Edge: a Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers
Melissa Buckheit, Marlon B. Evans, and Raja Lewis
Thursday, December 11, 2008
8:00 p.m.
Suggested Donation: $5
This reading is guest curated by Wendy Burk.
Come to Edge: A Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers. Edge is a series of local and national writers and cross-genre artists, emphasizing diversity of narrative, identity and literary source. Its purpose is to create community, visibility and voice for emerging and younger writers. Broadsheets of the authors' work will accompany each reading. Books and journals will be available for purchase and signing by the authors. Refreshments will be available after the reading.
Readers:
Melissa Buckheit is a poet, dancer, choreographer, translator, and photographer. Her writing and photography have appeared or are forthcoming in nth position, Blue Fifth Review, The Drunken Boat, Taiga, Bombay Gin, Laurel Moon, and Sonora Review, among others. Her manuscript, On the Back of the Animal Is the Mouth of the Vase, has been a finalist for several book awards. Melissa holds an MFA in Poetry from Naropa University. She has taught Creative Writing and Modern Dance at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Zuzi! Dance Company and School, and Arts for All, and currently teaches Literature, Writing, and Creative Writing at Pima Community College and in private workshop. Melissa has performed in and presented her original choreography in Boston, Boulder, and Tucson, as a member of Brandeis Dance Collective, with Zuzi Dance Company, and through New Articulations Dance Theatre. Melissa founded and curates the Edge Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers.
Marlon B. Evans (Akimel O’odham/Tohono O’odham) is a Native of the tribal people of the Gila River Community and the San Xavier district of the Tohono O’odham Nation. In 1975 he attended Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, and graduated with Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Graphic Arts. In 2005, he took Professor Luci Tapahonso’s poetry analysis course and decided to write poetry the rest of his life. He is a first-year Master’s student in American Indian Studies at The University of Arizona, with an emphasis in Poetry and Media Arts. Marlon lives at the nexus of poetry, music, and film. He prays for the return of the Papago, Pima, and Bobcat.
Raja Lewis was born in Kansas, spent her early childhood in Phoenix, began
writing poetry and dreaming of women in West Texas, discovered alcohol at age 15
after moving to Missouri, discovered sobriety and studied Phys Ed in New Jersey,
nourished her poetry in Illinois, lost her heart in Laguna Beach, California,
and currently resides in Tucson, Arizona. She has a BA in physical education and
health from Trenton State College and studied poetry at Southern Illinois
University with Rodney Jones and Lucia Perillo before earning an MFA in Creative
Writing from The University of Arizona in 1999. For Raja, writing is a means of
survival: a natural response to the negativity and confusion of her childhood
and an attempt to find beauty. She owns three refurbished typewriters and uses
them to write three poems at a time.
Next Edge Reading will be held on January 21 at 7:30 p.m. with readers Danny Clifford, Megan Coe, and Kimi Eisele.
Past Edge Readings:
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
