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. |
Ann Dernier, Jake Levine, and Sharon Wahl
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
7:30 p.m.
Suggested Donation: $5
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:
Ann Dernier is co-founder, with poet Joni Wallace, of Poets’ Studio, a workshop series for writers. She is on the Arizona Commission on the Arts Teaching Artist Roster. She is a Kore Press author; a preliminary judge for the Kore Press First Book Award from 2004-2008 and facilitator for the Grrls Literary Activism workshop, Spring 2008. Ann served as writer-in-residence and then Director of the Tucson Writers’ Project at the Tucson-Pima Public Library from 1985-2005. She is editor of Writing Out of the Darkness, an anthology of poetry by torture survivors and their families. Her work appears in local and National publications. She received a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Ann lives in Tucson with her husband Chris Smith and their children Nick and Hadley.
Jake Levine is coordinator of both the Poetry Fuckfest and Po' Tree Sal(o)on (co-coordinated, but mostly coordinated, by Kristen Nelson, director of Casa Libre (big props)). Jake is also managing editor for Sonora Review, a bookbinder, teacher of English composition and ESL, sits in on the board at POG meetings, transcribes Buddhist talks, is the co-author of a self-published chapbook On The Fringes with Ryan Donaldson, is a world traveler, visual artist, and doesn’t eat meat. Jake has taken residence in the last five years in England, Spain, and his adopted hometown of Tucson, AZ, where he is an active member of the local community and an MFA poetry candidate at The University of Arizona. He is originally from San Diego, CA, a place he visits at least 5 times a year. His favorite beer is PBR, an award winning beverage. Jake’s work is heavily indebted to fauvism, abstract expressionism, hyper realism, literary postmodernism, Wes Anderson, and London music and drug culture. He resides and works on Glenn St. where his brown bag was recently stolen by the homeless neo nazi pirates that live in his hood.
Sharon Wahl started writing fiction while pursuing a Ph.D. in math at M.I.T. After auditing a science-fiction writing workshop, she dropped out of M.I.T. and traveled for a year in the South Pacific; her first published story was written in a youth hostel in New Zealand. She went to Washington University in St. Louis for an M.F.A. in creative writing. In 1998 she moved to Tucson, and in the next few years was awarded both a Fiction Fellowship and an Artist’s Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. She recently won second place for the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction, and has also won prizes in fiction and poetry from The Iowa Review, Literal Latte, the Chicago Tribune, and other journals. She is currently trying to finish two books which for several years now have stubbornly resisted being finished: Passionate Reason, a novel about love, obsession, and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant; and I Also Dated Zarathustra (and other philosophical romances), a collection of love stories inspired by classic philosophy texts.
Next Edge Reading will be held in June.
Past Edge Readings:
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
