#ArtLitPhx: In Sight Live Reading and Panel

Four Chambers_book cover_printEye lounge and Four Chambers worked together to pair 11 local authors with 11 eye lounge artists to produce original literary responses to the artists work. After months of coffee, conversation, studio visits and mutual making of art, the end result, In Sight: An Ekphrastic Collaboration between eye lounge and Four Chambers Press is 8″ x 8″, 128 pages long, and features 20 works of art , 7 poems, 3 short stories and 1 mixed media work.

In Sight will be displayed from March 18th through April 10th, 2016 at eye lounge gallery and artspace (419 E Roosevelt, Phoenix, AZ 85004) with a live performance at the Newton (300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013) on Saturday, April 16th at 4 pm.

View the featured work at the Four Chambers website, and check out the live performance on the Facebook event.

 

#ArtLitPhx: Get Lit with Rosemarie Dombrowski

get lit

Inspired by the literary and philosophical salons of 17th century France, Four Chambers presents Get Lit: a night of conversation, community with ASU Lecturer of English Rosemarie Dombrowski, PhD.

This month’s topic:

The medicalization of poetry and the literature of illness

Are communities of physical and cognitive difference defined through different forms of literature? Does literature articulate a medical narrative differently from history or reports? Is literature important in the healing / therapeutic process?

Rosemarie Dombrowski holds degrees in Anthropology and English as well as a PhD in American Literature. She has been a Lecturer of English on the Downtown Phoenix campus since 2008. She is the co-founder and host of the Phoenix Poetry Series, an editor for Four Chambers Press, and a member of the We Are Downtown project, all of which strive to integrate the myriad cultures and artistic endeavors of the Downtown community. She has also been the editor-in-chief of the undergraduate writing journal, Write On, Downtown, since its inception in 2007. Her teaching interests include women’s literature and the broaching of socio-sexual taboos, poetic confession, poetic rebellion, and Lady Gaga and identity/otherness theory. Her broader research interests include fashion ethnography, art history, queer theory, and the influences of Puritan literature and theology on everything from the Confessional School to pop culture. Rosemarie recently wrote an article entitled “Academia vs. Poetry: How the Gatekeepers of Contemporary Literature Might be Killing It” that was published at the Review Review. She is also the author of a collection of poems entitled The Book of Emergencies (Five Oaks Press).

Get Lit is at 7pm every first Thursday in the Reading Room at Valley Bar (Basement, 130 North Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85004). Valley Bar is located between 1st Ave and Central on the south side of Monroe. The Reading Room is located in the back of the Rose Room. While public parking is available on surrounding side streets, we recommend riding a bike or taking the light rail. Please note this event is 21+ over. For more information, e-mail fourchamberspress [at] gmail [dot] com.

#ArtLitPhx: Night of the Open Door on Polytechnic Campus

NODimage

#ArtLitPhx: Night of the Open Door – Trajectories

 poly

Trajectories: an open talk about the many paths to becoming a writer.

trajectoriesCome listen to a panel discussion about some of the career trajectories that are available for English graduates on Friday, February 19th at ASU’s Polytechnic Campus Night of the Open Door. Superstition Review will be hosting this event in partnership with Four Chambers, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Mesa Community College, and Combs High School.
The panel will be free and open to the public in the UNION, Cooley Ball Room at Polytechnic Campus from 6 pm to 7:30 pm. Q & A will be welcome.
Meet the panel:

IMG_3217 (2)Gary Joshua Garrison is a prose editor for Hayden’s Ferry Review. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appeared in or is forthcoming from Southwest ReviewMoon City ReviewThe McNeese ReviewWord RiotGigantic Sequins, and others. He lives in Arizona with his wife and their two torpid cats.

Jess Burnquist received her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Arizona State University. Her wunnamedork has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry ReviewPersonaThe Washington Post, Salon, Jezebel, GOOD Magazine, Education Weekly, Time and various online journals. She is a recipient of the Joan Frazier Memorial Award for the Arts at ASU. Jess currently teaches English and Creative Writing in San Tan Valley and has been honored with a Sylvan Silver Apple Award for teaching. She resides in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area with her husband, son, and daughter. Links to her most recent work are available at www.jessburnquist.com.

image (1)Patrick Michael Finn is the author of the novella A Martyr for Suzy Kosasovich and the short story collection From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet.  He teaches writing at Chandler-Gilbert Community College.

 Jake Friedman is the Founder and Editor iKaren Loschiavo 02n Chief of an independent community literary journal and small press based in Phoenix, AZ called Four Chambers. He is also; drinking coffee (as the picture would indicate); a waiter and sometimes bartender at an unnamed casual-upscale restaurant (the restaurant being unnamed to protect it’s identity, not actually unnamed); working on a long-form experimental prose manuscript titled The Waiter Explains (no coincidence with his current profession, he swears; long-form experimental prose being a pretentious way of saying novel, even though he has legitimate reasons for doing so involving narrative perspective and deep structure he still feels pretentious). http://fourchamberspress.com.

color headshotJessica Marie Fletcher serves as the current Superstition Review Student Editor-in-Chief and was fiction editor for issue 16. She studies creative writing, psychology, and family and human development in the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University. She has worked as an Opinion Columnist for The State Press, and one of her short stories has been featured in LUX Undergraduate Creative Review.

Four Chambers Presents Welcome Home Book Release and Live Reading

Four Chambers – an inFour Chambers Pressdependent community literary magazine and small press based in Phoenix, Arizona – has released their latest volume, Welcome Home, a special collection of poetry and prose inspired by Welcome Diner, Welcome Chicken + Donuts, and the sense of community and belonging they bring to downtown Phoenix.

The collection features 12 poems and 8 prose works from 20 local authors including Rosemarie Dombrowski, Kelly Nelson, Jenn Robinson, Daniel Mills, Ashley Naftule, Michelle Iwen, Marcus Christensen and Julia Fournier. The work itself covers a broad spectrum of traditional and contemporary styes, ranging from memoir and personal essay to found poetry, pastiche, speculative flash fiction, and experimental prose. Cover art was produced by Isaac Caruso.

To celebrate, Four Chambers will be hosting a live reading and party Saturday, October 3rd at Welcome Diner (924 E Roosevelt St, Phoenix, AZ 85006) at 6:30 pm. Four Chambers will also be holding a more intimate event on the morning of Sunday, November 15th, 2015 at the Garfield Garden (1022 E Garfield St, Phoenix, AZ 85006). More information can be found on the magazine’s website at http://fourchamberspress.com.

Welcome Home is the second volume in Four Chambers Presents, a special project series focusing on creative placemaking and public art in downtown Phoenix that aims to brings local writers together to produce thematic, site-specific work in partnership with local businesses and cultural institutions. The first volume, Poetry and Prose for the Phoenix Art Museum, was released earlier this year in March 2015. Future volumes may feature alcohol, pop culture, nature, or other topics to be determined.

The book is available in a limited edition print run of 200 copies and can be purchased online at http://fourchamberspress.com/welcomehome. Sample work is available at the magazine’s website. Review copies are available upon request

Poetry Event Featuring Alison Erickson

UPTOWN P.E.N.

Tuesday, September 8th, 2015 from 7pm-8:30pm

Hosted by Jake Friedman

Featuring Alison Erickson

Come hang out in an indoors, relaxed atmosphere and share your passions and insights with a welcoming audience. Bring along poetry, flash fiction, or any other word-craft pieces that respect typical time allowances for group readings. We expect an hour of open mic with first come, first serve sign-ups; the last half an hour will feature one local wordsmith. If you are interested in featuring, please e-mail info@practical-art.com.

Alison Erickson has a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Northland College, where she received the Mary Van Evera Award for Best Poetry. Her work has appeared in several journals, including Dash, Aqueous, and North Woods Writers. In 2011, she earned an internship at The Adirondack Review, working as editor in the fiction department. She currently serves as managing editor of poetry at Four Chambers Press in Phoenix AZ.

UPTOWN PEN

Four Chambers presents: Poetry and Prose for the Phoenix Art Museum

fourchamberspress

Call for Submissions:

Up to Three Works

Any Style Genre or Form

Somehow Inspired By Work in the Phoenix Art Museum

Deadline: Sunday February 1st

Guidelines and Forms Available Online at: http://fourchamberspress.com/chapbooks/phxart

Four Chambers—what people may or may not know is an independent community literary magazine based in Phoenix, Arizona, also a figurative heart—is looking for local authors to write work in response to exhibitions and collections housed in the Phoenix Art Museum so they can put together a boutique chapbook and stage a live performance in the gallery during Art Detour on First Friday, March 6th (submissions for which close Sunday, February 1st 2015).

Art Loves Literature

Sometimes–in all the hubbub of giving greater visibility to the literary arts and encouraging their larger participation in the cultural scene–people don’t have the opportunity to enjoy art as much as they’d like to. To stop for a moment. Breathe. Smell the roses. The important things in life get missed.

So when things come up and literature doesn’t get to spend as much time with art as it would like to, art can get a little sad.

“I mean, I know literature’s been working really hard to create another space in this city where people can come together, have meaningful interactions and build sustainable forms of community and relationship—we’re all so busy trying to do our own thing—it’s just that, well,” art pauses, looks off into the distance and then down. “We just used to have so much fun together. Literature really understood me.” Art sniffs, quavers, and looks up with sad, shining eyes. “I just miss it.”

What happened? Art and literature made each other so happy. They had such a long history. And now, art is completely heartbroken, literature is lonelier than ever, it has no idea what happened, and it has no idea what to do.

Literature Loves Art

So literature, distraught, called Four Chambers. And after much heartfelt discussion—tears streaming down literature’s face, Four Chambers nodding empathetically on the other line—Four Chambers thinks the best thing literature can do is to ask local authors to go to the Phoenix Art Museum, walk through the galleries, and write something responding to the Museum’s collection of work.

This, the magazine thinks, is the way to win back art’s heart, and will show art that literature cares more than a vintage crockpot from the 1970s or a small yellow cactus in a concrete pot ever could (though both of these would make really great gifts). Then art will understand that literature is truly sorry for whatever it did wrong, people in Phoenix will have a greater sense of cultural cohesiveness and shared identity, and art and literature can continue building the long-lasting relationship they already have.

Four Chambers Loves You

“So all silliness aside,” explains the magazine’s Founder and Editor in Chief Jake Friedman, standing in front of the Art Museum dressed as a baby cupid, “If all we do is help people fall in love with art and / or literature,” adjusting his cloth diaper, shifting the bow and arrow in his hand, “if people can have a slightly more meaningful experience in their life because of this project,” a cold wind causes Friedman to shiver, a wing falling off. “Well…” Friedman shrugs. “That would be a beautiful thing.”

Individuals who are interested in submitting poetry and prose for the Phoenix Art Museum can find more details online at http://fourchamberspress.com/chapbooks/phxart.

Individuals who are interested in visiting the museum may do so for free every Wednesday evening from 3 to 10 pm or every First Friday night from 6 to 10 pm, and any other time, the Museum is open for a modest and reasonable fee. Four Chambers will also be organizing a tour at the Museum Wednesday January 6th at 6:30 pm. Selected works are available online at http://egallery.phxart.org/.

Individuals who want to read Jia’s poem can do so at http://fourchamberspress.com/chapbooks/phxart/joakbaker.

Submissions for the project close Sunday, February 1st, 2015 at 11:59 PM MST.

About Four Chambers Press                                          

Four Chambers Press is an independent community literary magazine based in Phoenix, AZ that wants to expose you to wonderful literature + give you something to do every once in a while + make your life slightly more meaingful. For more information please visit http://fourchamberspress.com.