Edge 60: a Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Writers
w/Ari Belathar, Elena Díaz Björkquist, & Meg Wade
Curator: Melissa Buckheit
Melissa Buckheit's Bio |
A note from the curator: I have often wanted to listen to authors who are in the same place in their career as myself--emerging, published in journals, with a chapbook and/or a first full-length book, still growing but full of passion, new ideas, and an edge. But there is often infrequent opportunity for this; in fact, I have often felt disappointed in the lack, that such an open community might often be circumscribed in its literary 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. |
Wednesday, December 11
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:
Ari Belathar is a Mexican poet and playwright in exile, and the author of a chapbook of poetry in English, The Cities I Left Behind, published by Radish Press.. Between 1994 and 2001, she facilitated creative writing and popular theatre workshops for indigenous women and children throughout Mexico. She was also a founding member of the first Mexican community radio station during the student strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1999. After being kidnapped and tortured by the Mexican National Army in 2001 due to her work as an independent journalist and human rights defender, she escaped to Canada. A participant in Artscape’s Gibraltar Point International Artists Residency Program, she has published poetry in literary journals and anthologies around the world. Belathar served as Writer-in-Residence through PEN Canada’s Writers in Exile Program at the University of Windsor in 2006. In 2009, Brandon University appointed her as the university’s first Writer-in-Residence. Belathar’s work has been awarded support by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. In the summer of 2010, Scirocco Drama published The TAXI Project—a collective play about exile, originally produced by PEN Canada, with Ari Belathar as lead–writer. Currently Belathar is working on the development of La Danza del Venado, a multidisciplinary play inspired by her own experience of crossing the border into the United States as a child to reunite with her father. She is also focusing on the creation of The Book of Departures, her first full-length collection of poetry. In the summer of 2013 she married her beautiful partner, Hannah Hafter, and relocated to Tucson Arizona, where she currently lives and writes.
Elena Díaz Björkquist is a writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, Arizona. She writes about Morenci where she was born and is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. Elena is co-editor of Sowing the Seeds, una cosecha de recuerdos and Our Spirit, Our Reality; our life experiences in stories and poems, anthologies of works written by her writers collective Sowing the Seeds. As an Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Scholar, Elena has performed as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation and done presentations about Morenci for twelve years. In 2012 Elena received the Arizona Commission on the Arts Bill Desmond Writing Award for excelling nonfiction writing and the Arizona Humanities Council Dan Schilling Public Humanities Scholar Award in recognition of her work to enhance public awareness and understanding of the role that the humanities play in transforming lives and strengthening communities. She was nominated for Tucson Poet Laureate in 2012 and is one of the moderators of the Facebook page Poets Responding to SB 1070. Her website is at http://elenadiazbjorkquist.com/.
Meg Wade was born and raised in the hills of East Tennessee. She recently received her MFA from the University of Arizona, where she served as poetry editor for Sonora Review, and was a recipient of the 2013 Academy of American Poets Prize. Her work has appeared in CutBank, The Feminist Wire, and Phantom Limb Press. She lives, writes, and teaches here in Tucson.
Next Edge Reading will be held January 22.
Nov 2013
Oct 2013
Sept 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
Apr 2013
Mar 2013
Feb 2013
Jan 2013
Nov 2012
