Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn

Tonight: Park Slope Writers Group At The Old Stone House

On June 12th, Brooklyn Reading Works presents the annual reading of the 808 Union Writers group at the Old Stone House on Thursday, June 12th at 8 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $5 to support Brooklyn Reading Works. There will also be wine and light refreshments.

The group used to meet at The Dance Studio at 808 Union Street—so that's why we called ourselves 808 Union). But now that's Kidsville so we don't meet there anymore. Jokingly we call ourselves Writers and Drinkers because we usually go out afterward for drinks. Actually, Hepcat coined that phrase.

Now we meet in The Montauk Club so we are renaming the group Montauk Basement.

But we are an awesome group that's been in existence for more than ten years. It's usually a great reading, a diverse ride, a fun night. We did a dress rehearsal tonight and it's going to be a great show.

Here's the line-up:

Barbara Ensor, author of Cinderella, As If You Didn't Already Know the Story and Thumbelina, Tiny Runaway Bride.

Wendy Ponte, PS...I Love You columnist for the Brooklyn Paper, author of Having a Baby...Naturally, and contributing editor for Mothering Magazine.

Rosemary Moore, an award-winning playwright, her play, The Pain of Pink Evenings,was included in Best American Short Plays of 2000-2001

Marian Fontana, author of A Widow's Walk: A Memoir of 9/11 and the forthcoming The Middle of the Bed.

Jeffrey M. Jones, author of the plays, Crazy Plays, The Endless Adventures of M C Kat, and Tomorrowland.

Louise Crawford, who runs OTBKB, is the Smartmom columnist for the Brooklyn Paper and the author of The Last Sublet, a novel about a serial subletter.

Typewriter embroidery by Jerryleetypes

What's Going on this Week?

Look what's going on this week. Try to get to one of these events!

May 14 at 7 pm: Martha Dudman, author of Black Olives and and Nan Bauer-Maglin, author of Cut Loose, a collection of true stories and reflections written by 27 women, read their work at the Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope

May 15 at 7 pm: Have a post-Mother's Day cocktail (or two) with NY Sun Columnist, Lenore Skenazy, magazine writer, Amy Sohn, and the Brooklyn Paper's tell-it-like-it-really-is Smartmom and others, who will will shock, amuse, and entertain you, and they won't make you eat your vegetables before you get dessert. It's happening at the elegant and fun The Montauk Club at 7 p.m. Cocktails and a reading. Free.  Lincoln Place and 8th Avenue.

May 17 all day: NY Writer's Coalition Write-A-Thon: a daylong writing festival will benefit NYWC's free, unique and powerful creative writing programs across New York City. Colson Whitehead is the guest speaker. 

Use the day however best serves your writing needs; write on your own, participate in workshops, or receive fun and stimulating prompts from our “prompt stations.” Like a walk-a-thon, our attendees will ask friends and family to donate in support of their day of writing. These contributions will help fund NYWC's creative writing programs for at-risk youth, the homeless and formerly homeless, the formerly incarcerated, seniors, and many others that aren’t heard from often enough in our society. At theNY Center for Independent Publishing. 20 West 44th Street.

May 18: Cho-Chiqq: The ultimate Park Slope backyard theater festival. 11:00am - 4pm
369 1st Street, Garden Apartment - Park Slope. R to Union Street. For details go here.

 

 

The Treachery of a Trusted Partner: May 14th Reading at the Old Stone House

It’s happened to too many women we know.The guy that they thought they knew well walks out. In fiction and in real life, what happens?

This is the territory covered in two remarkable books.

--Martha Dudman’s latest novel Black Olives
--Nan Bauer-Maglin’s Cut Loose, a collection of true stories and reflections written by 27 women

For an entertaining and therapeutic evening, join
Martha and Nan reading from their books

Wednesday May 14
7:00 pm
The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets, Park Slope, Brooklyn
(easy to reach from R train, Union Street stop, or F train, 4th Avenue stop)
718-768-3195
For additional information, call Betsey at 718-768-1130

May 15th is Post-Mother's Day Cocktails for Edgy Moms

Join ruckus rousing NY Sun Columnist, Lenore Skenazy, magazine writer, Amy Sohn, and the Brooklyn Paper's tell-it-like-it-really-is Smartmom and others, who will will shock, amuse, and entertain you, and they won't make you eat your vegetables before you get dessert.

Come to this reading/cocktail party (cash bar) at the Montauk Club in Park Slope on May 15th at 7:00 pm.

Readers include:

Christen Clifford, writer/ performer of Off-Broadway's hit show Baby 
Love, true stories about sex and motherhood
Louise Crawford, The Brooklyn Paper’s Smartmom and editor of Only the 
Blog Knows Brooklyn
Michele Somerville Madigan, poet and blogger, Fresh Poetry Dail
Sophia Romero, blogger, The Shiksa from Manila and novelist, Always 
Hiding
Lenore Skenazy, the controversial New York Sun writer, who let her 9-
year-old take the subway alone
Louise Sloan, Huffington Post blogger and author of Knock Yourself 
Up: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom
Amy Sohn, author of the novels Run Catch Kiss and My Old Man

Location: 25 8th Avenue between Lincoln and St. John in Park Slope, Brooklyn
Date: Thursday May 15th
7 p.m. Cash bar for cocktails
7:30: The reading begins
Admission free

Fiction x Three at Brooklyn Reading Works: TONIGHT

Tonight: Brooklyn Reading Works presents: Fiction x 3 with Sheila Kohler, Barbara Ensor and Martin Kleinman.

Renowned author Sheila Kohler will read from her novel of the French Revolution, Bluebird or the Invention of Happiness, a radiant and artful novel based on the life of Lucy Dillon, an 18th-century French aristocrat.

The wildly creative Barbara Ensor will read excerpts from her funny, modern twists on fairy tales, including Cinderella (As If You Didn't Already Know the Story), Thumbalina; Tiny Runaway Bride, and Little Red Riding Hood.

Martin Kleinman will read from his new fiction.

April 10th at 8 p.m.
Brooklyn Reading Works
The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope
info; 718-288-4290
louisecrawford(at)gmail (dot)com

Suggested donation: $5 includes wine and light refreshments

This Thursday: Barbara Ensor at Brooklyn Reading Works

You won't want to miss the wildly imaginative Barbara Ensor at Brooklyn Reading Works' Fiction x 3 (with Shelia Kohler and Martin Kleinman).

Ensor will read excerpts from her highly unusual takes on Cinderella, Thumbalina, and Little Red Riding Hood.

Fiction x 3 at The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope
Thursday April 10th at 8 p.m.

Here's a bit about Ensor's Cinderella book:

I know, I know. You’ve heard the story a million times before. Mean stepmother. Lots of sweeping. Fancy ball. You remember.

Or do you?

Did you remember that Cinderella was such a nice girl—so smart and funny? You probably would’ve liked her. Did you know that “Cinderella” was just a nickname? And that her handsome prince loved Jell-o and was a wonderful dancer?

Readers will delight in following Cinderella through all the usual happenings, presented in a most unusual way. And they’ll finally see what becomes of her after she marries the prince. So maybe you should hear the story one last time. Because it’s actually way different than you might have thought. . . .

Kids who have outgrown picture books and are ready for something longer—but still love illustrated texts—will gravitate toward this Cinderella. Black-and-white silhouettes of everything from the ugly stepsisters to Cinderella’s slipper (actual size) are intermingled with Cinderella’s letters to her recently deceased mother in this totally original package, written and illustrated by an exciting newcomer to children’s books.

Barbara Ensor has written for New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Family Life, The Village Voice, and numerous other publications and Web sites. Her illustrations have appeared in the New York Times, Harpers, Self, Child and elsewhere. This is her first children’s book. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Brooklyn Reading Works Presents: Fiction x 3

This Thursday, Brooklyn Reading Works presents: Fiction x 3 with Sheila Kohler, Barbara Ensor and Martin Kleinman.

Renowned author Sheila Kohler will read from her novel of the French Revolution, Bluebird or the Invention of Happiness.

A radiant and artful novel based on the life of Lucy Dillon, an 18th-century French aristocrat. Her intelligence, beauty, and lack of pretension made Lucy a favorite of luminaries like Talleyrand and Germaine de Staël — and equipped her to survive the "Terror" that swept France in the wake of the Revolution. Possessed of considerable wit and practicality, Lucy manages to keep her beloved husband and small children safe while all her former circle, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, are guillotined.

Barbara Ensor will read excerpts from her funny, modern twists on fairy tales, including Cinderella (As If You Didn't Already Know the Story), Thumbalina; Tiny Runaway Bride, and Little Red Riding Hood.

Martin Kleinman will read from his new fiction.

Brooklyn Reading Works
The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope
info; 718-288-4290
louisecrawford(at)gmail (dot)com

Fiction x Three at Brooklyn Reading Works: April 10th

This should be a great reading at Brooklyn Reading Works. Renowned author Sheila Kohler will read from her novel of the French Revolution, Bluebird or the Invention of Happiness.

A radiant and artful novel based on the life of Lucy Dillon, an 18th-century French aristocrat. Her intelligence, beauty, and lack of pretension made Lucy a favorite of luminaries like Talleyrand and Germaine de Staël — and equipped her to survive the "Terror" that swept France in the wake of the Revolution. Possessed of considerable wit and practicality, Lucy manages to keep her beloved husband and small children safe while all her former circle, including King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, are guillotined.

Barbara Ensor will read excerpts from her funny, modern twists on fairy tales, including Cinderella (As If You Didn't Already Know the Story), Thumbalina; Tiny Runaway Bride, and Little Red Riding Hood.

Martin Kleinman will read from his new fiction.

Brooklyn Reading Works
The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope
info; 718-288-4290
louisecrawford(at)gmail (dot)com

Tonight: See you at Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House

Thursday, March 27: Brooklyn Reading Works presents: Inner Lives Out Loud at the Old Stone House. Readings from Regina McBride's workshops. 8 p.m. The Old Stone House is located at Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope. Go to their website (above) for directions.

Saturday, March 29: If you are a Brooklyn blogger, get interviewed for a video about Brooklyn blogging by Blue Barn Pictures and me. Let me know what's a good time for you (louise_crawford(at)yahoo.com. The shoot is from 11 am until 7:30 on Saturday the 29th in DUMBO. Email me if you can be there and what's a good 90-minute time slot for you. You must be a Brooklyn blogger, who's been around for 3 months, who updates with some frequency. This video will be at the May 8th Blogfest! You snooze you lose. In other words, let me know soon if you are coming!

Poetry Reading at the Community Bookstore

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.

BROOKLYN READING WORKS WELCOMES THE ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS AND WRITING PROGRAMS

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: A NEW PLAY BY ROSEMARY MOORE

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.

TONIGHT JAZZ ARTIST ROY NATHANSON AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS

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: ROY NATHANSON

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).

GREAT STOCKING STUFFERS AT THE OLD STONE HOUSE

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.

BROOKLYN READING WORKS: DECEMBER 13

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.

POETRY PUNCH AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS: NOVEMBER 15

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.

TODAY AT 4PM: JONATHAN LETHEM AT THE LIRBRARY

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

INNER LIVES, DEVELOPING CHARACTERS: ALL DAY WORKSHOP WITH REGINA MCBRIDE ON NOVEMBER 10th

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.

READING AT ROOM 58: SCRIPTS FOR THE BIG AND LITTLE SCREEN AND THE STAGE

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.

AWARD WINNING PS POET HAS TWO READINGS IN PS

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.

BROOKLYN READING WORKS WILL BE PODCAST

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.

POEMS OF BROOKLYN THIS WEEK AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS

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 OFFICIAL SCHEDULE FOR 2007-2008

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.

WRITING WORKSHOP ON OCTOBER 13TH

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.

A GOOD NIGHT FOR RUDOLPH DELSON AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS

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.

RUDY DELSON IS BRINGING CHEESE TO BROOKLYN READING WORKS

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?)

BROOKLYN BOOK FEST: A GREAT DAY FOR BOOKS

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 ON DERMATOLOGISTS AND ANTARTICA

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."

MANUSCRIPT EDITING AND EVALUATION WITH A MASTER

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

THE DAY TO DAY LIFE OF ALBERT HASTINGS

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.”

TAKING THINGAMAJIGS SERIOUSLY

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.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS: COMMUNITY BOOK STORE READING GROUP

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.

TONIGHT AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS: MICHAEL RUBY, NANCY GRAHAM

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.

EDGY MOMS: FREE COCKTAILS

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.

LIFE, LOVE, AND LEARNING WITH AN AUTISTIC CHILD: AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS

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.

MOM-BLOGGERS ON AUTISM THIS THURSDAY AND MORE

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.

MOM-BLOGGERS WHO BLOG ABOUT AUTISM

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.

AUTISM'S EDGES: MOMS BLOG ABOUT AUTISM

Brooklyn Reading Works is pleased to present mom-bloggers, Autism's Edges and Autism Land on April 19th at 8 p.m. at The Old Stone House at Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

KRISTINA CHEW, a classics professor and mom writes a blog called AUTISMLAND. "Finding out your child has autism is like the end of a love affair and the start of a new, lifelong, really beautiful relationship." MOTHERS VOX, the nom-de-net of a mother, teacher, scholar and activist living in New York City, will read from her blog, AUTISM'S EDGES.

INNER LIVES: DEVELOPING CHARACTERS IN PARK SLOPE FOR THE FIRST TIME

Novelist Regina McBride, author of The Nature of Water and Air, The Land of Women, and The Marriage Bed, will offer a special one-day workshop in Park Slope on April 21 from 10:30 until 5 p.m.

Register now to reserve a place in this workshop 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.

APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS AT THE OLD STONE HOUSE

In April, May, and June there's a whole lot going on at Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House that you should know about. All events at 8 p.m. at The Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

April 19th: Autism's Edges and Autismland, two blogger-moms, who write about life with an autistic child. This should be an incredible evening of honest and powerful writing about a difficult topic. $5 gets you in. Refreshments and books available.

May 10th: SECOND ANNUAL BROOKLYN BLOGFEST featuring Gowanus Lounge, Brooklyn Record, Brownstoner, A Brooklyn Life, Andy Bachman, No Land Grab, AYR Report, Seeing Green, Creative Times, Streetsblog, Shiksa From Manila, Mrs. Cleavage's Diary, and many more.

May 24: EDGY MOTHER'S DAY EVENT. This is shaping up to be an event you won't want to miss. Amy Sohn, novelist and columnist for New York Magazine, Tom Rafiel, author of Parallel Play, a smart, funny novel about a reluctant Park Slope mom, Susan Gregory Thomas, author of Buy Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds, Alison Lowenstein, author of City Baby Brooklyn, Judy Lichtblau, and Louise Crawford (AKA Smartmom). $5 gets you in. Refreshments and books available. 

June 16th: SOUTH SIDE STORIES: A Benefit for the Old Stone House with Capathia Jenkins and Louis Rosen.  $30 gets you in -- and supports the Old Stone House. Refreshments and CDs available. This event is on a Saturday night. Meet-the-Performers champagne reception afterward.

June 21: Michael Ruby and Nancy Graham. Park Slope poet, Michael Ruby and Nancy Graham present a collaborative work based on the writing of Samuel Beckett. They are both practitioners of sleep writing.  $5 gets you in. Refreshments and books available.

For information: louisecrawford@gmail.com, brooklynreadingworks.com, 718-288-4290.

TONIGHT AT BRW: CARLA. BRANKA. MARY (AKA MRS. CLEAVAGE)

Brooklyn Reading Works this Thursday at 8 p.m. Three Writers, Three Interesting Stories. The Old Stone House Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

CARLA THOMPSON,  an award-winning freelance writer and filmmaker, invites readers to travel the clay and paved roads of Montgomery, Alabama in her first book, a memoir, Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama.

In Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama, the Harlem native meets an itty bitty beauty queen, a redemptive ex-con, and a wheelchair-bound quiz kid among others and discovers that the American South is a complex intersection of race and class filled with people who go about the business of living the best way they can.

BRANKA RUZAK was born and raised in the steel and rubber belt of northeastern Ohio, the youngest daughter of Croatian and Slovenian immigrants. Her passion for words and music was sparked as a child, where she spent many hours listening to her father’s stories and playing Croatian folk music in his tamburitza orchestra. Her current studies in Hindusthani classical music, as well as her enthusiasm for Indian novels, textiles and a good cup of chai have taken Branka further afield to India. Always an avid traveler, her essays and poems are journeys to different times and different places. Her essays “Hungry Heart” and “Mothballs: A Chemical Memory” is from a growing collection of writings about family, culture and travel..

MRS. CLEAVAGE,  author of the blog MRS CLEAVAGE'S DIARIES, is a single mother who lives in  a cluttered apartment in East New York. She is saucy, opinionated, creative, and a smarty-pants - not necessarily in that order. Her blog is her story, live and unedited from Brooklyn.

THIS THURSDAY: BROOKLYN READING WORKS

Brooklyn Reading Works this Thursday at 8 p.m. Three Writers, Three Interesting Stories. The Old Stone House Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

CARLA THOMPSON,  an award-winning freelance writer and filmmaker, invites readers to travel the clay and paved roads of Montgomery, Alabama in her first book, a memoir, Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama.

In Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama, the Harlem native meets an itty bitty beauty queen, a redemptive ex-con, and a wheelchair-bound quiz kid among others and discovers that the American South is a complex intersection of race and class filled with people who go about the business of living the best way they can.

BRANKA RUZAK was born and raised in the steel and rubber belt of northeastern Ohio, the youngest daughter of Croatian and Slovenian immigrants. Her passion for words and music was sparked as a child, where she spent many hours listening to her father’s stories and playing Croatian folk music in his tamburitza orchestra. Her current studies in Hindusthani classical music, as well as her enthusiasm for Indian novels, textiles and a good cup of chai have taken Branka further afield to India. Always an avid traveler, her essays and poems are journeys to different times and different places. Her essays “Hungry Heart” and “Mothballs: A Chemical Memory” is from a growing collection of writings about family, culture and travel..

MRS. CLEAVAGE,  author of the blog MRS CLEAVAGE'S DIARIES, is a single mother who lives in  a cluttered apartment in East New York. She is saucy, opinionated, creative, and a smarty-pants - not necessarily in that order. Her blog is her story, live and unedited from Brooklyn.

THREE WRITERS, THREE INTERESTING STORIES: BROOKLYN READING WORKS

Brooklyn Reading Works this Thursday at 8 p.m. Three Writers, Three Interesting Stories. The Old Stone House Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

CARLA THOMPSON,  an award-winning freelance writer and filmmaker, invites readers to travel the clay and paved roads of Montgomery, Alabama in her first book, a memoir, Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama.

In Bearing Witness: Not So Crazy in Alabama, the Harlem native meets an itty bitty beauty queen, a redemptive ex-con, and a wheelchair-bound quiz kid among others and discovers that the American South is a complex intersection of race and class filled with people who go about the business of living the best way they can.

BRANKA RUZAK was born and raised in the steel and rubber belt of northeastern Ohio, the youngest daughter of Croatian and Slovenian immigrants. Her passion for words and music was sparked as a child, where she spent many hours listening to her father’s stories and playing Croatian folk music in his tamburitza orchestra. Her current studies in Hindusthani classical music, as well as her enthusiasm for Indian novels, textiles and a good cup of chai have taken Branka further afield to India. Always an avid traveler, her essays and poems are journeys to different times and different places. Her essays “Hungry Heart” and “Mothballs: A Chemical Memory” is from a growing collection of writings about family, culture and travel..

MRS. CLEAVAGE,  author of the blog MRS CLEAVAGE'S DIARIES, is a single mother who lives in  a cluttered apartment in East New York. She is saucy, opinionated, creative, and a smarty-pants - not necessarily in that order. Her blog is her story, live and unedited from Brooklyn.

ADARRO MINTON A NO-SHOW AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS

You won't believe what happened last night at Brooklyn Reading Works? The writer, Adarro Minton, didn't show up. Can you believe it?

At 7:45, after I set up the reading on the first level of the Old Stone House because Adarro is wheel-chair bound, I got concerned. Usually the writers show up early.

Then I got worried. I called my friend Red Eft who knows Adarro. She'd heard from him on Wednesday that he was going down to Brooklyn for the reading. She gave me his phone number and at 8:10 or so called him at home. Imagine my surprise when he answered the phone.

I almost fell over. Well, as you know Adarro isn't in the best of health. He said he was sick yesterday and on a respirator. So he forgot. It slipped his mind.

But why didn't he call. What time exactly did he remember? Questions. Questions. Here's what he said happened: he  asked his friend to check his email (at what time exactly?) and his friend told him there were two emails, one from Brooklyn Reading Works and one from Red Eft.

OH NO. OOPS. OMIGOD. He must have thought or said (at least I hope so). Still why didn't he call or email? That's the part I don't understand.

Lord knows, we've all forgotten to do things: remembered something in the morning but forgotten about it in the afternoon. Then you get a call from the friend you're supposed to have coffee with. The people at the meeting you scheduled. The doctor's office you were supposed to be in.

Who hasn't done that? You look at your calendar that evening and...Omigod. I can't believe I forgot. Truth is, it happens very rarely for me I am glad to report. But it has happened.

And I always call when I realize my mistake.

Suffice it to say, Adarro is a really nice person and very charming and he was sincerely apologetic. "This is so not like me," he said. "I never do things like this." He was sick yesterday. On a respirator. I completely understood that part of it.

But you coulda called.

Still, I am pissed and hurt. Initially, I felt diminished and unimportant. It played into all my insecurities. Why am I  doing BRW if it's not even important enough for the author to show up?

That's what I was thinking when I went to bed. It's hard enough doing the publicity and getting people to show up. Boo hoo. I felt tired and worn down. My spirit was flagging.

I want to thank Brooklyn Record, Until Monday, Gowanus Lounge and others for blogging the event. That meant a lot to me.

NOW I'm just annoyed. I've done about twenty BRW readings and I usually have two, three or more  readers. And in all the readings (and that's 40 to 50 writers) I have NEVER had anyone forget. Thankfully, that just doesn't happen.

So here's my BRW resolution: communicate with all writers the day of the event and always have more than one person per reading.

Adarro Minton didn't get to read from his collection of short stories, Gay, Black, Crippled, Fat.  If you want to buy the book, go to  Amazon. If this blurb is any indication, it might have been an interesting evening.

"I survived mescaline, blotter acid, cocaine, freebase cocaine, crack, danger sex in subway bathrooms, hunger, homelessness, and three serious suicide attempts. In 1999, I lost the use of my arms and legs to a mysterious, and still undiagnosed form of myositis. Thanks to 12 steps, and the love of K.D. Haynes, I got up (so to speak) off of my clinically depressed ass, and in the year 2000, I began to forage through a lifetime of stories circling my soul. This collection represents the first set of them."

GAY, FAT, CRIPPLED, BLACK AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS: THURS. 8 p.m.

This Thursday at Brooklyn Reading Works I am pleased to present Adarro Minton, author of Gay, Fat, Crippled, Black. Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. 8 p.m.

Here's the blurb from Amazon, which will give you some idea of what to expect at this reading you won't want to miss.

Like Hubert Selby's joyously tragic characters, Adarro Minton has created a faction of players that seem to exist on an Earth 2. The author has created powerful, challenging and at the end, beautiful stories about the most important and universal things in life and about humanity. We are vaguely familiar these people, we have put them in radical pigeonholes and expect The Department of Homeland Security to keep them in their place. This book contains stories of people living in the metropolitan back ends of New York City, some rich, some poor, all streetwise, misguided and desperate. a fat girl, a faggot, a lawyer and several others. We follow as their lives are systematically broken down and destroyed. This is a harsh, raw, and daring piece of writing. Be warned: not for the faint hearted.

About the Author by Adarro Minton:

I have been expelled from St Peter Claver, St Catherine of Siena, and The Union Springs Academy, a Seventh Day Adventist boarding school, after refusing to submit to a weekly shower game that five lusty upper-classmen came up with.
I survived the disco era in New York City, in imagined opulent splendor at Studio 54, Better Days, The Nickel Bar, 220 Club, The Saint, The Mineshaft, and The Paradise Garage.
I survived mescaline, blotter acid, cocaine, freebase cocaine, crack, danger sex in subway bathrooms, hunger, homelessness, and three serious suicide attempts.
    

In 1999, I lost the use of my arms and legs to a mysterious, and still undiagnosed form of myositis. 

Thanks to 12 steps, and the love of K.D. Haynes, I got up (so to speak) off of my clinically depressed ass, and in the year 2000, I began to forage through a lifetime of stories circling my soul. This collection represents the first set of them.