Past Programs | Directions to Casa Libre

Edge: a Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers

Curator: Melissa Buckheit

A note from the curator: I have often wanted to listen to authors who are in the same place in their careers as myself, emerging, published in journals or with a chapbook, but without a major book, still growing but full of passion, new ideas, and an edge. But there has been little opportunity for this; in fact I have often felt disappointed in the lack, that such an otherwise open community might often be so circumscribed in its programming. Additionally, featuring emerging writers engages other young as well as established writers, to support, frequent and attend Casa Libre and other writing events. This cycle creates the foundation for a writing community which self-generates, remains true, open, and allows many voices the opportunity for visibility and being heard. I want Tucson to be an artistic community which includes and features many voices and peoples. Literature is the province of communication, but also reflectivity, the reflection and representation of all our narratives and of new narratives and ideas, voices which are challenging and also challenge us.

Naomi Benaron, Bonnie Jean Michalski , and Tiphanie Yanique
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
7:30 p.m.
Suggested Donation: $5

Come to the fourth reading of Edge: A Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers. Edge is a new 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. Wine and lights drinks will be available after the reading.

Readers:

Naomi Benaron’s story collection, Love Letters from a Fat Man, won the 2006 G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction. The title story of the collection has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her story “Directions” won the New Letters Reader’s Choice award for 2007. She has won or been short-listed for numerous prizes and awards. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in New Letters, CALYX, Green Mountains Review, Cutthroat Journal, and other in print and online journals. She has taught Composition and Geology at Pima Community College. Before pursuing her MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles, she worked for many years as a geophysicist.

Bonnie Jean Michalski lives in Tucson where she works in the University of Arizona Poetry Center library. She blogs at bonniejeanmichalski.blogspot.com and has poems published in online journals including mid)rib, Glitterpony and APOCRYPHALTEXT. Her chapbook manuscript is called The LITTLE LENGTH You Fold Your Wares, and as she is not at all averse to stealing entire lines of poetry, the long poem she is currently working on is called “Sang a Bone Upon the Shore.” In addition to poetry, Bonnie Jean enjoys inventing soup recipes, petting cats and wearing cowboy boots.

Tiphanie Yanique is review editor with New York University's Calabash and assistant editor of Narrative. A former Fulbright Scholar, she has received the Mary Grant Charles Award for fiction, the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Tufts University Africana Prize for Creativity, and fellowship residencies with Bread Loaf, Callaloo, Squaw Valley, and the Cropper Foundation for Caribbean Writers. She is the recipient of a 2008 Pushcart Prize, the 2006 Boston Review Fiction Prize, and was the Parks Fellow/Writer-in-Residence at Rice University. She is a professor of Creative Writing and Caribbean Literature at Drew University. Her short story "The Saving Work" was chosen by Margot Livesey for the 2007 Kore Press Short Fiction Award.

Past Edge Readings:

April 2008

March 2008

February 2008

Return to Top of Page