Big Nose, Full Body
yesterday. With the case you’re bringing, I imagine that will be more than enough.

My plan, basically, is to buy one wedge of whatever cheeses look good at the
Coop on Thursday morning, and then to make little labels for them.
(How high class is that?)

I spent a fun half-hour browsing tables at yesterday’s Brooklyn Book Festival. I also caught the tail end of a very interesting reading and discussion on the stage across from Borough Hall called Rhythm Maps, featuring Staceyann Chin, Steve Dalachinsky, Gregory Pardlo, and Danny Simmons.

Apparently 10,000 people enjoyed this day of books. The weather was perfect for browsing, listening to writers reading, and chit chatting with vendors, writers and friends.

The selection of publishing vendors was geographically diverse but it included plenty of Brooklyn-based groups including, the NY Writers Coalition Inc., One Story, Outside the Box Publishing, Pathfinder Books, PEN American Center, Poets & Writers, Polytechnic University, Power House Books/ Power House Arenas, Red Pill Press, Seven Stories Press, Sleepingfish, Small Beer Press, Soft Skull/Counterpoint, Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers, The Green-Wood Historic Fund, The Saint Ann’s Review, Tin House and many more.

I bought three beautifully designed editions of novellas from a series by Melville House Publishing called "The Art of the Novella."  I got The Dead by James Joyce, Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville, and First Love by Ivan Turgenev.

Good subway reading, I got these three of my favorite pieces of literature for Teen Spirit.

The Melville House series celebrates the novella, a form that is too short to be a novel and too long to be a short story and is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers.

I didn’t make it to any of the other readings. Did you? Do tell.

Rudy Delson, author of Maynard and Jennica, will be reading at Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House on September 20th. In the meantime, he’s been visiting doctors.

“Since my book will be published next week, I’ve been to see my doctors, and in particular, I’ve been to see my dermatologist. Because I have this spot here, and also this dry thing here, and also, here, can you feel that lump? Pace Susan Sontag and Illness as Metaphor, having the good luck to publish a book raises the risk of bad luck in the form of cancer. And also in the forms of (a) the Antarctic ice sheets collapsing the night before my book party, (b) the U.S. dollar collapsing the night before my book party, (c) global fish stocks collapsing the night before my book party, and (d) bedbugs.

So I went to see Dr. Mark Tesser, my dermatologist, up on Prospect Park West. We talked about Eliot Spitzer—we always talk about Eliot Spitzer—and then we talked about Chuck Schumer, and then Dr. Tesser told me to take my clothes off. Apparently the spots I had spotted were nothing to worry about, but Dr. Tesser was concerned about a freckle on my forearm, a dubious freckle:

“What’s this?” “Um, that?” “Yes.” “That’s always been there.” “Always this color?” “Um, yes.” “Always darker in the middle?” “Um.” “I want a biopsy.”

So he took a biopsy: punched a hole into my forearm, lifted the chad of skin away with a pair of forceps, and then sent it off to the lab for further study. The biopsy left an ideal wound, two millimeters deep, perfectly circular, and bloodless. While he cleaned me up, I told Dr. Tesser about my book—he wrote the title down on his pad, as though he were about to send me to the pharmacist with a prescription for Maynard and Jennica—and then hurried off to see his next patient.

His nurse gave me a pamphlet on “caring for your wound,” and I headed home, to consider the fate of Antarctica.”

Regina McBride is a published novelist and creative writing instructor with seventeen years of teaching experience, available to read your manuscript and offer insight, feedback, and suggestions. 

Whether you feel your work is ready to go out to agents, or you feel there may be a need to deepen the characters, the story, or the connection between the two, SHE CAN HELP YOU.

Unfinished manuscripts, as well as the first pages or chapters of the novel are as welcome as "finished" manuscripts.  The fee is negotiable, depending upon how much material you submit and the kind of feedback you are looking for.

Contact Regina McBride, at nightsea21@nyc.rr.com

BIO
Regina McBride is the author of three novels, The Nature of Water and Air,
The Land of Women, and The Marriage Bed, all published by Simon and
Schuster.  Her novels have been translated into seven languages, and her
first novel was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a
Borders Original Voices choice, and a Booksense pick.  She is the recipient
of an NEA fellowship, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.
Her poetry book, Yarrow Field, won an American Book Series Award.  She
taught fiction writing and poetry writing for nine years at Hunter College
and at The Writer’s Voice in New York City

I like the sounds of this book mentioned briefly in today’s New York Times’ book review. Here’s the blurb from Amazon.

Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance is a wonder cabinet of seventy-five unlikely
thingamajigs that have been invested with significance and transformed
into totems, talismans, charms, relics, and fetishes: scraps of movie
posters scavenged from the streets of New York by Low Life author Luc
Sante; the World War I helmet that inoculated social critic Thomas
Frank against jingoism; the trash-picked, robot-shaped hairdo machine
described by its owner as a chick magnet; the bagel burned by actor
Christopher Walken while moonlighting as a short-order cook. The owners
of these objects convey their excitement in short, often poignant
essays that  invite readers to participate in the enjoyable act of
interpreting things.

I found a mention of The Day to Day Life of Albert Hastings on the  Princeton Architectural Press website, which also published Taking Things Seriously. This book sounds like a lovely and poignant photographic study of an elderly man.  The Princeton Architectural has many interesting sounding books on their website. Here’s the book blurb from the PAP blog:

When Albert Hastings was eighty-five years old,
photographer KayLynn Deveney moved near his small flat in Wales.
KayLynn took notice of the small rituals and routines—gardening,
laundry, grocery shopping—that made up Bert’s life. A friendship slowly
developed as KayLynn began photographing parts of Bert’s day. The two
developed a simple yet effective method of storytelling—with KayLynn’s
images and Albert’s handwritten text—and the project evolved into The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings,
a poignant and profound chronicle of aging, living alone, and the small
things that make up our daily lives. Albert Hastings passed away in
February, 2007. He was 91 years old.

An interview with KayLynn Deveney by Rosecrans Baldwin of The Morning News can be found here.

Here is whatThe Morning News had to say about the book:

“The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings
lives up to its title: the comings and goings of a man in Wales who one
day met a young photographer living in the neighborhood. It’s a
marvelous book: KayLynn Deveney’s pictures draw out moments of repose
and oddness from the humdrum, and Hastings’s own captions subvert the
normal mode of playing subject, creating a much more personal take on a
(photographed) life.”

I always get these emails from the Community Bookstore about their readng group. I think this group is called the Underappreciated Books Reading Group. On July 25th, they are starting on Hemingway’s tome: For Whom the Bell Tolls.

To everyone who was at the previous book club meeting last Wednesday, I just want to say “thank you.” Without going into specifics, I’ll just say that the meeting turned my whole day around. I felt so fortunate to be surrounded by such a warm and thoughtful group of people.
Ok, on to important business matters. Our next pick is Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. It was a close fight between Hemingway and Hamsun, and in the end the American ex-pat defeated the Norwegian by a score of 6-5. But I think Hamsun will be back soon. Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 25th at 7:30 (please note: this is the fourth Wednesday, not the third).
I hope you can make it. As always, we’ll have some form of alcoholic refreshment there. And it’ll be chilled, don’t worry.

Brooklyn Reading Works presents Poetry, Prose and a collaboration based on Samuel Beckett. Plus: a free cocktail called: The Waking Dream.

The Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Street. 8 p.m. Five bucks.

Brooklyn Reading Works Presents:
THE EDGY MOTHER’S DAY EVENT
ON MAY 24, 2007 at 8 p.m.

THE  OLD STONE HOUSE IN PARK SLOPE
Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets
Contact: Louise Crawford: 718-288-4290
www.brooklynreadingworks.com

So what’s an edgy mom? Moms (and one dad) who write fiction and non-fiction about motherhood with smarts, humor, creativity, and a healthy degree of love, awe, skepticism., sarcasm, irony, and grumpiness.

Don’t miss this stellar group of fiction writers, journalists, poets, and bloggers:

Susan Gregory Thomas (author of “Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Mothers and Harms Children”), Amy Sohn (“My Old Man” and NY Magazine columnist), Louise Crawford (AKA Smartmom), Sophia Romero (“Always Hiding” and Mom After-Hours Blog),  Tom Rayfiel ("Parallel Play"), Mary Warren (AKA Mrs. Cleavage’s Diary Blog) Jennifer Block ("Pushed"),  Judy Lichtblau, Alison Lowenstein (“City Baby Brooklyn” and “Mommy Group”), Michele Somerville Madigan (Wisegal).

Five bucks gets you in. Free cocktails. Great fun.

Brooklyn Reading Works
is proud to present some really interesting stuff in April and May. A
little of this, a little of that. Bloggers on autism. A writing
workshop on April 21. The Second Annual Brooklyn Blogfest and the Edgy
Mother’s Day event. Something for everyone.

Thursday,
April 19:
MOM-BLOGGERS WHO WRITE ABOUT LIFE, LOVE, AND LEARNING WITH AN AUTISTIC CHILD will read at The Old Stone House at 8 p.m. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. MothersVox of
Autism’s Edges and Kristina Chew of Autism Vox.

Saturday, April 21:
Inner Lives, Developing Characters. ONE-DAY WRITING WORKSHOP with
novelist Regina McBride, author of "The Nature of Water and Air." 10:30
– 5 p.m
. at The Montauk Club. Fee: $125. Great jump start for writer of all
levels. The workshop is almost full.   email nightsea21@nyc.rr.com or
louise_crawford@yahoo.com

DESCRIPTION: Using relaxation, sense memory, and emotional memory (Stanislavski
acting techniques transformed for the writer) a variety of exercises
will be offered to enable the student to find a deeper, richer
connection to the character he or she is creating. Exercises will be followed by writing periods, and opportunities for
people to read and share their work. The atmosphere will be safe, with
the focus on exploration. The class is designed to help the student
break into new territory with the character, and with the story itself.

Thursday May 10th: SECOND ANNUAL BROOKLYN BLOGFEST at
the Old Stone House. 8 p.m. Special speakers. Photo Bloggers. Open Mic.
Meet and Greet. Refreshments. After Party. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and
4th Streets. More info at brooklynreadingworks.com (event organized by
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn).

Thursday May 24th:
EDGY MOTHER’S DAY EVENT with Amy Sohn, Tom Rayfiel, Smartmom, Alison Lowenstein, Judy Lichtblau and More. 8
p.m. at the Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. More info here.

Brooklyn Reading Works is proud to present some really interesting stuff in April and May. A little of this, a little of that. Bloggers on autism. A writing workshop on April 21. The Second Annual Brooklyn Blogfest and the Edgy Mother’s Day event. Something for everyone.

Thursday,
April 19:
MOM-BLOGGERS WHO WRITE ABOUT LIFE, LOVE, AND LEARNING WITH AN AUTISTIC CHILD will read at The Old Stone House at 8 p.m. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. MothersVox of
Autism’s Edges and Kristina Chew of Autism Vox.

Saturday, April 21:
Inner Lives, Developing Characters. ONE-DAY WRITING WORKSHOP with
novelist Regina McBride, author of "The Nature of Water and Air." 10:30
– 5 p.m
. at The Montauk Club. Fee: $125. Great jump start for writer of all
levels. The workshop is almost full.   email nightsea21@nyc.rr.com or
louise_crawford@yahoo.com

DESCRIPTION: Using relaxation, sense memory, and emotional memory (Stanislavski
acting techniques transformed for the writer) a variety of exercises
will be offered to enable the student to find a deeper, richer
connection to the character he or she is creating. Exercises will be followed by writing periods, and opportunities for
people to read and share their work. The atmosphere will be safe, with
the focus on exploration. The class is designed to help the student
break into new territory with the character, and with the story itself.

Thursday May 10th: SECOND ANNUAL BROOKLYN BLOGFEST at
the Old Stone House. 8 p.m. Special speakers. Photo Bloggers. Open Mic.
Meet and Greet. Refreshments. After Party. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and
4th Streets. More info at brooklynreadingworks.com (event organized by
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn).

Thursday May 24th:
EDGY MOTHER’S DAY EVENT with Amy Sohn, Tom Rayfiel, Smartmom, Alison Lowenstein, Judy Lichtblau and More. 8
p.m. at the Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. More info here.

Brooklyn Reading Works is pleased to present Mom-bloggers who blog about life with an autistic child. This Thursday April 19th at 8 p.m. at the Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Street in Park Slope.

Mothersvox is the nom-de-net of a mother, teacher, scholar and activist living in New York City. She runs the blog, Autism’s Edges: about life, love, and learning with a child at the edges of the autism spectrum.

Kristina Chew is a classics professor and writer who runs the blog Autism Vox.

A podcast of this reading will be available online after the reading.

UPCOMING ON MAY 24th at 8 p.m.

THE EDGY MOTHER’S DAY EVENT WITH AMY SOHN, TOM RAYFIEL, SMARTMOM, JUDY LICHTBLAU, AND MORE.