December 4th at Book Court

The Salon: Literary Women

Guest Curated by She Writes & Hedgebrook Writers Retreat

Book Court

163 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Tel: (718) 875-3677

Tue Dec 4, 7:00PM

Talking women writers with some wonderful women writers with Hedgebrook, She Writes and Goddard connections.  Come join us!

Moderated by Holly Morris

Lisa Dierbeck

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto

Martha Southgate

Amy Wheeler

Lisa Dierbeck is the author of the novels The Autobiography of Jenny X and One Pill Makes You Smaller, a New York Times Notable Book. In 2010, she co-founded Mischief+Mayhem, an independent publisher run by established authors in association with OR Books. The New York Observer has dubbed it “the book industry’s new danger brigade.” Frequently anthologized and twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and in such publications as The Boston Globe, O, the Oprah Magazine, The New York Times Book Review and Time Out New York.

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s memoir, Hiroshima in the Morning, is a National Book Critics Circle Finalist, among other honors. She is the author of Why She Left Us, an American Book Award Winner, a U.S./Japan Creative Artist Fellow, Hedgebrook alumna, and a faculty member at Goddard College. Rizzuto has appeared widely in the media, including The Today Show, The View, 20/20, The Joy Behar Show, MSNBC-TV and PBS-TV. Her articles have been published internationally.

Martha Southgate is the author of four novels. Her newest, The Taste of Salt, was published in September 2011 and was named one of the best novels of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Boston Globe. She has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her essay “Writers Like Me,” published in the New York Times Book Review, appears in the anthology Best African-American Essays 2009. Previous non-fiction articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, O, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence.

Amy Wheeler is a playwright and the Executive Director of Hedgebrook, a retreat and residency for women writers on Whidbey Island that supports women writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come. Amy holds an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, and her work has been seen in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Atlanta.

Holly Morris, co-founder of PowderKeg, is a writer and editor, and a television documentary producer and correspondent. The former Editorial Director of the book publishing company Seal Press, Morris edited an eclectic list of titles on topics ranging from domestic violence and geo-politics, to award-winning poetry and international fiction and nonfiction. She also edited the Adventura imprint, which features outdoor, travel, and environmental literature. She is a longtime board member of Hedgebrook, a writer’s residency in Washington State. Her essays are widely anthologized, and she writes for numerous publications including The New York Times. Her book, Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for a New Kind of Heroine, based on her experiences as an international correspondent, was named an “Editors’ Choice” and a ‘Notable Book of the Year’ about exploration by the New York Times. Morris is the executive producer/writer/director of the award-winning prime-time PBS documentary series, “Adventure Divas”

Sharing our stories

Once our stories leave us, they have a life of their own.  Your story will touch many lives: give voice to some who may have felt voiceless, and remind others that they are not alone.  The best part is when the storyteller herself is given the gift of hearing from others and discovering the community that has always existed around her.

Recently, I had the privilege of seeing one example of how my own memoir has journeyed: from 2001 Hiroshima to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  On her blog, Michelle Embree writes about reading Hiroshima in the Morning:

I could feel [Reiko’s book] taking shape inside of myself, it was taking me to a place of greater strength and understanding for writing my own memoir (which is currently half complete and in a perpetual state of change and discovery). I was reading and writing and taking deep breaths and starting over again and again with the belief that I can, in fact, write this book, tell my story, find words for it all, find a reason to be who I have become.

I invite you to read her story here.

 

Coming to Baltimore

 

Looking forward to talking about women’s history this Saturday – the history of family, love, loss, death, community, and not the machinations of conquering countries.

For more information, here’s a lovely preview in the Baltimore Times.

“Hiroshima in the Morning” forces the reader to contemplate memory, history and personal truth. Rizzuto says she hopes it encourages readers to discover, “What’s important to you, so you can stand on the mountain top and you can say what happened. This is my story.”

And a link to the topic and the amazing writers who will be joining the panel with me.  See you here:

March 10, 2012:

International Literary Festival
1:00 pm until 4:00 pm.
Enoch Pratt Free Library
400 Cathedral Street

Baltimore MD

A Conversation with Sixers Review

Appearing in Sixers Review today, a brief conversation with Goddard MFA graduate, Shokry Eldaly, who will someday be a literary marvel himself when he gets that half-finished novel done. Here is a sneak peek:

“Are you asking what you do when you are asked to conform? You don’t. It’s very simple. Why would you? Why would any person ever think that another person, or a structure (like publishing, or banking!), or a cultural assumption, knows what you need and who you are better than you do? You are the expert on you, and you have an urgency in your own preoccupations that is important for the rest of us to hear about. Otherwise, you become a bad copy of a character that someone else has made up.”

Read the entire interview and take a look at the journal here.

The Pen Fall Literary Tasting

Come join me at Westbeth for an evening of readings, conversation and cocktails.

Westbeth

With Henry ChangHal FosterMichael GreenbergLev GrossmanKevin HolohanSabina MurrayRahna Reiko RizzutoStephen Stark, and other special guests

What should you be reading this season? Hear from Sarah McNally of McNally Jackson Books about the runaway hits, the beloved secrets, and the must-reads of the 2011 fall season. Then wander the halls of Westbeth to attend live readings in the homes of Westbeth residents by some of the most exciting authors writing today. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to explore the oldest and largest artist community located in the heart of bohemian West Village, repurposed by renowned architect Richard Meier into 383 living and working lofts. The evening ends with a reception and cocktails.

When: Thursday, November 17, 2011
Where: Westbeth, 155 Bank St., New York City
What time: 7 p.m.
Tickets: $10. Purchase at ovationtix.com or at the door