Stellar Alumni Series: Bojan Louis and Sara Sams


On Thursday, March 23, at 7:00 PM, the Creative Writing Program at ASU presents a reading by Bojan Louis and Sara Sams.

Bojan Louis is Diné of the Naakai dine’é, born for the Áshííhí. He’s written a variety of poetry and fiction, published in Alaska Quarterly, Ecotone, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. He’s published two books: Sinking Bell: Stories and Currents, which received an American Book Award. To learn more, visit his website.

Sara Sams is a writer and translator from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She’s written a variety of poetry and nonfiction in Blackbird, Now and Then, Waxwing, and elsewhere. She’s published Atom City, her fist book of poems. To learn more, visit her website.

Read Bojan Louis’s interview in Issue 20 of Superstition Review.

Sara Sams advised on and helped to create Issue 22 of Superstition Review.

This event is free and open to the public! To learn more and register, go here.

A photo of Bojan Louis.

Bojan Louis’s Sinking Bell: Stories


Winner of an American Book Award for his poetry collection Currents, Bojan Louis is making his fiction debut with Sinking Bell: Stories. Published by Graywolf Press, Sinking Bell: Stories is a collection that centers on collisions of love, cultures, and racism. All of Louis’s stories take place in or near Flagstaff, Arizona, and they include stunning portrayals of all kinds of people—from metalheads to construction works—struggling to live their complicated lives.

Louis’s prose carries his poetic sensibility with a decided rhythm and resonant detail, and the narrators achingly convey their outsider status. The result is immersive and powerful.

publishers weekly

Bojan Louis is Diné of the Naakai dine’é, born for the Áshííhí. His debut novel Currents received an American Book Award in 2018. His work has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ecotone, Yellow Medicine Review, and elsewhere. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona. To learn more about him, visit his website.

Sinking Bell doesn’t shy away from the dim corners of life. . . . You’re going to want to take your time with this one, and then you’re going to want to press it into the hands of all your best people.

Kelli Jo Ford, author of crooked hallelujah

To purchase Sinking Bell: Stories, go here.

An interview with Bojan Louis—”Auditory Hallucinations”—appeared in Issue 20 of Superstition Review.

#ArtLitPhx: Poetry Month in the Desert- Readings and Book Signings

During the month of April, National Poetry Month, Mesa Community College will host, in partnership with Arizona Humanities, two poetry readings in the Elsner Library, Room 300, at Mesa Community College (1833 W Southern Ave, Mesa, AZ 85202). The readings will be Thursdays, April 5 and 19, 2018, at 7:00 pm, followed by a Q&A and book signing. Both events are open to Mesa Community College faculty, staff, and students, and the general public. Refreshments will be provided and books will be available for purchase.

Thursday, April 5, 2018 —  Eloisa Amezcua and Natalie Diaz

Eloisa Amezcua, MacDowell fellow and author of From the Inside Quietly, winner of the inaugural Shelterbelt Poetry Prize.

Natalie Diaz, Lannan Literary Fellow, Native Arts Council Foundation Artist Fellow, and author of When My Brother Was an Aztec.

 

Thursday, April 19, 2018 — Bojan Louis and Felicia Zamora

Bojan Louis, Poetry Editor for RED INK: An International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Arts, & Humanities and author of Currents.

Felicia Zamora, 2017 Poet Laureate for Fort Collins, CO and author of Of Form & Gather, winner of the 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.

For more information, please contact Josh Rathkamp (480-461-7560) or Ernesto L. Abeytia (602-615-5893).

 

#ArtLitPhx: Fernando Pérez and Bojan Louis Poetry Reading

Arizona State University alumni Fernando Pérez and Bojan Louis present their poetry collections at 7:00 pm on Friday, March 2, 2018, at Changing Hands bookstore (6428 S McClintock Dr, Tempe, AZ 85283). There will be an open reading from each, with possible signing opportunities. Pérez holds an MFA in Poetry from Arizona State University, and is a graduate of ASU’s Creative Writing Program. He currently works as an assistant professor of English at Bellevue College. Louis is also a graduate of the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State, and is currently the poetry editor at RED INK: An International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Arts, and Humanities, a journal established at the University of Arizona in 1989. As of 2013, the journal is now managed at Arizona State.

Each author’s work has ties to identity, family, and the struggles inherent in each. Pérez, a Chicano poet from Los Angeles, explores how divides of generation and distance affect identity and familial ties in his collection A Song of Dismantling. Louis, an Indigenous American writer, (specifically a member of the Navajo Nation-Naakai Dine’é; Ashiihí; Ta’neezahnii; Bilgáana) has previously written nonfiction work on banned books in “occupied territory” in his chapbook Troubleshooting Silence in Arizona, (Guillotine Series, 2012), and further explores topics of diaspora and Native experience poetically in Currents, his collection.

The venue is doubly appropriate for both its location and its mission. Changing Hands is known for its local events, including readings, seminars, Q&A sessions, and book clubs. They host both established and newer authors, and foster an audience for each. The store focuses on building a community of local readers, writers, and lovers of the arts, with a focus on supporting local business, public radio, and schools. They donate to causes that affect the community and remain a fixture of the literary community of Tempe and the surrounding area. As an independent bookstore, they have a commitment to their mission that has stayed true since their establishment in 1974. By showcasing Pérez and Louis, Changing Hands continues the legacy of supporting local authors– specifically, in this case, ones that have attended and graduated from Arizona State.

Though both authors have been featured in literary journals before, this is the first published collection for each. The collections have only been published recently, with A Song of Dismantling released February 15, 2018, and Currents released in November of 2017. Each book is available at Changing Hands both on their website and at their brick-and-mortar location in Tempe. For more information and book ordering, visit Changing Hands’ website or call their Tempe location at 480-730-0205.

 

#ArtLitPhx: Superstition Review Issue 20 Launch Party (with Agenda Updates)

Issue 20 Launch Party

If you’re in the Phoenix area, we hope you will join us for our Tenth Anniversary Celebration on Thursday, December 7! The party will take place from 6pm to 8pm at the Contemporary Arts Museum at the Mesa Arts Center. We are so thrilled to celebrate our tenth year and our twentieth issue.

Since the magazine’s founding in 2008 by Patricia Murphy, Superstition Review has published engaging and innovative works of fiction, nonfiction, interviews, poetry, and art. We have featured over 750 established and emerging authors from all over the world and are excited to announce the expansion of our family of contributors with our upcoming issue.

All staff members, contributors, members of the literary community, and friends and family are welcome to join Superstition Review in the celebration of ten years and twenty issues at the Mesa Arts Center.

The event is free and open to the public.

We will be serving cake and exploring the exhibits at the Contemporary Arts Museum, including “Slang Aesthetics!” by Robert Williams in the Dobson Main Gallery, “After Party” by Julie Heffernan in the SRP Gallery, and “The Dusk Parade” by Joe Sorren in the North Gallery.

The agenda will include a brief talk from the issue’s editors, and we are excited to announce that contributor Bojan Louis will also be joining us for a reading! He will be featured in one of the interviews in Issue 20. In his first collection of poems, Currents, Louis discusses the kinetic dissonance of the contemporary struggle to coexist with self-inflicted eroding environments.

Please check out the Facebook event page for updates. We hope to see you there!

Contributor Update: Bojan Louis & Mark Haunschild

Bojan Lpuis & Mark HaunschildToday we are excited to announce that future contributor Bojan Louis and Superstition Review’s own poetry advisor Mark Haunschild will be featured in the Caffeine Corridor Poetry Series. The event is an open mic starting at 7 pm this Friday, November 10, 2017 at {9} The Gallery.

Bojan Louis is a Diné—Naakai Dine’é; Ashiihí; Ta’neezahnii; Bilgáana—poet, fiction writer, and essayist. Mark Haunschild teaches writing at Arizona State University, where he coordinates the f2f Writers’ Studio on the downtown Phoenix campus, and serves as the faculty advisor of poetry for Superstition Review.

 

 

#ArtLitPhx: Layli Long Soldier and Timothy Yu at the Phoenix Art Museum

Layli Long Soldier and Timothy YuThe University of Arizona Poetry Center is proud to present poets Layli Long Soldier and Timothy Yu at the Phoenix Art Museum (1625 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85004) on Friday, November 3 at 7pm. Both poets will read from their works, and then there will be a short Q&A and a book signing.

The local opener is Bojan Louis, who is a member of the Navajo Nation. His first collection of poems, Currents, published in 2017 from BkMk Press. He is also the author of a nonfiction chapbook, Troubleshooting Silence in Arizona, released by Guillotine Series in 2012. Louis is currently Poetry Editor at RED INK: An International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Arts, and Humanities.

Layli Long Soldier is Oglala Lakota; her family is from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and northwestern Idaho. Her first chapbook of poetry, Chromosomory, released in 2009 from Q Ave Press. She received a BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and she is a two-time recipient of the Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship. She is also a recipient of the 2009 Naropa University Poetry Scholarship. She has served as editor-in-chief for “Native Language Network” and other publications for the Indigenous Language Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Timothy Yu’s debut poetry collection, 100 Chinese Silences (2016), was the Editor’s Selection in the NOS Book Contest from Les Figues Press. He is also the author of three chapbooks: 15 Chinese Silences (Tinfish); Journey to the West (Barrow Street), winner of the Vincent Chin Memorial Chapbook Prize from Kundiman; and, with Kristy Odelius, Kiss the Stranger (Corollary). He is also the author of Race and the Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Literature since 1965 (Stanford) and the editor of Nests and Strangers: On Asian American Women Poets (Kelsey Street).

For this event, the Poetry Center is proud to partner with the Phoenix Art Museum with support from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing as a lead sponsor, as well as additional support from the ASU Creative Writing Program, the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry, the Literary & Prologue Society, and Superstition Review.

For more information, check out the event’s Facebook page.

#ArtLitPhx: ASU Stellar Alumni Reading Series feat. Bojan Louis and Irena Praitis

Bojan Louis and Irena Praitis

ASU’s Creative Writing Program is so excited to present its brightest, most talented alumni writers in this new series, the Stellar Alumni Reading Series. In this installment, Irena Praitis (MFA 1999; PhD 2001) and Bojan Louis (MFA 2009) will read from their work.

The reading will take place Thursday, October 26 from 7pm to 8:30pm in the Cochise Room of the Memorial Union on the ASU Tempe campus. A book signing will follow the reading – Bojan Louis is the author of Currents, and Irena Praitis is the author of The Last Stone in the Circle.

In Currents, Louis discusses the kinetic dissonance of the contemporary struggle to coexist with self-inflicted eroding environments. In The Last Stone in the Circle, Praitis chronicles experiences of prisoners in a WWII German work re-education camp based on eye-witness accounts. The synopsis details, “Delving into the murkiness of human experience in the face of suffering, the poems consider the complicated choices people make in impossibly difficult circumstances and explore the sheer resilience of survival.”

This event is free and open to the public. We previously featured this event in our Contributor Updates because Irena Praitis was featured in our very first issue – read her poems in Issue 1 here.

For more information on the event, check out the ASU website and the Facebook page.

Contributor Update: Bojan Louis & Irena Praitis

Today we are pleased to announce that past contributor Irena Praitis and future contributor Bojan Louis will be featured in The Stellar Alumni Reading Series on ASU’s Tempe campus.

Stellar Alumni Reading Series featuring Bojan Louis and Irena PraitisIrena Praitis will be reading from her latest book titled The Last Stone in the Circle. The collection of poetry is based on eyewitness accounts and chronicles experiences of prisoners in a WWII German work re-education camp. Purchase a copy of The Last Stone in the Circle from Small Press Distribution here. Bojan Louis will read from his forthcoming book Currents, which encompasses the kinetic dissonance of the contemporary struggle to coexist with self-inflicted eroding environments.

For more information about the reading click here.

Read two of Irena’s poems in Issue 1 of Superstition Review here.

#ArtLitPhx: World Poetry Day Festival

In celebration of World Poetry Day, the ALAC is celebrating the beauty of poetry and spoken word with some very exciting performances in Phoenix through verse, music, and interpretive dance.

The World Poetry Day Festival will take place on Saturday March 25th, 2017  from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. at the Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center (147 E Adams St, Phoenix, Arizona 85004.)

There will be a variety of languages featured in poetic form on stage including Nahuatl, Spanish, Navajo, Portuguese, English, Spanish, Spanglish (Chicano style), Sign Language and more!

ALAC is a cultural center that promotes and preserves Latino~Mexican~Chicano~Indigenous Arts and Cultures.

The event is hosted by Maggie Messerschmidt with performances by Sergio Herrera, Rashaad Thomas, Deborah Berman-Montano, Joe Montano III, Joel Joelskii Salcido, Khalifah Ahmeedou, Varnadeaux, Jules Dinehdeal, Talima Flores-Allah, Maria Rodriguez-Pope, Teatro Nervo, JC Koffy, Chris Danowski, Diana Noquetzal Garcia, Reyna E. Montoya and Ileana Salinas-Mireles, Yovani Flores, Raay Francy, Melissa Dunmore, Adrian de Hoyos, Freddy Lopez, Susan Nguyen, and Bojan Louis.

A suggested donation of $5 per person is greatly appreciated. See the Facebook Event Page for more information.

All transactions are cash only purchases, including drinks, snacks and collections of poetry from the performing artists will be available the day of the event.