Past Events
Jeffrey Davis & Linda Jones
Jeffrey Davis is author of the non-fiction book The Journey from the Center to the Page (Penguin 2004; updated ed., Monkfish 2008) and the poetry collection City Reservoir (Barnburner Press). He teaches in Western Connecticut State University’s MFA in Professional Writing Program, at the UNM Taos Writers’ Conference, and elsewhere. He also coaches best-selling authors and aspiring authors around the country. He lives in upstate New York and is at work on a collection of short stories and a non-fiction book that tracks wonder.
Linda Jones has used stories about hair in her writing as a device to explore lifestyle and cultural issues. She founded A Nappy Hair Affair in 1998 and made it an extension of her commitment as a writer to help dispel stereotypes and negative perceptions of people of color. With the help of her team of nappy proponents, Linda produced a short video documentary, which was part of the 2000 Dallas Video Festival. She also gathered artists together to produce the “Love & Nappiness,” spoken work and music CD and a stage production called “The Love and Nappiness Revue.” She also produced a member newsletter called the Nappy News and her Natually Speaking column became a monthly feature of the website Naturallycurly.com.
Avante!
Featuring: Shin Yu Pai, Jerry Kelley
Shin Yu Pai grew up in the Inland Empire of Southern California and has lived and worked in Boston, Madrid, Boulder, Chicago, Dallas, Taipei, and Seattle. Currently, she resides in San Marcos, TX, where she is Assistant Curator for Acquisitions for The Wittliff Collections, which specializes in Southwestern and Mexican photography, as well as literary archives related to the Southwest. She is the author of seven books of poetry, as well as being an oral historian, photographer, and editor. Recent titles include Haiku Not Bombs, Sightings: Selected Works, and Works on Paper. White Pine Press will publish Adamantine in 2011.
Jerry Kelley–Harvard in the Sixties, living in the “bush” of British Columbia in the 70’s, musician with arts-family legacy, long-time WordSpace Board Member and aesthetics advisor. His work is Elevated–at-the-13th Floor. He travels often and widely with his wife, poet Patty Turner.
Hosted by Laney Yarber
Suggested donation: $5
Sabrina Gilbert
Sabrina Gilbert is a very crafty writer and a skilled performer. Her work is bold and heartfelt and will leave even the most critical minds craving more.
She is sharing the stage at B&N with Michael Guinn.
Destiny Lane
Destiny Lane is a poet that writes from her soul. She connects words that resonate with thoughtfulness. Her work is spiced with sultry soliloquies that flow fluidly off her tongue while dripping with steaming hot passion leaving the imaginations of audiences moist and wanting more.
Mad Swirl Night
Featuring: Johnny Olson, MH Clay and Swirve
Mad Swirl –Johnny Olson is the editor-in-chief of Mad Swirl, and the host at Mad Swirl Open Mic night at Absinthe Lounge. When Johnny is not nurturing his love/lust-child, Mad Swirl or painting, he savors the time swirling around with his fellow mad ones. MH Clay is Mad Swirl’s new poetry editor and a huge advocate on all that is Mad Swirly. He’s a poet, writer, musician and general mad man. Swirve, aka Chris Curiel, Tamatha Curiel, and Gerard Bendicks, is a poetics, avant-garde person/instruments-sound-space group from Dallas.
Here’s a video of the performance (videographer: Peter Orozco):
Hosted by Laney Yarber
Suggested donation: $5
Dada Language Cabaret
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.
John “Survivor” Blake
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.”
Dallas Slams - Featured Reader
Location: Café Madrid - Bishop Arts, 408 N. Bishop Ave. Suit 108,
Dallas, Texas 75208
Photos from the Matuk and Robbins Salon
Photos from the Smith and Nguyen Reading
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
