Tayari Jones: Day One

Tayari Jones was born and raised in Atlanta. Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, about the infamous Atlanta child murders of 1979-81, received the Hurston/Wright Award for Debut Fiction. Her second novel, The Untelling, was awarded the Lillian C. Smith Award for New Voices from the Southern Regional Council and the University of Georgia Libraries. She has also received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Corporation of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, the Arizona Commission for the Arts and le Chateau de Lavigny in Switzerland. An assistant professor of English at the MFA program at Rutgers University in Newark, she is currently completing her third novel, closing a projected trilogy set in her home state of Georgia.

She will be visiting the Queens College campus on Monday, April 14 @ 6 PM.

Each day this week the Bulletin Blog will feature glimpses into Jones’ insights on the writing process, the writing profession and the writer’s identity. Follow the links to read the full articles or essays.



My MFA advisor, Ron Carlson, once told me that writers are either gushers or ekers. Ekers are the romantic sorts that stare at the page for an hour and a half and then carefully write down four perfect words. Gushers are people like me-- or at least people like I used to be-- who write four or five pages in a sort of frenzy. And then they look it over and decide that there is only a half-page of useable writing. That's how I used to be. When I write, I was like me-- on crack. But now, my patterns have changed.

PUBLIC LIVES/PRIVATE LIVES

PEN American Center
PUBLIC LIVES/PRIVATE LIVES
April 29-May 4, New York City
Fourth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature.
This year’s theme of Public Lives/Private Lives couldn't be more timely. How do we draw a line between our private and public selves? When must we tell private stories for the public good? How, as readers, writers, and citizens, do we confront threats to our privacy? What is still considered private in the Internet age? Do we need to redefine the meaning of public and private in the 21st century? The writers in this year’s Festival will mine this rich theme in a variety of literary conversations, panels, readings, and performances.
www.pen.org

“Everywhere at Once”

Tribeca Film Festival
April 23-May 4, New York City
check out . . .
“Everywhere at Once” U.S. premiere: Renowned photographer Peter Lindbergh and experimental filmmaker Holly Fisher, with actress Jeanne Moreau, weave a tapestry of images shaping one woman's deepest sense of selfhood. Text by Kimiko Hahn.
April 27 & 30; May 1 & 4. See listing for time and theater.
www.tribecafilmfestival.org

THE QUETZAL QUILL

Saturday, March 29 @ 6 PM

Cornelia Street Café
29 Cornelia Street in the Village

A/C/E/B/D/F & V Trains to W 4th Street

$7 includes a drink

Talent:

Alessandra Lynch: It was a terrible cloud at twilight

Annecy Báez: My Daughter's Eyes and Other Stories

Gregory Pardlo:Totem

Hosted by Rigoberto González

Books available for purchase from Mobile Libris!

The 9th National Black Writers Conference

The Center for Black Literature
at Medgar Evers College, CUNY
presents
The 9th National
Black Writers Conference
Friday, 3/28 – Sunday, 3/30
Medgar Evers College Campus
1650 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn
Subway directions: #2, 3, 4, 5 to Franklin Avenue; walk down the avenue toward Empire Blvd.
INFORMATION: www.mec.cuny.edu/nbwc
Partial listing of conference participants: Amiri Baraka, Thulani Davis, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Erica Hunt, Tayari Jones, Kevin Powell, Quincy Troupe, Patricia Spears Jones, Martha Southgate, Quincy Troupe, John Edgar Wideman, and, for a Lifetime Literary Award, Sona Sanchez.

Harold Schechter . . .

@ CUNY Graduate Center
Gotham History Blotter: Reading and Book Signing

Wednesday, March 26th
6:30–8:00 pm, free
34th Street and Fifth Avenue
The Gotham Center recently introduced a new section on its website, The Gotham History Blotter, that features short non-fiction essays about New York City history. This event features several recent contributors including Morton Zachter, author of the award-winning DOUGH: A Memoir; Harold Schechter, author of THE DEVIL'S GENTLEMAN: Privilege, Poison and the Trial that Ushered in the Twentieth Century; and Benjamin Feldman, author of BUTCHERY ON BOND STREET: Sexual Politics and the Burdell-Cunningham Case in Antebellum New York.

Off Campus--

The New Salon: POETS IN CONVERSATION
Kimiko Hahn
in conversation with Alice Quinn
Kimiko Hahn is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Narrow Road to the Interior. A faculty member in the MFA Program at Queens College, The City University of New York, she is also a visiting writer at NYU.
Sponsored by NYU and the Poetry Society of America
Thursday, March 27 @ 7 pm, free and open to the public
The Lillian Vernon Creative Writing House
58 West 10th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues; near West 4th Station)

TEACHERS & WRITERS COLLABORATIVE presents
2020 VISIONS/Reading Series
CATHY LINH CHE, EVELYN IBARRA, AND KIMIKO HAHN
Friday, March 28, 6:30 PM (Free!)
520 Eighth Ave. (btwn 36th and 37th Streets), suite 2020
Two emerging writers, Cathy Linh Che Evelyn Ibarra, read with Kimiko Hahn, author of seven books of poetry and interviewed in Teachers & Writers, Spring 2007 issue.

Tom Sleigh & David Blair

Tuesday, March 25, 7 pm
McNally Robinson Bookstore:
52 Prince St. (between Lafayette and Mulberry)
(near the R subway line)

Poet and CUNY-professor, Tom Sleigh is the author of nine books and this year's Kingsley Tufts Award winner for his most recent collection, SPACE WALK, where he engages both current American realities and the gravitational pull of love and hope. David Blair's new collection ASCENSION DAYS was awarded the 2006 Del Sol Press Poetry Prize selected by Thomas Lux, who writes "David Blair has a wild, restless imagination and he uses language like saw, a hammer, a velvet whip." Join us for an evening with two poets at the top of their game.

THE VAULT, Saturday, March 22 @ 8 PM

COME SUPPORT THE QC MFA CREW AT

THE VAULT

90-21 Springfield Blvd
Queens Village, NY

Hosted By: Michael Alpiner

Featured Readers: Michael Alpiner, John Currie, Todd Sullivan, Ann Rosenthal, Jackie P.

The Vault is a non-profit arts venue that was begun by Tone Bellizze (The Vault, when not being used for an event, doubles as Tone's house). The proceeds from the Vault events and the many other of Tone's projects goes to support the Hope for the Children Foundation, which serves children and young people in the most needy areas of the world.

The Vault, itself, is a non-smoking, non-alcohol venue (lets go out afterwards for all the debauchery we can muster) whose motto is "Fear No Art." Performers in all areas of the arts have graced the stage over the years, and the audience, made up mostly of loyal patrons, is always supportive and friendly.

Snacks and refreshments are available and also welcomed if you feel like contributing. A quarterly journal called "Soul Fountain" is published through The Vault, and which has appeared in Poet's Market.

Directions:

By car - Take the Grand Central Parkway to Francis Lewis Blvd south. Go about half a mile to Hillside Avenue, make a left and proceed about one mile to Springfield Blvd, make a right. Go three blocks or so to 90th Avenue and look for parking.

By Bus/public trans. - F train to 179th street, go to the street level (by the OTB) and take the Q1 bus to Springfield Blvd (I think the bus turns down Springfield) and get off at 90th Avenue. Walk across the street to the Vault.

Suggested donation: $5-10, but anything's acceptable.

Welcome, Professor Girmay!

The Queens College/CUNY Department of English and the MFA Program in Writing and Literary Translation are proud to welcome Professor Aracelis Girmay, Visiting Writer for the 2008-2009 academic year.



Aracelis Girmay writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction essays. She is the author of Teeth (Curbstone Press, 2007) and the collage-based picture book, changing, changing (George Braziller, 2005). A Cave Canem fellow, her poems and translations have been published in Ploughshares, Indiana Review, Callaloo, Rattapallax, and Gathering Ground, among other publications. Girmay has led community writing workshops for young people and adults at colleges, community centers, high schools, parks, fish houses, museums, and libraries.