Members Salons
Held in private homes throughout the year, these private, members-only events allow Wordspace supporters to meet local and national writers and artists in an intimate setting for conversation, readings and panel discussions. Our hosts are located in all areas of the city: From Downtown and Lakewood to Oak Cliff and South Dallas, from Oak Lawn to North Dallas.
Reading Series @ The Kessler X+ Art Gallery
Held in partnership with The Kessler Theater. Special Thanks to our friends at this newly renovated music/arts center–Owner, Edwin Cabiniss and Artistic Director, Jeffrey Liles. This series mixes and maximizing our presentation of exciting emerging and experienced voices with our innovative web cam technology use of ICHAT/Skype to broadcast and inter-connect with writers from around the world. The events are held 2nd Wednesdays, as part of The Kessler’s Residency Nights of music. Begin the evening with Community Happy Hour, join us upstairs for the readings and check out their website to see who will be performing those nights! www.thekessler.org
Please see above for the latest listings.
Northwood Literary Festival
WordSpace proudly co-sponsors this dynamic gathering of poets and fiction writers that takes place on the campus of Northwood University every fall. and is curated by Board Member and Northwood University’s Assistant Professor of English Dr. Martha Heimberg.
Lambert Commons on the Northwood University’s 400-acre campus, located at 1114 West FM 1382, Cedar Hill Texas - about 25 minutes from downtown Dallas, just off Highway 67 South — the Joe Pool Lake exit.
Ongoing Events
Held in private homes throughout the year, these private, members-only events allow supporters to meet local and national writers and artists in an intimate setting for conversation, readings and panel discussions. Located in Lakewood and North Dallas.
Held in partnership with our friends at Paperbacks Plus bookstore (6115 LaVista), this series features exciting new voices on the Dallas’ literary scene. Donations are suggested.
Please see our above for the latest listings.
On occasion visiting writers with a national profile will hold small, one-day classes usually focusing on both aspects of the writing craft and on the business of writing. Past instructors have included the novelists James Kelman, Janice Galloway, Ben Fountain and David Searcy. Students submitted manuscripts up to twenty pages in length for reading/comment by instructors, and all manuscripts were discussed and analyzed in class. Instructors led discussions on the business of fiction from getting an agent to selling books. Please see our above for upcoming offerings.
WordSpace proudly co-sponsors this dynamic gathering of poets and fiction writers that takes place on the campus of Northwood University every fall.
Lambert Commons on the Northwood University’s 400-acre campus, located at 1114 West FM 1382, Cedar Hill Texas - about 25 minutes from downtown Dallas, just off Highway 67 South — the Joe Pool Lake exit.
Historic Events
Dallas Slams - Featured Reader
Shug
Location: Café Madrid - Bishop Arts,
408 N. Bishop Ave. Suit 108, Dallas, Texas 75208
Poetry saved Shug from selling out and losing herself in all-white private schools and, later, in A&M University. So now she is searching to see if poetry hid her in the schools to hide her from Big Brother in order that she may come out of exile and revolutionize herself and the rest of us.
Member Salon
Ronald Davison is a native of Dallas. A multi-media talent whose work spans poetry, painting and music, Davison is the author of Quiet Evolution (Introspect Books). Two new CDs called Circles and Quiet Evolution II are forthcoming soon.
Frederick Turner is an internationally known poet, lecturer, and scholar, and Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. A graduate of Oxford University, his books, plays, poems, and essays are too numerous to list but can be found at frederickturnerpoet.com. He was recently interviewed on the Discovery Channel’s science documentary, “Understanding Beauty.”
Hosted by Board Member Sarah Riehm
“An Intimate Evening with Dancing Tongue”
Paperbacks Plus Series - Time: 8 p.m. Suggested donation: $5
Location: Paperbacks Plus
6115 La Vista, Dallas, Texas 75214
The multi-media performance poetry troupe Dancing Tongue, the creators of the recent Literary Cabaret
series at the Undermain Theatre (with its cutting edge mixture of spoken word, music, performance, movement and video)
will present a causal evening of entertainment in the intimate confines of the upstairs lounge of Paperbacks Plus.
Join Tim Cloward, Lisa Huffaker, Fran Carris, Richard Allen & Kim Corbet for a thought-provoking experience
that will once again demonstrate that literature is, indeed, a lively art.
Dallas Slams - Featured Reader
John “Survivor” Blake
Location: Café Madrid - Bishop Arts,
408 N. Bishop Ave. Suit 108, Dallas, Texas 75208
John “Survivor” Blake’s nickname is no idle moniker. He has truly survived hellish circumstances and gone on to make work that, in the words of Carlos Andres Gomez, pulls “the reader or listener into the heart of his raw, fragmented truth of unshakeable power. He understands the incredible responsibility of being an artist, as much as anyone I have ever known.”
From Here Through Eternity
Paperbacks Plus Series- Time: 8 p.m. Suggested donation: $5
Location: Paperbacks Plus
6115 La Vista, Dallas, Texas 75214
Hosted by Christopher Soden, founder of Dallas Poets Community
Part ritual/part reading, this evening honors the legacies of great writers and artists who have transformed and influenced our work. Bring an object that reminds you of or is somehow connected to your favorite dead author to add to the ceremonial El Dia de Los Muertos tabla.
more info….
Northwood Literary Festival
Northwood University
1114 W FM 1382, Cedar Hill, TX 75104
Wordspace proudly co-sponsors this dynamic gathering of poets and fiction writers that takes place on the campus of Northwood University every fall. The event is held in Lambert Commons on Northwood’s 400 acre campus, located 25 minutes from downtown Dallas, just off Highway 67 south — the Joe Pool Lake exit. For a map, visit www.wordspacetexas.com.
Festival Chair is Martha Heimberg, Professor of English at Northwood and also Board Secretary for Wordspace.
FEATURED ARTISTS
Willard Spiegelman is the Hughes Professor of English at Southern Methodist University and has been editor of the Southwest Review since 1984. His latest book, a collection of meditations on happiness, is Seven Pleasures (FSG). He lives in Dallas, Texas.
Rock Baby, a native of Hattiesburg, Miss., is a natural per- former beginning with his television debut presentation on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. His charismatic performances tap into the emotions of audiences. His honors and titles include Dallas Poetry Team Slam Master, Grand Slam Spoken Word City Champion 2003, and HBO Def Poet in 2003 and 2005.
Susan Briante is the author of the book, Pioneers in the Study of Motion (Ahsahta Press, 2007). Briante’s poetry, essays and translations have recently appeared in Ploughshares, Damn the Caesars, Fascicle, Bombay Gin and The Believer. Briante is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Djerassi Foundation, among others. From 1992-1997, she lived in Mexico City where she worked for the magazines Artes de Me?xico and Mandorla. Briante is an assistant professor of aesthetic studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Farid Matuk is a Peruvian-born translator, essayist and poet. He is the author of Is it the King? (Effing Press). Recent poems appear in Big Bridge, Barrelhouse, Typesetter, and The Boston Review. Translations from Spanish have appeared or are forth- coming in Bombay Gin and Translation Review. Matuk’s essays and reviews have appeared most recently in Cross Cultural Poetics, Sentence Magazine, and the Poetry Project Newsletter.
Dallas Slams - Featured Reader
Al Houston
Location: Café Madrid - Bishop Arts,
408 N. Bishop Ave. Suit 108, Dallas, Texas 75208
Since 2002 A. J. Houston has been a member of the Fort Worth Slam Team. Performing at Slam venues and Slam contests all over the nation.
His chapbooks include Anchored In Prose, Counting Petals, Just Flow, Sunday Shoes, Refrigerate After Opening,
What If Words Mattered, and Let There Be Pens. He can also be seen on the DVDs That’s What Poets Do (AJ Houston Live),
Battle of Da Flows (What’s Love Got To Do With It), Battle of Da Flows (Twas The Slam Before Christmas),
Texas Poets @ Nationals, and Street Poets Volume One. You can find him online at http://njalphabets.org
northwood
Lambert Commons on the Northwood University’s 400-acre campus, located at 1114 West FM 1382, Cedar Hill Texas - about 25 minutes from downtown Dallas, just off Highway 67 South — the Joe Pool Lake exit. (click here for a map)
thekessler
The Kessler Theater , 1230 West Davis Street, Dallas, Texas 75208
CafeM
Café Madrid - Bishop Arts,
408 N. Bishop Ave. Suite 108, Dallas, Texas 75208
PPStore
Paperbacks Plus, 6115 La Vista, Dallas, Texas 75214
UTDJonsson
UTD Jonsson Performance Center
University of Texas at Dallas
