Innovative Programming: The Writer's Center

The Writer's Center Announces Fellowships for Emerging Writers

The Writer’s Center, metropolitan DC’s community gathering place for writers and readers, is currently accepting submissions for several competitive Emerging Writer Fellowships. Emerging Writer Fellows will be selected from applicants who have published up to 2 book-length works of prose and up to 3 book-length works of poetry. We welcome submissions from writers of any genre, background, or experience.

Emerging Writer Fellows will be featured at The Writer’s Center as part of their Emerging Writers Reading Series. The readings, held on Friday evenings, bring together writers in different genres with a backdrop of live music. The Writer’s Center book store will sell titles by the Emerging Writers throughout the season in which they appear in an effort to promote them and their work to a wide audience.

Selected Fellows are invited to lead a special Saturday workshop at The Writer’s Center, with compensation commensurate with standard Writer’s Center provisions.

Fellows receive an all-inclusive honorarium to help offset their travel costs in the amount of $250 or $500, depending on their place of departure.

Fellows for Fall 2009 include novelist Alexander Chee (Edinburgh), novelist Lisa Selin Davis (Belly), poet Suzanne Frischkorn (Lit Windowpane), poet Aaron Smith (Blue on Blue Ground), Canadian fiction writer Neal Smith (Bang Crunch), poet Srikanth Reddy (Facts for Visitors), and poet Nancy Krygowski (Velocity).

Their events will be held in September, October, and December. See our events calendar for more information.

To be considered, please send a letter of interest, a resume or CV that details publication history and familiarity facilitating group discussions, and a copy of your most recent book. Self-published or vanity press titles will not be accepted. A committee comprised of The Writer’s Center board members, staff, and members will evaluate submissions on behalf of our community of writers.

The deadline to submit is August 15, 2009.

Applicants are encouraged to call Charles Jensen, Director, for more information at 301-654-8664.


The Writer’s Center, established in 1976, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest literary centers. We provide over 60 free public events and more than 200 writing workshops each year, sell one of the largest selections of literary magazines in our on-site bookstore, and publish Poet Lore, America’s oldest continually published poetry journal.

GEMS THAT CROSS MY DESK: Rubberroom by Yago Cura

Heaven Below by Oscar Bermeo was sitting in my mailbox at work yesterday. I took it home only to bring it back: this morning I read it in one sitting while waiting for the subway, letting Metro train after Metro train leave without me at the Courthouse stop in Arlington, VA. When I finally stepped on board to head into the District, I resolved to make good on something I've been meaning to do for some time now: post here, now and then, some commentary about stuff that crosses my desk which I think is worthy of mention. Heaven Below falls into this category and I'll get to it very soon (and thank to Oscar for sending it and prompting me, indirectly, to get this other strand of LETRAS LATINAS BLOG up and running):

I want to comment on a chapbook I received sometime ago by Yago Cura. I was aware of his work because he'd submitted a manuscript to the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. His was among the manuscripts that were forwarded to Martín Espada for final consideration.

Cura's chapbook, Rubberroom, is a poetic sequence made up of acts, each act with different scenes. Here's what Cura writes, as a kind of preface:

The premise of "Rubberroom" rests on the idea that teaching is a function of acting. In other words, teaching is performative because every classroom is a controlled audience. Every time a teacher stands in front of a classroom, they are playing a role. I am not the person in real life that I am in front of my students, however my persona of teacher contains strains of the real me. Another idea very dear to this work is that teacher's colleges inundate teachers with useless theories and practicum. Schools and institutes that prepare teachers to helm classrooms in the inner-city do not fully acknowledge the social and psychological turmoil new teachers undoubtedly encounter the minute they are thrown into the maelstrom of their first classroom. This work serves as testament to the countless errors and missteps first-year teachers commit, but also has the confidence to embrace those mistakes because teaching is nothing if it is not a trial-and-error endeavor. The "Rubberroom" is formally dedicated to all teachers that trudge through that first year in the inner-city classroom all over the world and to Paolo Freire who is credited with stating that, "I cannont be a teacher without expressing who I am." Hopefully, after reading "Rubberroom" you will get an idea of not only who I am but how I am.

Among the things I appreciated about the sequence was how unflinching it was in presenting a world I'm completely unfamiliar with. In other words, we've all read (or read about) those nonfiction books, or newspaper articles that aim to present what I'm going to call "the inner-city classroom," but I'd never read poems about it from the perspective this perspective in quite this way. Here's a sample:

ACT TWO, SCENE ONE: ANGER THEATER

Yes, I hurled a chair
at the smartass
blackboard;

it might have ricocheted
and nicked a student, or two.

T-Bone's in the room, tells me,

Get a hold of your fool!

Splash cold water on your neck!

And that's just what I did
except, I did also get some things
off my chest in dialect Dynamite.

And came back, tore up
the bathroom pass, exclaimed,

No More Bathroom Pass, Ever!

All the while, my charges giggling
guffawing, snickering hyena-type
and falling to stitches.

Not because my production of
"Mister Lost His Shit"
tickled them so

Not because tirades
are a function of interior sloppy

But because monologues
presume audience innocence
and my little shits
were as guilty as me.

***

Things I especially liked:

Get a hold of your fool!

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off my chest in dialect Dynamite

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guffawing, snickering hyena-type
and falling to stitches

and the way "stitches" rhymes with

"Mister Lost His Shit"

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are a function of interior sloppy

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Rubberroom, in addition to unfolding its plot skillfully, is filled with fresh takes (on language) like these.

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Here's what we learn about the author, as of 2006, at the end:

"Yago Cura was a NYC Teaching Fellow in the Kingsbridge/Bedford Park section of the Bronx. He teaches 11th grade English Language Arts at Discovery High School, one of the small high schools inside the Walton Educational Campus. During the 2004-2005 academic year, Discovery's principal, Scott Goldner, played an integral role in salvaging Yago's fledgling career as an inner-city high school teacher.

Yago would like to thank Aviva Dalin (for her guidance), Joe Pandolfo (for his sense that a wrong was being committed) and all the people that supported him during his stint in teachers'-jail. Yago's work also appears in Lungfull!, Exquisite Corpse, COMBO, and Skanky Possum. In edition, Yago co-edits the literary journal, Hinchas de Poesia with, Lauren Ireland and Will Esposito"

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I don't know how many copies of Rubberroom Hinchas de Poesia produced, but I consider my two chapbooks collector's items, and I'm delighted to have them.

Yago Cura blogs HERE

John Chávez: 2009 Letras Latinas Residency Fellow

Before I had the pleasure of meeting John Chávez in person, I read him, and heard about him from third parties. I read his Noemi Press, chapbook, Heterotopia, which is reviewed in Latino Poetry Review, number 2 by Peter Ramos. Carmen Jiménez Smith, who knew John while he was pursuing his MFA at New Mexico State University, spoke very highly of him. And fellow Macondista, Joy Castro, told me about him since John was pursuing his doctorate at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Joy teaches.

I finally had the pleasure of meeting him in Omaha, NE about a year ago when I was at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art to give a reading. He drove over from Lincoln and we had dinner and hung out for a few hours. The following is a brief intervew with him conducted over e-mail a few days ago.

--FA

INTERVIEW

John, I'm glad to hear that you are having a productive time during your Letras Latinas Residency Fellowship period at the Anderson Center. The principal aim, of course, is to give an emerging Latino/a writer quality time to work. Can you share with readers of LETRAS LATINAS BLOG what you have been working on this past month, and your hopes for this particular project?

Knowing my Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts theses weren't so much book mansuscripts as they were collections of poems, I've worked in the last month to conceive, reconceive, draft and revise my doctoral dissertation, which I plan to be my first full-length book. Trying hard to have no preconceived notions in mind, I arrived at the Anderson Center on June 1st & brought what felt like a skelton of a draft. I had the shape of the book in mind, but I didn't want to force it so much as follow the book's energy to completion. Nearing the end of the residency however, and much to my surprise, I've written what feels like a strong, working draft of the book manuscript, tentatively titled Dawn of the Dispensable City. With some more tightening and a bit of planning, I hope to send it out to a number of writing contests this coming fall.

As I understand it, this is your first experience with an artist residency. How has it been? Could you describe a bit how your time evolved, if you developed any particular routines as the month progressed.

Yes, this was my first experience with an artist residency of this nature, so I didn't know what to expect. To Letras Latinas and the Anderson Center's credit, the month was amazing! The day I arrived, Robert Hedin, the director of the Anderson Center, gave us five residents a tour of the grounds. Starting with the main house and finishing with the individual studios, Robert recounted the history of the Anderson Center—built by his grandfather A.P. Anderson—and its tie to the community of Red Wing, MN.

By the second day, work was calling. I started by spreading the manuscript out across the floor of my bedroom and reading it aloud. This exercise allowed me to hear the poems, word for word and line for line, and to see how the shape of the book was driven by the initial organization. Once I drafted, which was every day, I spread out individual sections to see where they were headed.

I used this routine as a model to continue to imagine the book, to listen to where particular poems might be placed. Once I wrote a new poem, I read each section of the book to see where the poem best fit. Though the process felt methodical, it in fact turned out to be more organic—in essence, the new poems entered the manuscript on their own terms. Not mine.

The Anderson Center residencies are rather small in that at any one time, there are only five artists in residence. Could you talk a bit about what that experience has been like, and what kind of connections you’ve made, and if you foresee any of these connections lasting beyond the residency experience.

Not having been in residency before, or in an artist's community with so few people, I really didn't know what limitations such a number would pose or what kind of bonding would take place. I'd have to say that my four housemates and fellow artists and I bonded rather quickly. We were all on such different timetables career-wise, but at what place we were didn't matter. We were more interested in each other's art, conversations about art, politics, identity and culture and the confluences of each that we felt like our concerns were intellectually similar.

The poet Ronaldo Wilson and I discussed a number of issues, including being a member of a minority community and poets interested in the avant-garde. He was wonderful to talk to and because of our similar concerns and interests as poets, we shared email addresses and information about upcoming conferences meant to highlight such cultural work. Also, my fellow writer Kate de Gutes discussed the spaces in which we are allowed and seemingly disallowed to be or become ourselves, a central concern and meditation of my manuscript. In short, they were both marvelous, giving people to meet.

As far as the visual artists, both Ellen Petraits and Joyce Ellen Weinstein were awe-inspiring. They opened up their studios a number of times to share with us their process and projects' composition. These nights usually ended with us talking until midnight about our lives, the lives of others, and how our interaction with world informs our art. I couldn't have asked for better people to spend time with in residency.

Another part of the experience at that each resident has to do some sort of "community service" while they are there. What did you do, and how did that go?

I spent some time with a number of families at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, and the nature of my time centered on talking about my educational experience and the hardships I've faced to become a first-generation college graduate and doctoral candidate. Adriana Thuerauf was my host for the evening and translator, and she was simply remarkable as both a person and community activist.

Having lost my language (Spanish) at an early age, I discussed how my educational experience shaped me and how my experience might parallel my guests' kids' lives. From what I understand there are very few Latinos living in Goodhue county, and of those who attend high school some don't finish.

I was lucky in that my surrogate high school counselor, Carlos Montoya, pushed me to have higher expectations of myself. It was this kind of support from my educators and family that I wanted to share with Adriana's parish.

Now that you have experienced a month-long artist residency, what advice might you give to next year's recipient of the Letras Latinas Residency Fellowship or, for that matter, any writer coming to an artist residency for the first time?

Gloria Anzaldua comes to mind in that I learned to develop a tolerance for contradiction, a tolerance for ambiguity. By this I mean that next year's recipient might be prepared to fight with her or himself about where her work is going, she might be prepared to be amazed, to push herself, to be kind to herself.

He might be prepared to let the world slip away, to become raw, to listen to himself, to take a ride along the Cannon River and let the quiet wash over. And she might be prepared to be delighted by the humbleness of her fellow artists, their willingness to share, and she might be prepared to be willing to share with everyone her notion of where her art is going and she might prepared to share her notion of the world writ large. But above all else, be prepared to write every day as though it were your last. What your words gift you is incredible and so full of potential.

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Speaking of residencies, the Alliance for Artists Communities has recently announced that their Midwestern Voices and Visions initiative, with funding from the Joyce Foundation, will be accepting applications for their next grant cycle. I was fortunate enough to receive one of these in 2006. I did my residency at the Anderson Center----which directly resulted in establishing the Letras Latinas Residency Fellowship. Below is the link with all the pertinent information. In a nutshell, it is a program aimed at supporting artists of color who live in a midwestern state who have never experienced an artist residency. Please spread the word. The deadline is in mid-August:

http://www.artistcommunities.org/MWvisions/index.html

Courtesy of Dan Vera: Lorna's DC Workshop

Lorna Dee Cervantes punctuated her week-long stint in Washington D.C. yesterday, Saturday, June 27, by teaching a workshop. Here are two photographs, taken by Dan Vera:

Chicago Dispatch

I've come to love the Windy City. The main reason for this trip was to attend a day-long board meeting with the Guild Complex this past Saturday. I remember the first time I became aware of the Guild: they were the home of Tia Chucha Press. Today, the Guild, as you know, is the home of PALABRA PURA. And yet, in a strict sense, the Guild doesn't have a brick and mortar "home." We're a "scrappy and resourceful" organization, which suits us just fine.

And speaking of PP, at the least two installments I had the pleasure of running into, saying hello to, and chatting with, Katie Hartsock. Katie is a poet and she is a media assistant at the Poetry Foundation. She's become a loyal supporter of PALABRA PURA and she recently alerted me to a piece she wrote in Literago---an online publication I wasn't aware of, but which I'm so glad exists---about the Wind Shifts reading in May. Here's how Literago describes itself:

"Launched in March 2007, Literago.org is intended as a portal to news and information about literary goings-on in and around Chicago. The site features a curated calendar with a corresponding weekly newsletter, news, and post-event reviews. Literago is meant to show the world that Chicago isn’t an illiterate sinkhole, but a city with a vibrant literary community. It’s intended as a service to Chicagoans interested in literature: to give them a one-stop shop for noteworthy literary events, happenings, and information. Chicago has a vast number of literary projects — everything from small presses and magazines to giant lit organizations —and the Literago editors would like to see more cohesion, promotion, and community evident outside of events like Printer’s Row Book Fair and the Printer’s Ball. The editors hope Literago will be a useful tool for people like them."

I have nothing but immense admiration for enterprises like this. Hats off to the two co-founders and editors:

Eugenia Williamson & Gretchen Kalwinski

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Coming soon at LETRAS LATINAS BLOG: an interview with the 2009 Letras Latinas Residency Fellow, John Chávez, who is winding down his one month stint at the Anderson Center in Red Wing, MN.

Kevin A. González at Cave Canem

I was on the phone yesterday with Cornelius Eady. He was in Pittsburgh at the Cave Canem workshop and he called to confirm that 60 copies of The Night Tito Trinidad KO'ed Ricardo Mayorga had arrived and had been passed out to all the fellows. I had chosen this Momotombo Press title specifically.

One of the conversations Cornelius and I have been having these past few years, since he became a colleague at Notre Dame, is how to enhance relations and communication between our respective poetry communities. On the surface, it sounds, and still sounds, a bit too abstract. Some initiatives between Letras Latinas and Cave Canem have resulted (with the brokering of the Guild Complex) and I'll talk about those in a bit. There's also been a fruitful dialogue with Alison Meyers, the Executive Director of CC, and we are developing one idea that we intend to carry out in the District.

But it occured to me a few weeks ago that one next gesture would simply be to give away Kevin González's chapbook to the 50+ fellows while they were on their retreat; that having Terrance Hayes introduce them all to Kevin's work in his generous introduction would be a good thing---perhaps even lead some readers of the chapbook to seek out Cultural Studies (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2009).

Dialogue, bridge-building, getting better acquainted: one reader at a time.

PALABRA PURA Recap: Emma and Jacob

NOVENA PODEROSA

by Emma Trelles:

Fill the glass; light the wick,
prick three drops upon the sheet.

Honor the dead with gardenias,
stuff throats with the scent of forgiveness.

Honor the living with seasoned timber,
there is reckoning found in patience and plank. [...]

from Little Spells (Goss 183, 2008)

Emma was joined by Jacob Saenz last Wednesday, on June 17 at Decima Musa in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. We had a good-sized, attentive crowd. Emma sold books. It was the first time I'd had the pleasure of hearing her. I'd heard Jacob at the One Poem Festival at the JAZZ SHOWCASE last February in Chicago, but never a whole set by him. Both were excellent readers (which isn't always the case). Jacob read some great"zombie" poems! The following pictures are from Trelles' Facebook album. I only lament there wasn't one of her reading. I'll have to track one down.

One of the things the Guild Complex is working on for their website, and hopefully they'll get it up and running soon, are audio files from these readings. We've been recording them, but they still need to be edited, etc. The goal, really, is to make PALABRA PURA more of a national presence, through the web. We've come to think of the series as being a part of our literary community and thus want to do what we can to bring it to online audiences. It's the next step for the series, which is now in its fourth season. Funding for our 2010 season is off to a good start with a modest award from the National Endowment for the Arts and one from the Joyce Foundation. It's a welcome boost as we move forward.

Jacob Saenz

I'm holding Little Spells, sitting beside our visiting poet, who flew in from Miami.

Good crowd that night, though it was still light when we started.

Los Poetas

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July 15, 2009,

PALABRA PURA

presents

Javier Huerta & Luis Valadez