My 2014 AWP Conference Schedule
Thursday, February 27, 2014 View Full Schedule | |
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10:30 am to 11:45 am | |
Cedar Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor |
R131. Translation and U.S. Spanish-Language Poetry. ( Kristin Dykstra, Tina Escaja, Mariela Dreyfus, Eileen Mary O'Connor) Opening with a short reading, this panel will take up questions involving two groups of writers: Spanish-language poets residing in the U.S. and translators. Can translation help to build cultural communities that might not yet exist in reality? How might conditions differ from one place to another? How do poets perceive and seek out translators? What challenges do translators face? How and where can writer/translator teams create bilingual reading opportunities for all? Kristin Dykstra is professor of English at Illinois State University. A 2012 NEA Translation Fellow, she has translated books by Reina María Rodríguez, Omar Pérez, Juan Carlos Flores, and Ángel Escobar. She co-edits Mandorla: New Writing from the Americas /Nueva escritura de las Américas. Tina Escaja is a writer, digital artist, and scholar based in Burlington, Vermont. She is the author of awarded poetry and fiction as well as experimental and multimedia works, including hypertext. Her digital artefacts have been exhibited in museums and galleries of Spain, Mexico, and the U.S. Mariela Dreyfus is the author of six poetry books, most recently Cuaderno músico. She has translated into Spanish the poetry of Diane Wakoski, Allen Ginsberg, and Daniel T. Moran. She currently teaches poetry and literary translation in the MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at New York University. E.M. O’Connor has translated the poetry collection Fish by Mariela Dreyfus and the novel I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosín. Her essays, poetry, and translations have appeared in various journals. She teaches Literature and Spanish at Lesley University and is writing her first novel. |
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm | |
Room 2A, Washington State Convention Center, Level 2 |
R164. 20 Things You Need to Know About Starting a Writers Group & 10 Things You Need to Know If You're Already in One!. (Miguel M Morales, Jose Faus, Maria Vasquez Boyd, Gabriela Ybarra Lemmons) Can a writing group fulfill its mission to foster and support writers while responding to community needs for mentors, advocates, and role-models? The Latino Writers Collective will explore the balance between artist and administrator. Learn how we developed our Página reading series, educational programs for at-risk and migrant youth, our in-school and after school programs, and how we created a press, all with no paid staff. Get tips and tools for success. Learn how to avoid the diva syndrome. Miguel M Morales, a former migrant farmwoker, is a Latino Writers Collective board member, a founding member of Fabulous Queer Writers, and a Lambda Literary Fellow. His work is featured in Primera Página, Cuentos del Centro, From Macho to Mariposa, and Joto: An Anthology of Queer & Chicano Poetry. José Faus is a Kansas City, Missouri, resident, writer, and visual artist. He is a founding member of the Latino Writers Collective and president of the board of the Writers Place. He is also a youth advocate and community worker. Maria Vasquez Boyd is a painter/artist/writer and founding member of the Latino Writers Collective in Kansas City Missouri. Her work is published in Primera Pagina, Cuentos Del Centro, Everyday Other Things, Salit magazine, America Now, and Here Kansas City Renga. Gabriela Ybarra Lemmons's work appears in Primera Pagina: Poetry from the Latino Heartland, Cuentos: Stories from the Latino Heartland, and NewBorder: Contemporary Voices from the US/Mexico Border. She is a co-founder and current president of the LWC. |
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | |
Aspen Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor |
R220. What's Luso Got To Do With It?. (Paula Neves, Jarita Davis, Melissa da Silveira Serpa, Marie Carvalho, Amy Sayre Baptista) Issues of identity and inclusivity—in literature and life—will be addressed by members of Presence/Presença, a grassroots organization that provides a community for North American writers of the Portuguese and Lusophone diaspora. Hear about how to reach out to writers who might feel marginalized, as well as fundamental requirements for creating a not-for-profit arts organization to nurture writers within our community, a desired goal for this organization, will also be discussed. PaulA Neves’ work has appeared in Quiddity, The Waiting Room Reader II; Between Mountain; The New Laurel Review; The Newark Metro; Lambda Literary Award finalist The Poetry of Sex; and Stonewall Book Award-winning Uncommon Heroes. Her scholarships include Dzanc Books and West Chester.
Melissa da Silveira Serpa serves on the executive committee of Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival, and is a teaching artist for Poetry Inside Out, an education program run by the Center for the Art of Translation. Marie Carvalho writes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her work has received an AWP Intro award, Ford Foundation and Wyoming Arts fellowships, a Dzanc Books scholarship, and a Pushcart Prize nomination. She teaches and works as a freelance writer in Honolulu. Amy Sayre Baptista’s stories have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, S’ouwester, LUSO American Voices, and Chicago Noir. She is a CantoMundo fellow, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a scholarship recipient to the Disquiet Literary Festival in Lisbon, Portugal. |
Cedar Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor |
R221. The Write to Network: Women Writers Empowering Women. (Maria Maloney, Arisa White, JP Howard, Xanath Caraza, Erica Eller) In this panel, four women in the writing industry and from diverse segments of the country, cultural backgrounds, and literary affiliations, discuss the ways in which women writers, editors, and publishers are networking to help promote and empower women writers across the publishing industry—from women-empowering virtual gatherings and poetry salons to chain reading series and grassroots community publishing. Maria Miranda Maloney is the founder of Mouthfeel Press and author of The City I Love. She is a former writer and literary event organizer for the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum, and she is the current poetry editor for BorderSenses. Arisa White is a Cave Canem fellow, the author of Post Pardon, Hurrah’s Nest, and A Penny Saved, and she is an advisory board member for Flying Object and co-editor for Her Kind, an online literary community powered by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. JP Howard aka Juliet P. Howard is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and co-founder of Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon, a monthly literary salon in New York, which nurtures women writers of all levels. Her poems have been published widely, including in Muzzle magazine and The Best American Poetry Blog. Xánath Caraza’s bilingual poetry and short story collections are Conjuro, Corazón Pintado, and What the Tide Brings. She writes the column, "US Latino Poets en español," and teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is an advisory circle member of the Con Tinta literary organization. Erica Eller is the organizer of the Hazel Reading Series in San Francisco. She has published fiction in Everyday Genius and the Otolith. |
Ballroom E, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
R230. The Narration of Identity and the Cuban-American Experience with Richard Blanco and Cristina Garcia, Sponsored by Blue Flower Arts. (Forrest Gander, Richard Blanco, Cristina Garcia) Richard Blanco and Cristina Garcia give a rare glimpse into their forbidden country, Cuba, through the literary voice of the American immigrant experience. Reading poetry, fiction, and memoir—and in lively conversation with Forrest Gander—they each illuminate the struggles of living in-between two cultures. Throughout their search for a cultural identity, they explore issues of language, gender, family, exile, and history—and discover what it means to truly become an American. Forrest Gander is a writer & translator with degrees in geology and English literature. Recent books include Eiko & Koma, Fungus Skull Eye Wing: Selected Poems of Alfonso D'Aquino, and Core Samples from the World, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist. Richard Blanco’s first book, City of a Hundred Fires, received the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. His second book, Directions to The Beach of the Dead won the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. His third collection, Looking for The Gulf Motel, won the Paterson Poetry Prize and Thom Gunn Award from the Publishing Triangle. He stands as the youngest, first Latino, and first openly gay person to serve as the Presidential inaugural poet. Cristina García is the author of several novels, including The Agüero Sisters, winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize; and Dreaming in Cuban, finalist for the National Book Award, and, most recently, King of Cuba. She has edited two anthologies, Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature and Cubanísimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature. Her other work includes three books for young readers and a collection of poetry, The Lesser Tragedy of Death. |
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm | |
Room 602/603, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
R262. Four Novelists Celebrate Arte Público Press. (J.L. Torres, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Manuel Ramos) Arte Público Press began 35 years ago as a much needed outlet for Latina/o writers who had limited access to mainstream publishing. Since then, the press has published some of the most renowned, award winning Latina/o authors in the United States. Four novelists will read from their work recently published by APP and discuss the press’ influence on their careers and its impact on Latina/o literary production, followed by a discussion on the current state of publishing for Latina/o writers. J.L. Torres is the author of The Family Terrorist and Other Stories; The Accidental Native; and the poetry collection, Boricua Passport. A Fulbright recipient, he teaches literature and creative writing at SUNY, Plattsburgh, where he is editor of the Saranac Review. Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a professor of Chicana/o Studies, English, and Gender Studies at UCLA. She has published ten books: three novels, two collections of poetry, a short story collection, and four academic books. Her novel on Sor Juana is being made into a movie starring Ana de la Reguera. |
Friday, February 28, 2014 View Full Schedule | |
9:00 am to 10:15 am | |
Room LL4, Western New England MFA Annex, Lower Level |
F125. CantoMundo Fellows and Faculty Share their Stories of Teaching Latina/o Poetry. (Norma E. Cantu, Valerie Martinez, Barbara B. Curiel, Ruben Quesada, Diana Delgado) Teaching Latina/o Poetry in the 21st-century demands specific strategies. The creative writing classroom is a space for innovation, discovery, and pertinent discussions on social change. Presenters will examine aspects of teaching writing and reading at the college level with a specific focus on Latina/o poetry and will include presentations on the interplay of pedagogical strategies and genres of Latina/opoetics as well as unique uses of traditional methods, and technology and social media. Norma E. Cantú currently serves as professor of U.S. Latino/Latina Studies at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Author of the award-winning novel, Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, she is cofounder of CantoMundo and a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. Valerie Martínez is a poet, educator, and collaborative artist. Her six books of poetry include Absence, Luminescent, World to World, and Each and Her (winner of the Arizona Book Award, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize). She was the Poet Laureate for the City of Santa Fe for 2008-2010. Barbara Brinson Curiel is professor of English and Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Humboldt State University. Her forthcoming collection Mexican Jenny and Other Poems was selected for the 2012 Philip Levine Poetry Prize. She is a fellow of CantoMundo. Ruben Quesada, author of Next Extinct Mammal (2011) and Luis Cernuda: Exiled from the Throne of Night (2008), is poetry editor of Codex Journal, Stories & Queer, and The Cossack Review. He teaches literature and writing at Eastern Illinois University.
Diana Marie Delgado, poet and playwright, is graduate of the poetry programs at the University of California, Riverside and Columbia University. She has served as Poet in Residence of Northern New Mexico College and she was awarded the 2005 James D. Phelan Award in Poetry. |
Room LL5, Western New England MFA Annex, Lower Level |
F126. Poetics of Science: Meetings of the Mind. (Lila Zemborain, Marta del Pozo Ortea, Leonard Schwartz, Zhang Er) The historical divide between poetry and science has caused much damage to our culture, particularly after the project of the Enlightenment. However, poetry and science share a crucial endeavor: the understanding of the world. They also have a common language: metaphors (scientific theories provide nothing else but models of the world). This panel offers a poetry reading and a conversation with five poets whose work is informed by scientific concepts. Lila Zemborain is the author of seven poetry collections, including Guardians of the Secret (2009) and Mauve-Sea Orchids (2007), and the book-length essay Gabriela Mistral. Una mujer sin rostro. Since 2003 she curates the KJCC Poetry Series, and she teaches at the NYU MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish. Marta del Pozo is a poet, translator, and a literary critic. She won a prize with her book La memoria del pez. Her book of poems Deus ex Machina is forthcoming (2014). With Nick Rattner, she has translated into English Viento de Fuego/ FireWind. She works at the Spanish department at NYU. Leonard Schwartz is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including IF, At Element, The Library of Seven Readings, and A Message Back and other Furors. Zhang Er is the author of four collections of poetry in Chinese. Her selected poems were in two bilingual collections, So Translating Rivers and Cities and Verses on Bird. She co-edited Another Kind of Nation: an Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry. |
10:30 am to 11:45 am | |
Redwood Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor |
F135. Poets on the Craft of Translation: A Conversation Between New and Established Translators . (Gloria Munoz, Jay Hopler, Kimberly Johnson, John Talbot, Jennifer Kronovet) This diverse panel of new and established translators focuses on the challenges and advantages of translation in the MFA program and beyond. Panelists address strategies and theories of translation through the following questions: How to understand, maintain, and interpret the poetics of the source language? How is a translation affected by research? How poetic elements such as music, syntax, and rhythm are considered? How to negotiate and learn from the roles of poet and translator? Gloria Muñoz has been honored by the Estelle J. Zbar Poetry Prize, the Bettye Newman Poetry Award and the New York Summer Writer's Institute Fellowship. Her work has appeared in various print and online publications, and she is currently working to complete her first book of poetry and translation. Jay Hopler is the author of Green Squall and the editor, with Kimberly Johnson, of Before the Door of God: An Anthology of Devotional Poetry. He is associate professor of English at the University of South Florida. Kimberly Johnson's collections of poetry include Leviathan with a Hook, A Metaphorical God, and the forthcoming Uncommon Prayer. Her monograph on the poetic developments of post-Reformation poetry will be published in 2014. In 2009, her translation of Virgil’s "Georgics" was published. John Talbot is the author of two books of poetry, The Well-Tempered Tantrum and Rough Translation. His poems, translations, and criticism appear regularly in the leading journals, and his Greek and Latin scholarship in such venues as the Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Jennifer Kronovet is the author of the poetry collection Awayward and the co-translator of In Her White Wake, the selected poems of Yiddish writer Celia Dropkin. She co-founded Circumference, the journal of poetry in translation. |
Room 2A, Washington State Convention Center, Level 2 |
F137. Our Bodies at Work: Women, Liminal Space, and the U.S./Mexico Border. (Sasha Pimentel, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Emma Pérez, Carol Brochin, Abigail Carl-Klaasen) Chicana, Mennonite, and Filipina writers and poets engage the parallel traumas of the Ciudad Juárez/El Paso border—which is femicide and war-ridden, but rich and permeable—with our own personal negotiations of culture, sexuality, identity, and art. We’ll discuss literacies of transition: lesbianism, labor, immigration, and migration, and how, at the threshold between body and body, between country and country, and different kinds of war, we can arrive at the imaginal and the liminal. Sasha Pimentel is author of Insides She Swallowed, winner of the 2011 American Book Award. She directs the undergraduate studies in creative writing program at the University of Texas at El Paso and she is an assistant professor of poetry in their bilingual MFA program on the border of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a professor of Chicana/o Studies, English, and Gender Studies at UCLA. She has published ten books: three novels, two collections of poetry, a short story collection, and four academic books. Her novel on Sor Juana is being made into a movie starring Ana de la Reguera. Emma Pérez has published two novels, an academic book, and a number of essays on feminist/queer theory. Her first novel, Gulf Dreams, is considered one of the first Chicana lesbian novels in print. Her second novel, Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory received five awards/recognitions. Carol Brochin is an assistant professor of English at the University of Texas at El Paso where she teaches bilingual children’s literature and directs the West Texas Writing Project. Her current book manuscripts include a young adult novel about a queer Chicana set on the US/Mexico border. Abigail Carl-Klassen's poetry has appeared in Rhubarb, The Center for Mennonite Writing Journal, Rio Grande Review, 491, BorderSenses, and NewBorder: Contemporary Voices from the Texas/Mexico Border. |
Room 602/603, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
F145. Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family. (Joy Castro, Ralph Savarese, Sue William Silverman, Faith Adiele, Stephanie Elizondo Griest) Writing and publishing memoir about family members can be a vexed process, rife with concerns about privacy, fairness, and exploitation. The editor of the new collection Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family, together with four of its contributors, will discuss the challenges of writing about family members, share craft strategies, and offer ethical approaches for negotiating this difficult emotional and political terrain. Joy Castro is the author of the novels Hell or High Water and Nearer Home, the memoir The Truth Book, and the essay collection Island of Bones, and she edited the collection Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family. She teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Ralph James Savarese is the author of Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption, which Newsweek called a "real life love story and an urgent manifesto for the rights of people with neurological disabilities." A chapter was selected as a "notable essay" in the Best American Essays series. His creative nonfiction has appeared, among other places, in Ploughshares, Fourth Genre, and New England Review. Sue William Silverman's books are The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew; Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You; and Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Faith Adiele is author of Meeting Faith, a PEN award-winning memoir/travel diary and writer/subject/narrator of My Journey Home, a PBS documentary based on a memoir-in-progress about finding her global family. She teaches at California College of the Arts, Stanford, Berkeley, and around the world. Stephanie Elizondo Griest is the author of two memoirs: Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana and Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines; the guidebook 100 Places Every Woman Should Go; and she is editor of Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010. She teaches Creative Nonfiction at UNC-Chapel Hill. |
Room 606, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
F147. Poetry, Fiction, & Gronkfest: Celebrating Five Years of What Books Press. (Katharine Haake, Gronk Nicandro, Lynne Thompson, Rod Moore, Ramon Garcia) With its genre-bending list of bilingual poetry, eco-fabulist science fiction, magic journalism, and graphic narrative, What Books Press was founded to assert the imperative for serious writing that reflects the diversity of literary and political cultures emerging from Los Angeles, a center of art for the globalized world. This panel celebrates the press’ first five years with readings of poetry and prose and a multimedia presentation by the visual artist Gronk, who makes all What Books art. Katharine Haake’s new novel is the future eco fable, The Time of Quarantine. Her prior works include the hybrid novel, That Water, Those Rocks, and three short story collections. She teaches at CSU Northridge and has contributed widely to the scholarship and pedagogy of Creative Writing Studies. Gronk is one of Los Angeles' most recognized visual artists. His work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the National Museum of American Art in Washington D.C. He is also a set designer working frequently with the director Peter Sellars. Lynne Thompson’s collection, Start With A Small Guitar, was published in 2013. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals including Ploughshares, Sou’Wester, Solo Novo, and Crab Orchard Review. She is reviews and essays editor of the journal, Spillway. Rod Val Moore’s short story collection, Igloo Among Palms, won the Iowa Short Fiction award in 1994. A novel, Brittle Star, is forthcoming this year, and another novel, A History of Hands, won the 2013 Juniper Prize in fiction. He teaches creative writing and linguistics at L.A. Valley College. Ramón García is the author of a book of poetry Other Countries, and a forthcoming book of poetry entitled The Chronicles. His poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry 1996, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Los Angeles Review. He is a Professor at the California State University, Northridge. |
Room LL5, Western New England MFA Annex, Lower Level |
F157. Dwelling on the Edge: New California Writing 2013, Heyday/California Legacy. (Kirk Glaser, Juan Velasco, Zara Raab, Alexandra Teague, Steve Gutierrez) Culturally and geologically, California rests on shifting ground. This third annual anthology continues asking what is unique in California literature by assembling fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from publications large and small. What emerges reveals the proximity of Latin America and Asia, whose cultures clash and mix with those of Europe and Africa in ruthless and enchanting landscapes that render people as nowhere else. Join renowned contributors reading from and discussing this anthology. Kirk Glaser is co-editor of the anthology, New California Writing, 2013. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appeared in the Threepenny Review, Cerise Press, and the Cortland Review. He teaches at Santa Clara University and serves as advisor to the Santa Clara Review. Juan Velasco published his first novel, Enamorado, in Spain in 2000. Other publications include the DVD poetry, Call Me When I Am Gone (2008) and Massacre of the Dreamers (2011). He recently finished White One Death (2013). Zara Raab's books are Swimming the Eel and The Book of Gretel. Rumpelstiltskin, or What’s in a Name, a finalist for the Dana Award, will be published later this year, along with Fracas & Asylum. She is a contributing editor to Poetry Flash and the Redwood Coast Review. Alexandra Teague is the author of Mortal Geography, winner of Persea’s 2009 Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and the 2010 California Book Award, and The Wise and Foolish Builders, forthcoming in 2015. She is assistant professor of poetry at University of Idaho and an editor for Broadsided Press. Stephen D. Gutierrez is the author of Elements and Live from Fresno y Los, for which he received the Nilon Award and an American Book Award, respectively. He teaches at California State University, East Bay. |
Room 305, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3 |
F164. Are We Latino? The Hazards of Representation. (Daniel Borzutzky, Carmen Giménez Smith, Paul Martinez Pompa, Sandy Florian, Rodrigo Toscano) More and more, Latino literature is being canonized, often in celebration of the multicultural Americas. What happens, though, when writers who claim to be Latino don’t write directly about their heritage? We might be told we aren’t “really Latino” by peers, professors, and our own people. This panel starts a new dialogue about the poetics of identity politics in the academy and beyond. In the process, we share approaches to writing and teaching that question the “proper” embodiment of identity. Daniel Borzutzky's most recent book is The Book of Interfering Bodies. His translations include books of poetry by Raúl Zurita and Jaime Luis Huenún's Port Trakl. He teaches at Wright College in Chicago. His is the recipient of grants from the NEA and the PEN Foundation. Carmen Giménez Smith is the editor of Beyond the Field: New Latin@ Writing and, most recently, the poetry collections Milk and Filth and Goodbye, Flicker. She teaches in the MFA program at New Mexico State University, edits Puerto del Sol, and is publisher of Noemi Press. Paul Martinez Pompa is the author of Pepper Spray and My Kill Adore Him, which was selected for the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize in 2008. Sandy Florian is the author of five full-length books and serves as editor for Evental Aesthetics. Her most recent book, Boxing the Compass, is published by Noemi Press in collaboration with Letras Latinas. Rodrigo Toscano is the author of six books of poetry, including Deck of Deeds, and Collapsible Poetics Theater (a 2007 National Poetry Series Selection). His writing has appeared in the anthologies, Against Expression, Diasporic Avant Gardes, and Best American Poetry. |
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm | |
Room 602/603, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
F179. Chicana/o Noir: Murder, Mayhem and Mexican Americans. (Daniel Olivas, Lucha Corpi, Michael Nava, Manuel Ramos, Sarah Cortez) While many fans of noir fiction can tick off such names as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald, Chicana/o authors have emerged during the last several decades as expert practitioners of this very American literary form. Indeed, the line between literary and noir fiction has blurred virtually into extinction. The Chicana/o gumshoe is no longer new, but the panelists continue to stretch the form to include a more diverse universe of characters and subject matter. Daniel Olivas is the author of six books including The Book of Want: A Novel. He is the editor of the anthology, Latinos in Lotusland, and has been widely anthologized including in You Don't Have a Clue: Latino Mystery Stories for Teens. He has written for The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Lucha Corpi is a poet and novelist. Four of her novels feature Chicana detective Gloria Damasco: Eulogy for a Brown Angel, Cactus Blood, Black Widow's Wardrobe, and Death at Solstice. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and an Oakland Cultural Arts fellowship. Michael Nava is the author of a series of mysteries featuring Henry Rios, a gay Latino criminal defense lawyer. The novels won six Lambda Literary awards. His new novel, The City of Palaces, appears in Spring 2014. http://michaelnavawriter.com Manuel Ramos has published eight novels and he is recipient of many honors including the Chicano/Latino Literary Award. His debut novel, The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz, was a finalist for the Edgar award. She is a co-founder of and contributor to La Bloga, and her most recent novel is Desperado: A Mile High Noir. Sarah Cortez is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters. An award-winning author, as well as editor, she is best remembered for her poetry about the job of urban police officers. She has nine published volumes in the genres of fiction, essay, and poetry. www.poetacortez.com |
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm | |
Cedar Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor |
F200. Once More Unto the Breach: A Multilingual Reading of War-Informed Literature in Translation . (Nancy Naomi Carlson, John Balaban, Erica Mena, Marcela Sulak, Russell Scott Valentino) Throughout the ages, war has inspired a diverse body of literature from all across the world. This panel, translating from Bosnian, French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Vietnamese, will bring to English the human experience of love and loss with a backdrop of war from such landscapes as the deserts of Djibouti to the beaches of Vieques Island, ranging in time from the rebellion leading to the start of the Nguyen Dynasty to the present-day conflict between Palestine and Israel. Nancy Naomi Carlson has authored four titles, including Stone Lyre: Poems of René Char. Recipient of grants from the NEA, the Maryland Arts Council, and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County, she is an associate editor for Tupelo Press and translation editor for Blue Lyra Review. John Balaban is the author of twelve books of poetry and prose, which have won The Lamont Prize, a National Poetry Series Selection, two nominations for the National Book Award, and a medal from the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture. He teaches at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Erica Mena is a poet, translator, and book artist. Her translations include The Eternonaut by H.G. Oesterheld and Solano Lopez. Her work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, PEN America, Vanitas, and Words Without Borders. She is founding editor of Anomalous Press. Marcela Sulak's two poetry collections are Immigrant and the chapbook Of All The Things That Don't Exist, I Love You Best. She translated three collections of poetry from Hapsburg Bohemia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing. Russell Scott Valentino is a scholar, editor, writer, and translator based in Bloomington, Indiana. He is senior editor at Autumn Hill Books and a contributing editor at the Buenos Aires Review. He currently serves as Vice President of the American Literary Translators Association. |
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | |
Willow Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor |
F237. Arriba Baseball!: A Collection of Latino/a Baseball Fiction. (Kathryn Lane, Pete Cava, Thomas de la Cruz, Robert P. Moreira, Norma E. Cantu) Arriba Baseball!: A Collection of Latino/a Baseball Fiction challenges established paradigms within literary baseball fiction, a genre traditionally sustained by works from predominantly white, male authors and one which has historically excluded women and writers of color. This reading will showcase five authors and their baseball short stories that both celebrate and complicate the American pastime through the prism of the Latino/a experience. Kathryn Lane writes fiction and poetry. Her short stories are published in New Border Fiction Anthology, Swirl Literary Journal, and Arriba Baseball. Her writing is inspired by her native Mexico and Latin American cultures. She is writing her first novel and performs poetry in English and Spanish. Pete Cava is a native Staten Islander and a Fordham University graduate who lives in Indianapolis. He worked as media information officer for the Amateur Athletic Union from 1974-1979 and for USA Track & Field from 1980-1998. Currently he is the CEO of International Sports Associates. Thomas de la Cruz is a fiction writer from Elsa, Texas, and writes about the small town that has inspired even smaller stories. He is currently working on his MFA at the University of Texas-Pan American. Robert Paul Moreira is the editor of Arriba Baseball!: A Collection of Latino/a Baseball Fiction. He teaches writing and literature at the University of Texas-Pan American. Norma E. Cantú, currently serves as professor US Latin@ Studies at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Her award-winning novel, Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera chronicles her coming of age in Laredo, Texas. She is cofounder of CantoMundo, and a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop. |
Ballroom E, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
F247. Natalie Diaz, Lucia Perillo, and Dean Young: Reading and Conversation, Sponsored by Copper Canyon Press. (Michael Wiegers, Dean Young, Natalie Diaz, Lucia Perillo) Natalie Diaz, author of When My Brother Was an Aztec, joins two of contemporary literature's leading poets, Lucia Perillo and Dean Young, for a reading and conversation. Perillo is a Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winner and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Young is the current Texas Poet Laureate, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Poetry Prize. The event concludes with a conversation between the poets, moderated by the Executive Editor of Copper Canyon Press, Michael Wiegers. Michael Wiegers, a veteran of independent literary publishing for over two decades, is the executive editor of Copper Canyon Press, and the poetry editor of Narrative magazine. He translates poetry from Spanish and has edited poetry books from around the globe. Dean Young is the author of fourteen books, including Fall Higher, The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction, and Elegy on Toy Piano. His work has been honored as finalists for both the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Poetry Prize, and his most recent collection, Bender: New and Selected, was on the Los Angeles Times’ “Best of 2012” list. He is the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas in Austin. Natalie Diaz is Mojave and Pima. She was awarded 2012 Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Literature Fellowship, a 2012 Lannan Residency, and a 2012 Lannan Literary Fellowship. Her first book, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published in June 2012. Lucia Perillo is the author of six books of poetry, including Inseminating the Elephants, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other honors include the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. She currently resides in Olympia, Washington. |
Room 602/603, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
F248. A Memoir with a View: On Bringing the Outside In. (Sue William Silverman, Lee Martin, Sonya Huber, Joy Castro, Harrison Candelaria Fletcher) Some critics label memoirs mere navel gazing. However, the memoirists on this panel will show why it’s anything but. In memoir the “I” is a strong presence, guiding and shaping the narrative, but the broader perspective is that of someone gazing out a window rather than peering into a mirror. The “I” reflects an image in a windowpane as we superimpose ourselves upon the wider world. We will explore ways in which personal stories engage with social, cultural, and political realities. Sue William Silverman's books are The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew; Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You; and Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Lee Martin is the author of four novels, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Bright Forever. He is also the author of three memoirs, most recently Such a Life, and a story collection, The Least You Need to Know. He teaches in the creative writing program at The Ohio State University. Sonya Huber is the author of two books of creative nonfiction, Opa Nobody (2008) and Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir (2010), and a textbook, The Backwards Research Guide for Writers: Using Your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration (2011). She teaches at Fairfield University. Joy Castro is the author of the novels Hell or High Water and Nearer Home, the memoir The Truth Book, and the essay collection Island of Bones, and she edited the collection Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family. She teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Harrison Candelaria Fletcher is author of Descanso For My Father: Fragments Of A Life. His award-winning essays have appeared in numerous journals including New Letters, Fourth Genre, and the Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction. He teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University. |
Room 612, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
F255. Found in Translation: How Translators and Authors Translate the Untranslatable. (María-José Zubieta, Mariela Dreyfus, Daniel Alarcón, Jorge Cornejo, Eileen Mary O'Connor) The topic of untranslatability has been discussed by many theorists, but most of these reflections stem from one perspective only, namely, the translator’s. This panel offers a multidimensional discussion between a Peruvian poet and a Peruvian American narrator and their respective translators, concerning the challenges of the untranslatable, a discussion made all the more relevant and poignant by the fact that both authors are fluent in the target language. María José Zubieta is a professor at New York University where she teaches translation and interpretation. She has served as advisor for several translation projects at NYU. Also, she was the coordinator of a collective translation project in conjunction with the University of Granada in Spain. Mariela Dreyfus is the author of six poetry books, most recently Cuaderno músico. She has translated into Spanish the poetry of Diane Wakoski, Allen Ginsberg, and Daniel T. Moran. She currently teaches poetry and literary translation in the MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at New York University. Daniel Alarcón is an award-winning novelist, journalist, and radio producer. He is the author of six books, including two story collections, and the novel At NIght We Walk in Circles, published in 2013. Jorge Cornejo is a book editor and translator. He has created and developed books and book collections for various prestigious publishing houses in Peru on topics such as history, art, children, and cooking. He has translated most of Daniel Alarcón's works into Spanish. E.M. O’Connor has translated the poetry collection Fish by Mariela Dreyfus and the novel I Lived on Butterfly Hill by Marjorie Agosín. Her essays, poetry, and translations have appeared in various journals. She teaches Literature and Spanish at Lesley University and is writing her first novel. |
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm | |
Room 400, Washington State Convention Center, Level 4 |
F276. There She Goes Again: Women Writing Travel. (Suzanne Roberts, Pam Houston, Stephanie Elizondo Griest , Tracy Ross, Lavinia Spalding) In this year’s The Best American Travel Writing, three of the 19 essays were written by women. Why such disparity? Are women writing travel and adventure judged under a different set of aesthetics? If so, how does this translate into writing and publishing place-based narratives? These women panelists—memoirists, novelists, poets, and journalists—will discuss the challenges and joys, as well as the doubts and criticism they face in writing and publishing travel and adventure stories. Suzanne Roberts is the author of the memoir Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award, as well as four collections of poetry, including Three Hours to Burn a Body: Poems on Travel. She writes and teaches in South Lake Tahoe, California. Pam Houston is the author of five books of fiction and nonfiction, including Cowboys Are My Weakness and Contents May Have Shifted. Director of Creative Writing at UC Davis, she teaches in the Pacific University low-res program. Stephanie Elizondo Griest is the author of two memoirs: Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana and Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines; the guidebook 100 Places Every Woman Should Go; and editor of Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010. She teaches CNF at UNC-Chapel Hill. Tracy Ross is a 2009 National Magazine Award winner, a contributing editor at Backpacker magazine, a contributor to Outside, Skiing, Bicycling, and other magazines, and she is the author of critically lauded The Source of All Things: A Memoir, which O magazine named one of its "Memoirs We Love" in 2011. Lavinia Spalding is series editor of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, author of Writing Away: A Creative Guide to Awakening the Journal-Writing Traveler and coauthor of With a Measure of Grace: the Story and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant. Her work appears in many print and online publications. |
Room 611, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
F287. Submitting Translations: The Literary Magazine as the Back Door to Fame and Fortune. (Minna Proctor, Carolyn Kuebler, Thomas Kennedy, Josh Edwin, Erica Mena) Historically, literary translators are the wallflowers of publishing; they engage in labors of love within academia and set their sights on the limited prospects of book publication. Meanwhile, literary magazines, the champions of high art and no commerce, are eager to publish translations but don’t know how to solicit, edit, and market translations. This panel will dismantle perceived obstacles of publishing literary translations through a practical discussion of submission and editing strategies. Minna Proctor is the editor of The Literary Review and teaches essay writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is the author of Do You Hear What I Hear, a long essay about religious calling. She translates from Italian and writes frequently about literature and photography. Carolyn Kuebler is the editor of New England Review. Previously, she was an editor at Library Journal and founding editor of Rain Taxi. She has published her writing in various magazines and has an essay forthcoming in The Little Magazine: A Contemporary Guide. Thomas E. Kennedy’s thirty books include the four novels of his Copenhagen Quartet: Kerrigan in Copenhagen, Falling Sideways, In the Company of Angels, the fourth to follow. His stories, essays, and translations appear regularly in literary periodicals. He teaches in the Fairleigh Dickinson MFA program. Joshua Daniel Edwin's poetry appears widely, and his translations have been recognized with awards by PEN and ALTA. He is a member of the editorial board for the magazine Circumference: Poetry in Translation. Erica Mena is a poet, translator and book artist. Her translations include The Eternonaut by H.G. Oesterheld and Solano Lopez. Her work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, PEN America, Vanitas, and Words Without Borders. She is founding editor of Anomalous Press. |
Room LL5, Western New England MFA Annex, Lower Level |
F293. Place and Ethnicity in Literary Nonfiction. (Allen Gee, Geeta Kothari, Ruben Martinez, Neela Vaswani, Mark O'Connor) What occurs when ethnicity intersects with writing about varying locales? This diverse panel will discuss several of the issues that arise when writers contemplate and examine different spaces, such as rural borders, other countries, the suburbs, or urban neighborhoods. We’ll speak to what extent protest can figure into one’s work, how we portray specific immigrant cultures and communities, and share observations we’ve made about assimilation and alienation in America. Allen Gee’s essays have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, South Loop Review, and Lumina. He has been a Yaddo fellow and is currently an Associate Professor at Georgia College & State University, where he edits fiction and creative nonfiction for Arts & Letters. Geeta Kothari is the nonfiction editor at the Kenyon Review. Her writing has appeared in various anthologies and journals. She is the editor of ‘Did My Mama Like to Dance?’ and Other Stories about Mothers and Daughters and teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. Rubén Martínez is a writer, performer, and teacher. He holds the Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing at Loyola Marymount University and is a resident artist at Stanford University's Institute for Diversity in the Arts. He is the author of several nonfiction and multi-genre works. Neela Vaswani is author of the short story collection Where the Long Grass Bends; a memoir, You Have Given Me a Country; and co-author of the YA novel-in-letters, Same Sun Here. She teaches at Manhattanville College's MFA in Writing Program and Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA Program. Mark O’Connor is an Associate Professor at Slippery Rock University where he teaches creative writing. He has received Pennsylvania Arts Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction and a Cultural Arts Council Grant. His work has been published in the Massachusetts Review, Creative Nonfiction, and Gulf Coast. |
Room 202, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 2 |
F295. Using the Gifts of the Region in an Era of Globalization. (Keya Mitra, Tiphanie Yanique, Shann Ray Ferch, Cristina Henriquez, Matthew Burgess) This panel features five authors, writing about regions as distinct as the Virgin Islands, Panama, New York, India, and Montana, who have effectively incorporated what Flannery O’Connor refers to in Mystery and Manners as the gifts of the region in their work through inclusion of local color, dialect, and history. These writers will explore how writers convey the complexity of territories transformed by colonization, globalization, cultural hybridity, and power struggles. Keya Mitra is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at Pacific University. Her work has appeared in Best New American Voices, the Kenyon Review, and Ontario Review in addition to other journals. She was a 2008 Fulbright Scholar in creative writing in India. Tiphanie Yanique is the author of How to Escape from a Leper Colony. Her writing has won a BOCAS Fiction Prize, the Boston Review Prize, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Fulbright Scholarship, and an Academy of American Poets Prize. She is a professor at the New School. Shann Ray is the author of American Masculine: Stories; Forgiveness and Power in the Age of Atrocity; and Balefire: Poems. His work has been honored with an American Book Award, and he has served as an NEA Fellow. He teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University. Cristina Henríquez is the author of three books: Come Together, Fall Apart; The World in Half; and The Book of Unknown Americans, forthcoming in June 2014. She is also the recipient of an Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award. Matt Burgess is the author of Dogfight, A Love Story, which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and a New York Times Editors' Choice. |
Room 302, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3 |
F297. Tribute to Margarita Donnelly and Calyx, One of the Nation's Oldest Feminist Presses. (Marianne Villanueva, Angela Narciso Torres, Margarita Donnelly, Frances P Adler, Alicia Bublitz) This Tribute event honors Margarita Donnelly for her thirty-six years as Director and Managing Editor of Calyx, the first feminist press on the West Coast. Calyx Journal, begun in Corvallis, Oregon in 1976, and Calyx Books in 1986, are known for discovering women writers early in their careers and opening the eyes of mainstream publishers. Four prominent writers, published early on by Calyx, celebrate one of publishing's literary treasures and consider the continued importance of Calyx today. Marianne Villanueva is the author of the story collections Ginseng and Other Tales From Manila, Mayor of the Roses, and The Lost Language, as well as the co-editor of the Filipino women's anthology, Going Home to a Landscape. Her novella, Jenalyn, about a mail-order bride, was published early 2013. Angela Narciso Torres’s book, Blood Orange, won the Willow Books Lit Award in poetry and will be published in 2013. Recent work appears in Cimarron, Colorado, and Cream City Reviews. A senior editor for RHINO, she has received fellowships from Ragdale and the Illinois Arts Council. Margarita Donnelly is a founding member of CALYX and recipient of the American Book Award, the Oregon Governor’s Arts Award, and a Fishtrap Gathering Fellowship. Her writing is widely published. She has edited nine anthologies including The Forbidden Stitch. Frances Payne Adler, Professor Emerita and founder of CSU Monterey Bay's Creative Writing and Social Action Program, is the author of five books, including Raising The Tents and Making of a Matriot, and co-editor of Fire and Ink: an Anthology of Social Action Writing. Current work-in-progress is about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. |
Saturday, March 1, 2014 View Full Schedule | |
9:00 am to 10:15 am | |
Room 608, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
S119. Beyond Pessoa, the New Landscape of Portuguese American Literature. (Luis Gonçalves, Paula Neves, Millicent Borges Accardi, Amy Sayre Baptista, Carlo Matos) In recent years, there has been a surge in the visibility of Portuguese American literature. From early immigrant tales of fishermen, whalers, carpenters, and factory workers, to modern day poetry and fiction about ethnicity, politics, and identity, this panel will discuss the landscape of Portuguese American writing in the 21st century. Luis Gonçalves is a professor in the Portuguese program at Princeton University. Editor of the Portuguese-American Review, he specializes in Cultural Studies and researches cultural dynamics in the Portuguese-speaking world. PaulA Neves’ work has appeared in Quiddity; The Waiting Room Reader II; Between Mountain; The New Laurel Review; The Newark Metro; Lambda Literary Award finalist The Poetry of Sex; and Stonewall Book Award-winning Uncommon Heroes. Her scholarships include Dzanc Books and West Chester. Millicent Borges Accardi is the author of three poetry books: Injuring Eternity, Woman on a Shaky Bridge, and Only More So, forthcoming. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, CantoMundo, and residencies from Yaddo, Jentel, and Fundación Valparaíso. Amy Sayre Baptista’s stories have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, and S’ouwester. She is a CantoMundo fellow, a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a scholarship recipient to the Disquiet Literary Festival in Lisbon, Portugal. Carlo Matos is poet and fiction writer, and he has published three books of poetry and one book of scholarship. An English professor at the City Colleges of Chicago, he is currently co-editing a forthcoming anthology of Portuguese-American/Portuguese-Canadian writing. |
Room 615/616/617, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
S124. New America. (Wang Ping, Joan Silber, Jason England, Carlos Hernandez, Holly Messitt) We frequently see celebrations of American diversity through readings of individual ethnic or identity literature. This panel will gather contemporary fiction writers from New America: Contemporary Literature for a Changing Society to celebrate the diversity of American literature by featuring a polyglot of voices from across the spectrum that reflects a range of experiences and backgrounds and frames a contemporary American literature that is at once inclusive, substantial, and well-written. Ping Wang published eleven books of poetry and prose, including American Visa, Foreign Devil, Of Flesh and Spirit, Aching for Beauty, and The Magic Whip. She has received NEA, Bush, Lannan, and McKnight Fellowships. She founded and directs the Kinship of Rivers project. Joan Silber is the author of eight books. She is the winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Jason England graduated from Wesleyan University with high honors and three awards for fiction, received his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was the Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute, and is currently finishing his first novel. Carlos Hernandez is an associate professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. He has published many short stories, poems, a flash-drama, a novella, and a co-written, experimental novel. He is also a game designer and video game consultant. Holly Messitt is co-editor of New America: Contemporary Literature for a Changing Society. Her work focuses on contemporary literature and drama. She is an associate professor at CUNY/BMCC where she is co-coordinator of the WAC program and former chair of the Writing and Literature program. |
10:30 am to 11:45 am | |
Aspen Room, Sheraton Seattle, 2nd Floor |
S134. New Kids on the Block: Emerging Latino Voices Engage in Discourse on Poetry, Community, and Craft . (Francisco Aragon, Lauren Espinoza, Nayelly Barrios, Lauro Vasquez Rueda, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo) Latino/as are underrepresented in writing programs. The Letras Latinas Poets Initiative aims to create space for those Latino/as enrolled in MFA programs in order to dialogue with one another in online roundtable forums, as well as at weekend retreats. This panel consists of four poets who are part of this initiative’s inaugural cohort. They will discuss what participation has meant to them and seek to publicize the program to prospective participants at the conference. Francisco Aragón is the author of the bilingual book of poems, Puerta de Sol, and Glow of Our Sweat, a volume of poetry and prose. He is also the editor of the award-winning anthology, The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry, and he directs Letras Latinas, the literary program at the University of Notre Dame Lauren Espinoza is currently an MFA student in Poetry at Arizona State University where she is the Teaching Artist for the Young Writers Program. She is an inaugural member of the Letras Latinas Young Poets Initiative and a CantoMundo Graduate Assistant. Nayelly Barrios is an MFA candidate at McNeese State University. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Puerto del Sol, and the Paris-American. Lauro Vazquez is a Canto Mundo fellow and an MFA student in poetry at the University of Notre Dame's Creative Writing program. He is assistant editor and contributor at Letras Latinas, the literary program at Notre Dame's institute for Latino Studies. Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is a Canto Mundo fellow and an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan. He has received fellowships to attend the Squaw Writer’s Workshop, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Recent work can be found in the Journal and Devil's Lake. |
Room 615/616/617, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
S155. Hyphenated Poets: Ethnic American Writing Against Type. (Kaveh Bassiri, Barbara Jane Reyes, Cathy Park Hong, Farid Matuk, Solmaz Sharif) While immigrant poets have long sought to recover and celebrate their ethnic identity, a new generation is problematizing the notion of identity and what it means to be American. These poets respond to socially constructed types that marginalize them to fulfill diversity quotas, and they seize the English language to interrogate the myth of American essentialism. In this reading and discussion, we will hear four writers respond to these challenges with poetry. Kaveh Bassiri was the recipient of a Witter Bynner Poetry Translation Residency and Walton Translation Fellowship. His poetry won the Bellingham Review’s 49th Parallel Award and was published in Best New Poets 2011, Virginia Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Mississippi Review. Barbara Jane Reyes is the author of Diwata and Poeta en San Francisco. She teaches in the Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program at University of San Francisco. Cathy Park Hong's third book of poems, Engine Empire, was published in May 2012. She is an associate professor at Sarah Lawrence College Farid Matuk is the author of This Isa A Nice Neighborhood and several chapbooks including, most recently, My Daughter La Chola. New poems appear in Iowa Review, The Baffler, Boston Review, and Critical Quarterly. He serves as poetry editor for Fence and contributing editor for The Volta. Solmaz Sharif is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. A 2011 winner of the Boston Review/"Discovery" Poetry Prize, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in jubilat, Kenyon Review, DIAGRAM, and Black Warrior Review. |
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm | |
Room LL5, Western New England MFA Annex, Lower Level |
S189. The Latino Short Story: Continuity, Innovation, and the Voices of Story Writing. (Fred Arroyo, Lorraine Lopez, Benjamin Alíre Sáenz, Jennine Capó Crucet, Daniel Chacón) The short story is a vital American literary form. Through its continuity and innovation, the short story hears and reflects the individual and collective voices of culture and history. This panel of Latin@ short story writers, who have recently published collections, will consider the problems and possibilities—aesthetically, traditionally, ideologically, and culturally—of publishing short story collections, while also exploring the tensions and joys of publishing with smaller presses. Fred Arroyo is the author of Western Avenue and Other Fictions, and the novel The Region of Lost Names. A recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission, he lives in South Dakota and teaches at the University of South Dakota. Lorraine López teaches in Vanderbilt’s MFA program. She’s published three essay collections and five books of fiction, including Homicide Survivors Picnic. Recent publications include a novel, The Realm of Hungry Spirits and two coedited collections, The Other Latin@ and Rituals of Movement. Benjamin Alire Saenz is a poet, fiction writer, and young adult novelist. He is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and an American Book Award winner. His latest offering, a collection of short stories: Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club was the recipient of the 2013 PEN Faulkner Award for fiction. He is the chair of the Creative Writing Department at the University of Texas at El Paso. Jennine Capó Crucet is the author of How to Leave Hialeah, which won the John Gardner Book Prize, the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and the Devil’s Kitchen Award. Winner of a PEN/O. Henry Prize and a recent Picador Fellow at the University of Leipzig, she is an assistant professor at Florida State. Daniel Chacón is author of Hotel Juárez: Stories, Rooms, and Loops; Unending Rooms; and the shadows took him; and Chicano Chicanery. His awards include the Hudson Prize and an American Book Award. He is co-host of Words on a Wire and is a photographer. www.soychaconblogspot.com |
Room 302, Western New England MFA Annex, Level 3 |
S193. Outlaw Aesthetics and Publishing the Sprawl: How LA Indie Presses are Changing the Face of Publishing. (Neelanjana Banerjee, Chiwan Choi, Luis Rodriguez, Lisa Pearson, Teresa Carmody) Think people in LA don’t read? Wrong! Indie presses are not only flourishing in LA, they are working to create a vibrant literary metropolis from inside the sprawl. From Kaya’s collaborative book booths to Writ Large’s plans for an LA Literary Walk to Tia Chucha’s literacy hub to the aesthetic conversations between artists and writers encouraged by both Les Figues and Siglio, these presses are changing the culture of literary LA—and in the process, innovating new models for publishing. Neelanjana Banerjee's fiction, poetry, and essays have been published in PANK, The Rumpus, World Literature Today, the Literary Review, Nimrod, and several anthologies. She is the co-editor of Indivisible, the first-ever South Asian American poetry anthology. She works with Kaya Press. Chiwan Choi is the author of two books, The Flood and Abductions. He is also a founding editor of Writ Large Press, a downtown Los Angeles based indie literary publisher. His writing has also appeared in ONTHEBUS, Esquire, the Nervous Breakdown, and Cultural Weekly. Luis J. Rodriguez has published fifteen books in poetry, children's literature, the novel, short stories, memoir, and nonfiction. He is best known for Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. He is also editor/founder of Tia Chucha Press and cofounder of Tia Chucha's Cultural Center & Bookstore. Lisa Pearson is the publisher and founder of Siglio, an independent press dedicated to publishing uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature. Teresa Carmody is the author of the short story collection Requiem and three chapbooks: I Can Feel, Eye Hole Adore, and Your Spiritual Suit of Armor by Katherine Anne. She is the co-founding director of Les Figues Press in Los Angeles. |
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm | |
Room 2B, Washington State Convention Center, Level 2 |
S202. The Weight of Displacement: Latino Writings from the Heartland. (Jose Faus, Gabriela Ybarra Lemmons, Miguel M. Morales, Maria Vasquez Boyd) Middle of the Map-Latino Writers Collective members will read and discuss the challenges and success of writing from the Heartland, maintaining diversity of culture, and examining issues of displacement. Members capture individual experiences as political or social commentary, reflective, semi-autobiographical, humorous, or entertaining. Their craft reveals and examines the many facets of this unique cultural identity that includes class, gender roles, sexual identity, and immigration status. José Faus is a Kansas City, Missouri, resident, writer, and visual artist. He is a founding member of the Latino Writers Collective and president of the board of the Writers Place. He is also a youth advocate and community worker Gabriela Ybarra Lemmons's work appears in Primera Pagina: Poetry from the Latino Heartland, Cuentos: Stories from the Latino Heartland, and NewBorder: Contemporary Voices from the US/Mexico Border. Gabriela is a co-founder and current president of the Latino Writers Collective. Miguel M Morales, a former migrant farmwoker, is a Latino Writers Collective board member, a founding member of Fabulous Queer Writers, and a Lambda Literary Fellow. His work is featured in Primera Página, Cuentos del Centro, From Macho to Mariposa, and Joto: An Anthology of Queer & Chicano Poetry. Maria Vasquez Boyd is a painter/artist/writer and founding member of the Latino Writers Collective in Kansas City, Missouri. Her work is published in Primera Pagina, Cuentos Del Centro, Everyday Other Things, Salit Magazine, America Now, and Here Kansas City Renga. |
Room 611, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
S213. CantoMundo: 5th Year Anniversary Reading Celebrating Latina/o Poetics. (Celeste Guzman Mendoza, Raina Leon, Urayoan Noel, Amalia Ortiz, Benjamin Alire Saenz) CantoMundo will celebrate its 5th Year Anniversary in 2014. Inspired by the culturally-rooted visions of Cave Canem and Kundiman, CantoMundo builds on the aesthetically, culturally, and linguistically diverse work of Latina/o poets. The reading will feature CantoMundo co-founders, faculty, and fellows. Celeste Guzman Mendoza is co-director and co-founder of CantoMundo. Her poetry and essays have been published in various anthologies and journals. Her first collection of poetry is Beneath the Halo, and her second, Coming in Waves, is forthcoming in 2015. Raina J. León, Cave Canem and CantoMundo fellow and member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, has been published in numerous publications, including her collections of poetry, Canticle of Idols and Boogeyman Dawn. She co-founded the Acentos Review. Urayoán Noel is Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Albany and Visiting Assistant Professor of English at NYU. A 2013 CantoMundo fellow, his books of poetry include Kool Logic, Hi-Density Politics, and Los Días Porosos. He is also the author of a forthcoming study of Nuyorican poetry. Amalia Ortiz, a performance-poet and playwright, has appeared on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO and the NAACP Image Awards. She was awarded the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation grant and writing residencies at the National Hispanic Cultural Center and Hedgebrook. Benjamin Alire Saenz is a poet, fiction writer, and young adult novelist. He is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and an American Book Award winner. His latest offering, a collection of short stories Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club was the recipient of the 2013 PEN Faulkner Award for fiction. He is the chair of the Creative Writing Department at the University of Texas at El Paso. |
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm | |
Room 602/603, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
S238. Race and Belonging: Navigating the MFA Program as a Writer of Color. (Sejal Shah, Eduardo C. Corral, Crystal Williams, Jon Pineda, Tim Seibles) How does one navigate the literary world as a writer of color? Often, the MFA and the publishing world exclude, exoticize, tokenize, and even deride the experiences of writers of color. This panel—with representatives from Kundiman, CantoMundo, and Cave Canem—will provide a place to air out and discuss systemic problems but also will serve as a space to discuss solutions. Sejal Shah's work appears in journals including Brevity, the Kenyon Review Online, the Literary Review, and forthcoming in the Writer's Chronicle. A Kundiman Fellow, she teaches English at The Harley School and creative writing at the University of Rochester. www.sejal-shah.com. Eduardo C. Corral is a CantoMundo fellow. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2012, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Slow Lightning, his first book, won the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. He's the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Fellowship. Crystal Williams's fourth collection, Detroit as Barn, is forthcoming in 2014. She has received numerous fellowships, awards, and honors and is associate vice president, chief diversity officer, and professor of English at Bates College. www.crystalannwilliams.com. Jon Pineda is the author of the novel Apology, winner of the 2013 Milkweed National Fiction Prize. His memoir Sleep in Me was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His poetry collections include The Translator's Diary and Birthmark. He teaches creative writing at the University of Mary Washington. Tim Seibles is the author of several collections of poetry, including Hammerlock, Buffalo Head Solos, and most recently, Fast Animal, which was nominated for a National Book Award in 2012. He is a professor of English at Old Dominion University and visiting faculty for the Stonecoast MFA program. |
Room 604, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
S239. From Silver to Gold: A Case Study in Planning for the Next 25 Years of a Regional Writers’ Center and Its International Press. (Jo Ann Clark, Melanie Hulse, Margo Stever, Jim Tilley, Sergio Troncoso) How did a derelict railroad station in Sleepy Hollow become the internationally-renowned, regional hub for literary arts that is The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center and its Slapering Hol Press? And how, after weathering leadership clashes, the economic collapse, and two hurricanes, does HVWC intend to thrive in the coming decades? By candidly addressing such questions, key HVWC constituents, including its founder, will share secrets—and cautionary tales—of their remarkable history and success. Jo Ann Clark is author of the forthcoming collection, 1001 Facts of Prehistoric Life. Her poems and translations have appeared in Colorado Review, Boston Review, Prairie Schooner, the New Republic, and the Paris Review. She is executive director of the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center. Melanie Hulse is a writer, editor, and publishing consultant. Her work has been published by Reader’s Digest, Kensington Publishing, and the Threepenny Review. She has taught writing at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Margo Taft Stever is the author of The Hudson Line, Frozen Spring, and Reading the Night Sky. She is the founder of the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center and founding editor of Slapering Hol Press. Jim Tilley writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He has published one book of poetry, and another is forthcoming. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, the Southern Review, Southwest Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Sergio Troncoso is the author of The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays, and the novels The Nature of Truth and From This Wicked Patch of Dust. He teaches workshops at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center and he is a resident faculty member of the Yale Writers' Conference. |
4:30 pm to 5:45 pm | |
Room 615/616/617, Washington State Convention Center, Level 6 |
S277. A Political Engagement: A Tribute to Jack Hirschman. (Kimiko Hahn, Luis Rodriguez, Michael Warr) Bronx born, Hirschman made California his home after UCLA fired him for 1970 anti-war activities. Known for the innovative form, the arcane, and for political engagement, the former San Francisco poet laureate has been compared to Whitman and Neruda. A prolific author and editor of Art on the Line, essays by writers that explore the political nature of poetry, he is a member of Union of Street Poets, a group that distributes leaflets of poems to people on the street. Kimiko Hahn is the author of nine poetry collections, including the recent collection Toxic Flora. A recent Guggenheim fellow, she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation at Queens College, CUNY. Luis J. Rodriguez has published fifteen books in poetry, children's literature, the novel, short stories, memoir, and nonfiction. He is best known for Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. He is also editor/founder of Tia Chucha Press and cofounder of Tia Chucha's Cultural Center & Bookstore. Michael Warr’s most recent book of poems is The Armageddon of Funk. His literary awards include the Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poets Award, NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, PEN Oakland Award for Excellence in Literature, and Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Award. |