#ArtLitPhx: Phoestivus Book Giveaway & Exchange

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Date: December 13, 2018

Time: 5pm-7pm

Location: Phoenix Public Market, 721 N Central Ave, Phoenix, Arizona, 85004

Event Description:

We’ve had so many amazing writers visit us over the years. We’ve got too many books. Help us clean out our book shelves and make some room at our Book Giveaway & Exchange. at Phoestivus 2018, Thursday, December 13 at the Phoenix Public Market.

Take the books we’re giving away or bring your own. Please note: you do not need to bring books in order to take them.

If you’re bringing books, feel free to post the titles and author in the event page below. Reach out to the Piper Center at 480.965.6018 or pipercenter.info@asu.edu with any questions, hope to see everyone there!

#ArtLitPhx: Poetry of Witness with Andrea Scarpino

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Event Description:

Poetry of Witness. Poetry as Trace with Andrea Scarpino

Date: Friday, November 16, 2018, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Location: Piper Writers House, 450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281
Individual Course Cost: $119 Regular, $107 ASU, $99 Student
Two-Course Bundle: $210 Regular, $189 ASU, $175 Student

Poetry of the Body with Andrea Scarpino takes place the following day, Saturday, November 17, 2018 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Both classes can be bundled for additional savings.

To learn more and register, visit http://piper.asu.edu/classes/andrea-scarpino/two-poetry-workshops

About the Class:
The poet Carolyn Forché describes poems of witness as bearing “the trace of extremity within them . . . the poem might be our only evidence that an act has occurred.” Traditionally, this has meant bearing witness to atrocities like war or genocide, but we will take a more expansive look at the form and how to bear witness to our own lives and to our own stories. This could include bearing witness to homophobia or racism, environmental degradation, or sexual harassment (#metoo), but it could also include bearing witness to difficult relationships, to a health crisis, or to the death of someone we love. In this workshop, we will read and discuss poems of witness, generate our own poems of witness through writing prompts, and workshop our writing together.

About the Instructor:
Andrea Scarpino is the author of the poetry collections Once Upon Wing Lake (Four Chambers Press, 2017), What the Willow Said as it Fell (Red Hen Press, 2016) and Once, Then (Red Hen Press, 2014). She received a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University and an MFA from The Ohio State University. She has published in numerous journals, is co-editor of Nine Mile Magazine, and served as Poet Laureate of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula 2015-2017. Her upcoming edited anthology is Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (MSU Press).

#ArtLitPhx: Performance Narrative: Walonda Williams

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Event Description:

Performance Narrative: Literary Wordplay Breaks into Stageplay with Walonda Williams

Date: Saturday, October 20, 2018, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Location: Piper Writers House, 450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281
Cost: $99 Regular, $90 ASU, $80 Student

To learn more and register, visit https://piper.asu.edu/classes/walonda-williams/performance-narrative

About the Class
Performance narrative is for every writer—those who may want to add new elements to one’s current writing style or those who are interested in writing performance pieces. Together, let us explore contemporary writers (Carla Harryman, Ron Allen, Amiri Baraka, Adrienne Kennedy and Nova Baize) who have moved descriptive narrative into experimental performance. As a class, we will consider a social problem, and then in groups create a narrative work and add performance elements. In brief and playful revisions, text arrangement will indicate sound and pace dynamics. Two to three members of each group will perform the pieces. We will conclude with a group discussion to share how performance narrative can enhance one’s style of writing or be used to inspire a new work. Please, feel free to bring your laptop or tablet to make fast revisions, and if you feel more comfortable writing by hand, notebooks and pens are also welcome.

About the Instructor
Proud to be a Phoenix resident for four years, Walonda Williams hails from Detroit, Michigan, where she graduated with a BFA in Theater from Wayne State University. Williams recently completed her MBA, specializing in project management, from Strayer University. By writing poetry, short stories and staged-plays, Williams aims to provide an otherworldly perspective and employ organic process to unleash the marginalized voice. She trusts that the written word can shift painful pasts into dynamic action.

#ArtLitPhx: Retelling Fairy Tales with Ursula Vernon

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Event Description:

Re-telling Fairy Tales for Fun and Profit: An Authors Perspective with Ursula Vernon

Friday, October 12, 2018, 6:00 p.m.
Pulliam Auditorium, Burton Barr Central Library
1221 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85004

To learn more and RSVP, visit https://ursula-vernon-fairy-tales.eventbrite.com

More information about this talk is coming soon.

About the Author
Ursula Vernon is the author and illustrator of far more projects than is probably healthy. She has written over fifteen books for children, several novels for adults, an epic webcomic called “Digger” and various short stories and other odds and ends.

Her work has been nominated for the Eisner, World Fantasy, and longlisted for the British Science Fiction Awards. It has garnered a number of Webcomics Choice Awards, enough Junior Library Guild Selections to allow her to cosplay as a six-star general, and a mention in the New York Times, which she did not get tattooed to her forehead, despite her mother’s insistence.

Her webcomic “Digger” won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story (2012) and the Mythopoeic Award (2013.) Her short story “Jackalope Wives” won the Nebula for Best Short Story, the Coyotl Award, and the WSFA Small Press Award (2015.) Her series Dragonbreath won the Sequoyah Award for Children’s Literature, and her series Hamster Princess has been nominated for the Texas Bluebonnet Award and made the Amelia Bloomer List for feminist children’s literature. Her stand-alone novel Castle Hangnail won the Mythopoeic Award for Children’s Literature in 2016. Her novelette “The Tomato Thief” won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 2017.

Her current project is the Hamster Princess series of books for kids. She also writes for adults under the name T. Kingfisher.

#ArtLitPhx: A Talk with Marlon James

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The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing presents award-winning writer Marlon James. He debuts a brand new talk, “When Books Come out of Books” on Thursday, November 3 at 7:00 p.m. in the Marston Exploration Theater, ISTB4 at Arizona State University, Tempe Campus (781 S Terrace Rd, Tempe, AZ 85250). This event is free and open to the public. For more information or to register, please visit the event page or the Facebook event.

Marlon James is an award-winning author and novelist whose short fiction and essays have appeared in Esquire, Granta, Harper’s, The Caribbean Review of Books, Bronx Noir, and the New York Times Magazine. His accolades include the Man Booker Prize, the American Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Prize. James was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1970. He graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1991 with a degree in Language and Literature, and from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania in 2006 with a Masters in creative writing. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and teaches English and creative writing at Macalester College. He is currently at work adapting A Brief History of Seven Killings into an HBO television series.

#ArtLitPhx: Changing Hands and the Piper Center Present Garth Risk Hallberg

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Garth Risk Hallberg will be visiting Changing Hands Phoenix with his debut novel, City on Fire. The event is co-presented by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU. The New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Vogue, Newsday, The Atlantic, and others named City on Fire the Best Book of the Year.

The event takes place on Wednesday, September 21st at 7 PM – 9 PM. For more information about the event, please visit the Facebook page or the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing page.

The author was born in Louisiana and grew up in North Carolina. His writing has appeared in Prairie SchoonerThe New York TimesBest New American Voices 2008, and The Millions; a novellaA Field Guide to the North American Family, was published in 2007. He lives in New York with his wife and children.

Intern Post, Ofelia Montelongo: Desert Nights, Rising Stars

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Photo by Ofelia Montelongo Valencia

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing organizes the annual writers conference Desert Nights, Rising Stars. Every year they bring writers from across the country to a three-day event full of workshops, classes, and readings. This past February was my second year volunteering at the event. And once again, I felt like a groupie when meeting famous authors.

After being in the financial industry for so many years, I sometimes feel like an outsider in the writing world. But, one of the main reasons I love this industry is because everyone is interested in you–in your writing and in you as a person, not the company you represent. Being you is important in the writing world. You are the only person that is more passionate about your work than anyone else.

It is incredible to be able to meet so many writers at the same place. Being a writer sometimes feels idiosyncratic and isolated, and this event has helped me to see that I’m not the only one that feels that way. I have met wonderful volunteers, attendees, and faculty who I befriended and keep in contact with.

There is some sort of magic in being able to talk with the author (Manuel Muñoz) of that book you read a semester ago about craft, endings, and the struggles of being a bilingual Latino writer.

There is some sort of magic in reading aloud your work in front of excellent writers like Alice Eve Cohen.

There is some sort of magic in being able to see that behind a published book there is a person who is not too different from you. And that they were once in your role; they were once an aspiring author learning the craft of writing.

There is some sort of magic in listening to real literary agents share their wisdom on the world of publishing and learning to“never pitch over the summer” and “never send query letters on the holidays.”

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Photo by Ofelia Montelongo Valencia

There is some sort of magic in eating lunch with the people you aspire to be like: award-winning writers who just signed their book for you; writers who just told you that success is a mix of hard work and a lucky break; writers who told you that they hope to get your book signed one day.

There is some sort of magic during these three conference days everywhere you want to see it; you can even find it in the delicious afternoon snacks.

The most important element of this kind of conference is how you feel at the end of it. How you feel during these three days would be worthless if you do nothing about it. If you feel inspired at the end, then it was worth it; you know can go back and keep writing. If you feel discouraged because you learned the toughness of the writing and publishing business, then it was worth it; you know can go back and keep writing. Between MFA readings, panels, conferences, and classes, the magical key that everyone agrees with is that the only way to be successful is to sit and write your best work.

Writing Workshop with Mary Sojourner: Writing the Forbidden

Screen Shot 2016-01-06 at 2.31.51 AMAuthor Mary Sojourner will be hosting a one-day Creative Nonfiction and Fiction workshop at the Piper House at Arizona State University on Saturday, January 16 from 10am to 5pm. 

“The Forbidden is a chimera, a shape-shifter. A woman writing during the seven hundred years of the Inquisition could be killed simply for writing anything. Books were once banned for sexual content. Sexual content now sells everything.

Our family, ethnic group, gender and culture impose sanctions against the forbidden. But the deepest rules about what we may or may not write lie within us. We have been and are forbidden to write about our sexuality, our fear, the realities of our aging, our loneliness, our secret delight.

You know what you have longed to write and feared to write. For six hours, we will work with writing exercises and support to bring out The Forbidden. We will work in strict confidentiality. I am a writer who works always from Place – within and outside. I know what I have felt when I have broken the rule: You can’t write about that.”

For more information or to register, click here.

Can’t make the workshop? Mary Sojourner also provides weekly writing tips, challenges, prompts, and exercises through her website.