Baltimore Book Festival 2007: Creative Cafe Schedule
Friday September 28
5 to 6 p.m. 2007 Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) Poetry Reading
15 Maryland writers won individual poetry
awards from MSAC this year. Several of these poets will read from their
work. Pamela Dunne, MSAC Program Director for Arts in Education, Arts
Service, Children's Events, Literature and GFO Technical Assistance,
and Community Arts Development introduces the event.
6 to 7 p.m. Roya Hakakian - Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran
Hakakian, an Iranian-Jewish writer born
in 1966, fled with her family in 1984 from Tehran to the United States.
Known for her intellectual fearlessness, she tonight discusses her haunting,
award-winning memoir about growing up in post-revolutionary Iran as
a Jewish teenager. Recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and the 2003
Dewitt / Wallace Reader's Digest Fellowship for her writing, Hakakian
has authored two collections of poetry, the first of which, For the
Sake of Water, received honorable mention in the Oxford Encyclopedia
of the Modern Islamic World and was nominated as the poetry book of
the year by Iran News in 1993. A contributor to the Weekend Edition
of NPR's All Things Considered, she pens opinion columns, essays, and
book reviews for a number of notable publications, including the New
York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. A founding
member of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Hakakian - also
filmmaker - documented the worldwide involvement of underage children
in wars in the UNICEF-commissioned movie "Armed and Innocent."
7 to 8 p.m. Celebrating Baltimore Poetry from Avant-Garde to Traditional
Zelda’s Zine - the brainchild
of Zelda’s Inferno, longtime city poetry denizens, debuts its first
issue showcasing work by Karla Mancero, Tom Swiss, Suzanne Diggs, and
Robin Gunkel. Poetry impresario Julie Fisher will also be reading as
well as celebrating the one-year anniversary of the popular anthology
Octopus Dreams (poetryinbaltimore.com 2006).
8 to 9 p.m. Poets’ Ink Reading
Dennis Barnes is the indefatigable editor of Poets’ Ink—the broadside in which writers, especially those just finding their voices, also find a home for their work. Each broadside is accompanied by a publication reading. Tonight the featured readers are poets who had their work read, discussed, and chosen by established writers and editors at the 2007 CityLit Festival Poets' Ink workshop.
Saturday September 29
11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Manorborn Publication Reading
Manorborn is the annual literary
journal of the Hartford Poetry Society (HPS). Contributors to the latest
issue, being presented today, include Karen S. Elliott, MiMi Zannino,
Rosemary Klein, and Alan Reese, president of HPS and most recent Manorborn
editor. This issue includes poetry by Barbara M. Simon.
12:15 to 2 p.m. 10th Anniversary Celebration: A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation
- Richard Peabody
First published in 1997 by High Risk
Press, A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation,
now out by Serpent's Tail, was hailed by the Library Journal as a "well-balanced
anthology, which should focus more attention on Beat women, and is recommended
for all literature collections." Richard Peabody, the editor responsible
for A Different Beat has been credited by the womenbeats.blogspot.com
as having "opened up the definition of Beat women to include a
whole slew of additional figures." Peabody discusses the incredible
publishing journey of this fundamental reference on female Beats. He
also brings along the special Beat women issue of Gargoyle, the
literary magazine he founded and edits and is backed by local poets
reading the work of the Beat Generation females, writers of that poetry
said to be characterized by its spontaneous creativity, its chaos, grittiness,
and open emotion. Hosted by poet and musician Brian Langston, a founding
editor of the literary journal Into the Teeth of the Wind.
2 to 3 p.m. Rafael Alvarez: In From California
Rafael Alvarez returns from California
to talk about his old books and new projects. This volume won high praise
from Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America,
who termed it “not the usual coffee-table photo book, but something
substantial, complex, honest, challenging, revealing, funny and also
unprecedented…” Don’t miss coming to hear the ruminations of Mr.
Baltimore.
3 to 4 p.m. Attic Publication Reading
Attic
is the literary journal currently published by the Maryland State Poetry
& Literary Society (MSP&LS). Today the second issue of this
journal - ably edited by talented UMBC student Beth Varden and dedicated
- with a feature of her work - to Barbara M. Simon makes its debut.
Among this issue's contributors reading their work will be Charles Rammelkamp,
Forestine Bynum, Michael Fallon, Kim Roberts, Alan Barysh, Alan Reese,
and Karla Mancero. Christina Gay, this Attic’s designer, hosts
the event.
4 to 7 p.m. Barbara M. Simon - The Woman From Away
This publication party celebrates the
considerable talents of Barbara M. Simon, who was much respected in
the Baltimore literary and educational community, for her creativity
and service. Long overdue, The Woman From Away is a rich compilation
of poetry emboldened by self-reflection and strengthened by classic
description. Barbara's poems will be read by friends, family, and colleagues.
Baltimore artist Minas Konsolas accompanies on the lyra, a traditional
Carpathian folk instrument. Talented songwriter Niki Lee, a favorite
Creative Café performer, sings.
Sunday September 30
11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Passager: Specialty Markets and Getting Published
Mary Azrael and Kendra Kopelke, editors
of Passager, preside over a panel discussion and contributors’
reading. Passager Magazine has been a Baltimore presence for sixteen
years now. Two issues of the journal, featuring poetry, fiction, and
memoir, come out yearly. Passager Books has published A Cartography
of Peace, poems by Jean L. Connor and Improvise in the Amen Corner,
drawings & poems by Larnell Custis Butler.
12 to 1:30 p.m. Writers’ Lair Books: Deanna Nikaido, Sandra Jones, and Nicole Brown
Writers’ Lair Books has three new
publications: Vibrating with Silence by Deanna Nikaido, I
Only Meant to Wet My Feet by Sandra Jones, and Conversations
at My Sister's Dinner Table by Nicole Brown. Shana Yarborough, the
dynamo behind Writers’ Lair Books, introduces these three fine writers
and answers questions about her Nottingham Maryland-based press.
1:30 to 2:30 p.m. VRZHU: Kim Roberts and Hiram Larew
A publication reading for The Kimnama
by Kim Roberts and More Than Anything by Hiram Larew, recent
poetry volumes from the DC-based Vrzhu Press, which attributes its existence
to "either an act of supreme foolhardiness or a cosmic wager on
the power of joy." Both Roberts and Larew are tireless advocates
for poetry - and fine poets in their own right. Larew's work has appeared
in about 80 small press paper and online journals and has received prizes
such as the Louisiana Literature poetry prize and the Washington Review
poetry prize. Called "quirky, engaging [and] sneakily profound,"
Larew's work also won the 1999 Artscape Poetry Prize and was published
by the City of Baltimore as a chapbook. Kim Roberts, the editor of the
highly regarded Beltway Poetry Quarterly, has also published
the poetry volume The Wishbone Galaxy and delights in the fact
that her poems have been published in journals beginning with every
letter of the alphabet.
2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Living With Dragons: Understanding Young Artistic Voices
Conversing with Dragons: A Celebration
of Life and Art by Robyn Weiss (iUniverse, Inc. 2003) and Mom...Let's
Talk (Lulu.com, 2006) have editor Linda Joy Burke, well respected
poet and musician, in common. Robyn Weiss as a 16-year-old Howard County
student took her own life; Conversing with Dragons
preserves her thoughts, hopes, and observations. Robert Schaeberle,
died tragically at age 25, and Mom...Let's Talk is his mother’s
cathartic memoir of his life and poetry. Today Burke discusses what
these books can teach young people who are slaying their own dragons
and wondering if they can triumph. She also suggests what these books
offer parents, guardians, teachers, and others who care about or work
with artistic kids, especially poets and writers who struggle with remaining
whole in a fractured world.
3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Tea with Mr. Twain
Imbibe lemonade and coffee and munch
on cookies as you listen to Mark Twain, known for starting out as a
self-published author, give a half-hour presentation on how to go about
self-publishing your work. Twain's speechifying is followed by a half-hour
Q&A by the good folks of MidAtlantic Book Publishers Association,
a community of independent publishers located in Maryland, Delaware,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, DC and a regional
affiliate of Publishers Marketing Association, The Independent Book
Publishers Association.
4:30 to 5 p.m. Blind Lady Press: J.R. Shorter
J.R. Shorter, longtime participant in
the monthly Poets’ Ink workshops at Barnes & Noble Pikesville,
brought his poems together in a self-published book with CD titled
They Called the Wind Mariah: Memories of the Age of Aquarius
(Blind Lady Press, 2006). See why this expressive poet says “Doubt
is a dangerous thing for dreamers.”
5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Open Reading Honoring Barbara Simon
An honoring of Barbara Simon – fine poet, staunch supporter of literary events and persons, editor, and longtime Creative Café host. Those wishing to read poems by Barbara or to share work or reminiscences about her are invited to do so. Acoustic guitar performance by poet/songwriter Brian Langston. Co-hosted by Rosemary Klein and Dennis Barnes.