#ArtLitPhx: ASU Book Group: When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz

Time: Wednesday, Apr. 24, 2019

Date: 12-1 p.m.

Location: Piper Writers House (PWH), 450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281

Cost: Free

Event Details:

The ASU Book Group’s April 2019 reading selection is When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz. The book group is open to all in the ASU community and meets monthly from noon–1 p.m. in the Piper Writers House on ASU’s Tempe campus. Authors are always present. A no-cost luncheon follows at the University Club. Attendees at each meeting will be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate! Drawing to be held in April.

Synopsis:
“I write hungry sentences,” Natalie Diaz once explained in an interview, “because they want more and more lyricism and imagery to satisfy them.” This debut collection of poetry is a fast-paced tour of Mojave life and family narrative: A sister fights for or against a brother on meth, and everyone from Antigone, Houdini, Huitzilopochtli, and Jesus is invoked and invited to hash it out. These darkly humorous poems illuminate far corners of the heart, revealing teeth, tails, and more than a few dreams.

The book is available from amazon.com 

Natalie Diaz is associate professor of English in creative writing at ASU.

The ASU Book Group is sponsored as a community outreach initiative by the Department of English and organized in partnership with the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.

Download flyer: asu-book-group-18-19-flyer.pdf

Contact: Judith Smith

Email: jps@asu.edu

#ArtLitPhx: MFA Student Reading Series: Annie Vitalsey and Leah Newsom

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Date: Thursday, Apr. 11, 2019
Time: 8 p.m.
Location: The Social Hall (715 S McClintock Dr) Tempe, AZ
Cost: All are welcome.

Event Details:
Calling all lovers of poetry and prose! Join English’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program for the first semester of a special 8-part reading series featuring brand new work from ASU graduate students. Each reading will highlight two to three students at The Social Hall, a new destination bar and restaurant in Tempe. Do yourself a favor and support the arts by taking a night off to enjoy some of the best work our community is producing.

The readings start at 8:00 p.m., but come early to grab a drink or snack and mingle!

#ArtLitPhx: French Cinema – In the House

artlitphx

Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Time: 6:30pm – 8:15pm
Location: Paradise Valley Community College Center for the Performing Arts, 18401 North 32nd Street, Phoenix, AZ 85032
Cost: Free

Event Description:
In the House (R; 2012, 103 minutes)

6:30 PM Wednesday, March 6, 2018 @ PVCC CPA

FREE ADMISSION!

PVCC International Film Festival

Mission Statement
The Paradise Valley Community College International Film Festival presents cinema as a window onto the richness of our diverse world and our shared humanity.

The Festival offers a proven educational, entertaining visual experience for our students, colleagues, and community through the following goals.

Goals
-Viewing acclaimed films from around the world
-Enjoying films as a community experience that challenges our emotional involvement in a setting that offers opportunity for discussion
-Exploring the important issues of life through an open forum
-Experiencing cultural diversity in a profoundly transformative way
-Learning about important global issues through powerful visual images
-Discovering the range and variety of films and genres
-Understanding cinematic techniques and their contribution to the meaning of a film
-Meeting film directors, writers, and producers for dialogue
-Making entertainment educational and education entertaining

#ArtLitPhx: English at ASU Open Door 2019

Date: Saturday, February 23, 2019
Time: 1-6 p.m
Location: Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL), Tempe Campus, 1102 S McAllister Ave, Tempe, AZ 85281
Cost: Free of charge and open to the public

Event Description:
Please join us at ASU Open Door 2019! All English activities will take place at ASU’s campus in Tempe in or near Ross-Blakley Hall, are free of charge, and are open to the public.

Swords Instead of Quips in YA Fantasy
1-3 p.m.   |   RBHL 196

Join NYT Bestselling Author Melissa Marr to learn how to integrate combat sequences into story. Using primarily Historical European martial arts (longsword and single-handed messer), but touching on kali sticks and improvised weaponry, Marr will discuss and demonstrate fighting as a realistic outgrowth of character, world, and setting. Marr will cover integrating action into story naturally and touch on tricks to stretch out the action in text without relying on historical inaccuracies, gross misuse of weapons, or action clichés like villain monologues.

Making the Star Wars Universe
1-6 p.m.  |  RBHL 101

ASU experts in film, television and literature share their perspective on the secret of Star Wars’ success. Mix and mingle with your favorite Jedis, hear the backstory of those vintage Star Wars toys and action figures, learn about the female heroes of Star Wars, enjoy themed face-painting and get your own balloon creature made by a Star Wars cosplayer. (Face-paint and balloons from 1:30-3:30 only).

RED INK Tipi Experience 
1-6 p.m.  |  RBHL (outdoors on SDFC East Field)

ASU’s Red Ink Indigenous Initiative presents cultural stories from Indigenous communities for children and adults. Each session is facilitated in a traditional tipi setting by tribal storytellers.

Hogwarts Sorting Hat & Spell Casting
1-3 p.m.  |  RBHL 117

Welcome to Hogwarts! Inspired by the Harry Potter books, young visiting wizards get sorted into a “house” and receive a corresponding wand; use the wand to magically correct misspelled words! Teeny tiny wizards can just enjoy learning silly spells. Beware: Dementors may show up! Facilitated by professors Jim Blasingame and Peter Goggin and English Education students.

Hogwarts Wand-Making and Platform Photos 
3:30-6 p.m.  |  RBHL 117

Members of Dumbledore’s Amy at ASU, a Harry Potter-themed student club, coach wannabe-wizards on the art of wand-making (supplies provided). Take a selfie at Platform 9 ¾ in London’s King’s Cross Station!

Giant Crossword and Word Search Puzzles  
1-6 p.m.  |  RBHL Lobby

Interactive word games for all ages designed by Regents’ Professor and Arizona Poet Laureate Alberto Ríos. Prizes for correct answers!

Writing Takes Place: Your Life in Haiku
1-6 p.m.  |  RBHL 119

Write your autobiography in Haiku, a short Japanese verse form. Take your finished poem with you! Coached by teachers in ASU Writing Programs (who are expert syllable-counters).

 

To learn more about the event, click here.

#ArtLitPhx: MFA Student Reading Series: Kalani Pickhart, Elliot Winter, Tucker Leighty-Philips

artlitphx

Date: February 7, 2019
Time: 8:00 p.m., come early to grab a drink or snack and mingle!
Location: The Social Hall (715 S McClintock Dr) Tempe, AZ

Event Description:
Calling all lovers of poetry and prose! Join English’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program for the first semester of a special 8-part reading series featuring brand new work from ASU graduate students. Each reading will highlight two to three students at The Social Hall, a new destination bar and restaurant in Tempe. Do yourself a favor and support the arts by taking a night off to enjoy some of the best work our community is producing.

Featured Readers for this Date:
Kalani Pickhart, fiction
Elliot Winter, poetry
Tucker Leighty-Philips, fiction

#ArtLitPhx: The Storyline Slam: Luck

artlitphx10 STORYTELLERS. 6 MINUTES. 1 WINNER

Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it. – Hunter S. Thompson

Ten tellers will have 6 minutes each to share a story based on the theme LUCK.

Sign up on TheStoryline.org May 18th through July 7th to tell a story. Eight names will be drawn posted July 8th on the TheStoryline.org SLAM lineup page. Two more names will be drawn at the beginning of the show on July 13.

Five members of the audience will be the judges and the story with the most points at the end of the show receives a $30 cash prize.

EVENT DETAILS

  • TICKET (admits one) is $6 in advance, $8 at the door from Changing Hands Phoenix.
  • Order at 602.274.0067, by clicking “add to cart” below, in-store prior to the event, or at the door.
  • More info at thestoryline.org »

ABOUT THE COLLECTIVE
THE STORYLINE SLAM is a monthly slam competition hosted by Dan Hoen Hull aimed to further storytelling in The Valley and foster a spirit of fun in the community.

Authors Talk: Roy Guzmán

Today we are pleased to feature Roy Guzmán as our Authors Talk series contributor. In his podcast, Roy discusses community, culture, and struggle with Christina Collins from Lockjaw. Specifically, the pair discusses these ideas in the context of Roy’s piece, “Payday Loan Phenomenology,” which was published in Issue 18. They share how they first met on Twitter and then how they both ended up living in Minneapolis, which brings them to a discussion on displacement.

When discussing his piece in Issue 18, Roy notes, “it’s me trying to work with memory…if I’m looking at my past and I do not want it to depress me and I want it to sort of propel me, I need to create some kind of beauty.” Later, Christina tells Roy, “your work is so rooted in culture and it’s so rooted in your experience of being…an outsider to this monolithic American culture,” which leads to a discussion on the importance of culture and sharing the experiences of those who are disadvantaged.

It’s impossible to list all of Roy and Christina’s comments and insights here, so you’ll just have to listen for yourself! You can access Roy’s poem in Issue 18 of Superstition Review, and you can stay updated with his website as well.

Authors Talk: Marilyn McCabe

Marilyn McCabe

Today we are pleased to feature author Marilyn McCabe as our Authors Talk series contributor. In her podcast, Marilyn discusses the inspiration behind the poems from her project “Yield,” one of which was published in Issue 18.

Marilyn reveals how she quit her job and life in an urban setting and moved to the country alone. Out in the country, she began to feel like the last and/or first person on earth, “and it was from that imagining of being the first woman, a solitary Eve, that [she] began writing the poems of Yield.” She started rethinking the Judeo-Christian myth, exploring time as a human construct, and evaluating the nature of community.

You can access Marilyn’s poem in Issue 18 of Superstition Review.

Guest Post, Mary Sojourner: What a Hard Fall Taught Me About Boots on the Ground Community

Mary Sojourner headshot photoSolstice light silvers and goes gray. The air is heavy with the scent of a desert river. My friend and I carry some of her partner’s ashes down a rocky slope to the Verde River in Central Arizona – more accurately, we brace and skitter our way to what we hope is the shoreline. We want to give part of him back to the river he loved so much.

A soft rain begins to fall.  What might have been shoreline is muck. There is no way to get to the water. “No good,” she says. “Let’s go back up to the bridge in Camp Verde.” We start up the sandstone we’ve just descended. It’s now nearly dark. I’d thought this would be an easy crossing to the river and hadn’t brought my hiking poles. My friend grabs my arm. I step up on a shallow ledge and feel my foot sliding in mud. My friend holds my arm tight, but it’s no help. There is nowhere to regain balance. I crash down on my left knee. I manage to turn on my back. The pain is a nauseating jolt. The world has become a movie.

Two hours later, a kindly Emergency doc with worried eyes says, “I’d hoped it was just a bad bruise. I’m sorry. It’s broken in three places. We’ll have to keep you here and you’ll need surgery.”

“But it doesn’t hurt unless I move it,” I say. “I don’t want surgery.” I don’t tell him that I’m terrified of general anesthesia. I’d had it twice when I was a kid and the memory of the cold, dark, pain-filled galaxy I’d found myself in has never left me.

“You don’t really have a choice,” he says. “If you want to walk again…”

I write here two weeks later. There are metal staples closing the eight inch incision in my leg, and two metal pins and a cable in my knee. I’ll be on a walker for at least four more weeks. No driving. I live alone. There is no room for error. If I drop something, I have to use a mechanical reaching tool. If I hobble from one room to another and forget something, I suspect the neighbors can hear me cursing out Fate and Whatever Dolt Runs the Universe. And – I have learned what it means to be a real friend in a real community.

I grew up in a little farming town on the shores of Lake Ontario. We had a party-line phone with a live operator. Almost all neighbor/human contact was face to face. I escaped a sometimes terrifying home by exploring the hills and creeks around the town – and hiding out in the tiny local library.

Forty years later, I moved to another little town – in Northern Arizona to write and fight for the earth. My best friend lived across the street. I hung out with hard-core enviros – think Earth First!, river runners, climbers, social activists, artists, writers and scruffy freaks. We all took care of each other through break-ups, deaths, injuries and arrests. There were 11,000 students at the local university. There was no internet. There were no smart phones. There were only land-lines and the Freak Telegraph. And there was my journal and me being faithful to the words I serve.

Then the Southwest became the place to be: to find yourself, to be wannabes, to open charming little coffee shop after charming little coffee shop, to invest, invest, invest and cover the desert and forest with acres of red-roofed houses and trophy mansions. Flagstaff’s population has grown by 189%. There are 25,000 students at the university. Every six minutes a trendy hipster restaurant opens. My friends and I avoid what was once a genuine Southwestern downtown with old-time diners (not cute replicas), bars with boards across their windows, trading posts and local bookstores. Even though the coffee at Macy’s Café is still killer, it’s just not worth the drive in bumper-to-bumper traffic or the fight to the death for a parking place. More and more, most of us connect by text, email and social media.

As soon as word got out about the fall and the surgery, friends showed up at the hospital. Roxane took my mud/blood- filthy clothes and washed them. Larry brought a stuffed animal raccoon to keep watch. Christina sat with me and told me what I could expect in the weeks of recovery to come. She’d had knee surgeries and her empathy and practical advice carried me through more than a few rough hours. She drove me home in a white-out snowstorm and stayed the night to guide me with the basics of the walker and the dangers of moving spontaneously.

My local neighbors, Jim and Dawn, showed up the next day and continued to show up every day. They emptied cat litter, fed the four cats, lay down plywood in front of my desk so I could easily roll my desk chair. When intestinal flu struck on my third day home, they got me through all that involved. Roxane helped me wash my hair. Diane and Bob drove a Trader Joe’s run and filled my cupboards and freezer. Margaret called from Reno and offered to come down to help. Vickie and Kit brought a case of cat food; Kelly, Rajean, my radio producer Gillian, William, Karla and Ann all called and said the magic words: “What do you need?” They didn’t put me in their prayers. They didn’t send some vague amorphous healing energy. They asked, “What do you need?” and they showed up – In three-dimensional, all five senses physical reality.

A few days ago I found myself feeling happier and safer than I have in a long time. I was hauling myself up from my desk chair, telling the walker to stay steady and getting ready to hobble to the kitchen. I sat back down and looked out the living-room window to the snow lying thick on the Ponderosa branches. The late afternoon shadows had gone long and blue. A soft winter sun cast shadows on the trailer next door. For an instant, I imagined that I was back in the wallboard and scrap lumber cabin I had lived in when I first moved to Flagstaff. There would have been only a land-line phone, a few neighbors in the shacks around me and my clan scattered through the little mountain town. I would have felt that I was in the heart of a community – and I understand that the hardest fall I’d ever taken had landed me back in that heart.

I turned to the computer and wrote a message to my friends and neighbors:  I write in my journal – not about morning light soft on fresh snow or cat prints threading across the yard or deep spiritual insights gained from it taking five minutes to hobble from my room to the kitchen because of a broken kneecap. I write about impatience; forcing myself to stop thinking I’m being punished for something; living with (to put it delicately) stomach troubles when I can’t move fast enough. I write about using a commode, wearing adult diapers, feeling steadily embarrassed by all of it. I write about how grateful I am that I am not using. And I write about the physicality of physical community, physical love.

A kneecap is physical. Fractures are physical. Stomach flu is physical. These days in my life are not hypothetical or etheric or possibly even transformative. I don’t need thoughts sent to my knee or good wishes sent to my bowels. I need precisely what I’m being given: tender, ungrudging care given by tender, ungrudging friends. I won’t name them because every one of them would say, “I’m just doing what friends can do for each other.” I can tell you that they have helped me give Spokescat Ruti, the Red his twice-daily pills (without which, he would die); they have washed my clothes, stayed overnight with me and listened each time I’m sure a fatal development has occurred. They have made me laugh and are teaching me how to re-enter a community I thought I had lost. But more than anything, they steadfastly remind me that I’m not as alone as I too often tell myself.

Intern Post, Stephen McDonough: RED INK Magazine comes to ASU

Screen Shot 2016-04-01 at 12.40.11 PMRED INK Journal is the new version of RED INK Magazine, a magazine started at the University of Arizona. RED INK Magazine was published for twenty five years, but now it has found a new home and a new name. Arizona State University English Regents Professor Simon J. Ortiz brought RED INK to Arizona State University and is working to make it a literary journal. Simon Ortiz is a well-known and well respected Acoma Pueblo poet and writer. The purpose of this journal is to promote a native voice through literature, art, and humanities. This serves two functions. First, it preserves native voices by collecting and publishing their writing. Second, it promotes native voices by distributing the journal and getting people to read native writings.

RED INK Journal is a periodical published bi-annually and is being run by Arizona State University grad students.. The journal aims to preserve the native voice with writing about land, culture, identity, and community. While RED INK Journal is relatively new, they are looking toward the future and hoping to grow. They are accepting creative writing, essay, and scholarly submissions. In the future, they would like to get submissions from global indigenous people.

The journal looks different from the magazine, but what remains the same is the promotion of the native voices. RED INK Journal is part of a larger initiative Ortiz is working on called RED INK International. RED INK International has the same goals as the journal: to promote and preserve the native voices. It wants to educate and get a native view point across to the public. RED INK International is working toward those goals, but through a different method than publishing a journal. Ortiz wants to put native voice out into the community. Not only is a native voice important to native peoples, it is an important part of America’s voice and history. Ortiz thinks it should be taught at all grade levels. RED INK Journal is just one of the ways to help get the native voice heard in the community.

To find out more about the journal and the RED INK initiative, click the links and check out this article. You can also follow them on Facebook to stay up to date with all the RED INK Journal news and happenings.