Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Dear Friends & Fans,


Maureen Brady & I will be reading at Vittoria Repetto's Women's & Trans' Poetry Jam & Open Mike the last Tuesday of October, October 26 at the Bluestockings Bookstore, located at 72 Allen St. (between Staton & Rivington) about 1 1/2 blocks south from E. Houston.  7PM - 9PM.


Bluestockings Bookstore
72 Allen Street
(Btwn Staton & Rivington)
1 1/2 blocks south from E. Houston
New York, NY 10002
http://bluestockings.com/
info@bluestockings
212-777-6028

Ladies bring your poetry, your prose, your songs, and your spoken word to share at the open mic. Gentlemen are welcome to cheer us on but this open mic is for us gals only. (Maybe our host will let you on if you come in drag!) 8 minute limit, please. Open mic sign up starts at 7PM.

Maureen Brady
Maureen Brady will read from a new collection of linked stories about a woman who stabs her abusive husband and runs away before knowing if he will survive, and makes her way to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Yay for Maureen!  To find out more about Maureen visit her website www.maureenbradyny.com

I will be sharing some work about my multi-ethnic heritage, growing up female in this too often male dominated world, my mother dating at 80, as well as my vampy favorites. (Heck, it will almost be Halloween!)

Your $5 suggestion donations (that means please give what you can) will be most welcome as they help to pay the featured readers. We will be bringing our books, cds, and whatever we have to sell too.

Take V or F train to 2nd Ave. and exit from the 1st Ave exit at E. Houston St. and walk south down Allen St. (aka. 1st Ave) 1 ½ blocks to the store.

This event is graciously and generously hosted by Vittoria Repetto, the hardest working guinea butch dyke poet on the lower east side.

Press Contact: Vittoriar@aol.com

p.s. Mobius: The Poetry Magazine accepted "Wind Chimes" for this year's issue due out this November.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Memorial Reading for Barbara Brackney: Sunday September 12 @ CakeShop


BARBARA BRACKNEY
Memorial Reading
Sunday, September 12
5pm
@
CAKESHOP
153 Ludlow Street
New York, NY
http://www.polestarpoetry.com/
Hosted by Melissa Broder
& Jason Schneiderman

~featuring~

LATE AUGUST
by Barbara Brackney
Paperback, Oct 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-929355-58-7
Pleasure Boat Studio
$9.00

11 Poets Read from Ms. Brackney's

posthumously published chapbook

MELISSA BRODER
JACK ESTES
STACEY HARWOOD
ROXANNE HOFFMAN
JOAN LARKIN
NICOLAS POWERS
JOSEPH RIPPI
PAUL ROMERO
NICK POWERS
JASON SCHNEIDERMAN
JANICE SUSSMAN




ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Barbara Brackney spent her youth living in the deep south, California, and Europe. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan and resolved to make Ann Arbor her lifetime home. After graduation, she became a professor of psychology, had a clinical private practice and spent her free time traveling. In 1998, she retired quite early, eager to explore aspects of life that working precludes. One of these avenues was poetry, which opened up an exciting world of inner exploration. Barbara developed terminal cancer but this only fueled her desire to continue in her poetry quest. She died in 2007.

PRAISE FOR LATE AUGUST:
 
"Late August by Barbara Bracknew does what great poetry should do: it elucidate our ephemeral human condition and brings us comfort.  Her poems are clear, consise, intelligent indictments of death, illness, her own short comings, God and everything in between.  But they're also exquisite and funny.  She writes from a place where there's nothing to hide, and reveals an unsentimental, eternal love for our lot."
~ Jennifer L. Knox
 
"Brackney's space and honest work is beautifully powered by the cruel, churning motor of urgency. Balanced between deep breaths of acceptance and wornder, each poem serves as a postcard to the living, reminding the reader that death is as much a part of life as love, sex, and beauty.  She asks,, "May I leave this black?" and  the world answered Yes, but what remains in a recording of that black, a way through, a light."
~ Ada Limon
 
20% of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Susan B. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation.  A further portion (10%) will be donated to Alcoholics Anonymous.
 
PLEASURE BOAT STUDIO: A Literary Press
www.pleasureboatstudio.com
201 West 89th Street
New York, NY 10024
 
Contact: Jack Estes
Fax: 888.810.5308
Email: pleasboat@nyc.rr.com

Thursday, September 2, 2010

88 Stories Campaign Against Domestic Violence To Raise Funds For Abused Moms & Kids

I am very honored to have my story "Yom Kippur, circa 1962" included in this new anthology from Familia Books which includes the work of 86 daughters and sons. Each of  us has shared a very personal story about their mother or grandmother and in doing so hopefully some insight into "motherhood" and what makes a mother a mother.  Editor/Publisher Eric Bowen has pledged a percentage of the proceeds from sales of this book to aid shelters for women and their children who are escaping abusive relationships.   Please support this effort by buying copies for yourself and your friends and letting your friends and family know about this publication.  The Facebook page for Familia Books is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bellingham-WA/Familia-Books/119264101459401. Please join the  WISDOM OF OUR MOTHERS Group Page at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=151600108186145.




 

WISDOM OF OUR MOTHERS
Stories and Poems by Daughters and Sons
Edited by Eric Bowen
Trade Paperback, 296 Pages
ISBN 978-1453631010
Familia Books, 2010
$14.95
Now Available at CreateSpace.com
https://www.createspace.com/3461303
&
from Amazon.com
http://amzn.com/1453631011

From the mother who taught her daughter to wire a lamp
to the mother who recruited the President to save her daughter's life,
the memories of daughters and sons of the remarkable wisdom and dedication
of their mothers come to vivid life in this anthology of true stories.

~Contributors~
Aderemi Adegbite
Lily Alex
Liz Allen
Sally Bellerose
B. Lynch Black
L. Michael Black
Sylvia Bright-Green
Rheana Lee Campbell
Iona Carroll
Selene Castrovilla
Vijayalakshmi Chary
Eve Cogdell
JaeLynn Conrad
Flavia Cosma
Althea Gael Coupé
Shirley Anne Cox
Julie Curwin
Lynne Daroff
Carole Davis
Laura Aviella Davis
Mary Dempsey
Liz Dolan
Melissa England
Fred Evans
Deepanjolie Sonya Figg
Sandra Fischer
Virginia Fortner
Michele Graves
Susan Harmon
Jean M. Hendrickson
Roxanne Hoffman
Stephanie Holbrook
Andrea Hernandez Holm
Anne-Marie Hood
Dee Ann E. L. Horvath
Patrick Hurley
Amanda Hyslop
Beverly Jackson
Sally Jadlow
Diane Kolb
Kathy Krisko
Erin Lawlor
Loraine Lawson
James W. Lewis
Christy Lowman
Rose Marks
Tara Masih
Caryl McAdoo
Lyn McConchie
Myrna McKee
Rajendar Menen
Susan E. Méra
Jayne Moraski
Brooke Mullins
Hugh Neeld
Jean Noble
Lucy L. Painter
Sr. Josie Palmeri, MPF
Roberta Filzer Pearl
Perry P. Perkins
Carolyn Piper
Gayle Portnow
Oluwafemi Reis
Pat Richards
Dmae Roberts
Gwen Russell Green
Sheri Ryan
Wanda Ryder
Lynn Veach Sadler
Mark Scheel
Jacqueline Seewald
Virginia Settle
Ryma Shohami
Sheila Sievewright
Sharon Skinner
Serena Spinello
Madeline Steeg
Deborah Straw
Annmarie B. Tait
Laura Tamayo
Nicole A. Tatum
Rita Janice Traub
Dalia van den Boogaard
Sarah Wagner
K. K. Wilder
Lisa K. Winkler


Opposing domestic violence: In honor of those mothers doing their work in the most difficult of circumstances, editor Eric Bowen has pledged to donate one-half of his profits from the sale of this book to shelters for women and their children who are escaping abusive relationships.

About the Editor

Born in Renton, Washington State in 1953, Eric Bowen uses his day job as an accountant to support his family and his various hobbies and social activities, including Toastmasters, the Unitarians, hiking, taekwondo, linguistics, singing, and of course writing. His first book, An American View of Wales, chronicled his decade of volunteering for the Welsh home rule and language restoration movement.

* * * FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE * * *

Aug 25, 2010

Contact:

Patricia Carragon
917 679 5002
pcarragon@gmail.com



EIGHTY-EIGHT STORIES CAMPAIGN AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Anthology aims to raise funds for abused mothers and children

Bellingham, Washington (July 1, 2010) Wisdom of Our Mothers (Familia Books, 2010) is an anthology of true stories and poetry based on the theme of lessons learned from the authors’ mothers. It is the brain-child of part-time philanthropist Eric Bowen.

Following the publication of Tim Russert’s popular Wisdom of Our Fathers, Bowen saw the need for a companion volume of maternal wisdom. Bowen solicited writers from around the world to contribute their stories of what they had learned from their mothers. Guided by his own mother’s teaching that “one does well by doing good,” Bowen has pledged half his profits from the book to raise funds for shelters for abused mothers and children.

Everyone has a mother, and readers will doubtlessly find stories in this anthology that relate to their own experiences. Yet Bowen’s presentation isn’t sentimental. The mothers profiled in the stories are human. Their virtues are balanced by their flaws, and in some cases, the lessons learned from those flaws form the basis of the story.

The anthology explores maternal wisdom in various categories: emotional, relationship, and practical skills; virtues, humor, and heritage. One chapter delves into “the dark side,” profiling some truly dysfunctional mothers. “From other lands” describes motherhood in cultures outside the American mainstream.

For more information about Wisdom of Our Mothers, please visit http://www.familiabooks.com/ or contact Eric Bowen at 360-384-1028.


About Eric Bowen:

Eric Bowen has worked as an occasional free-lance reporter. Of Welsh descent, he covered the Welsh nationalist movement of the 1990s, summarizing his work in his first book, An American View of Wales. In addition to his writing experience, Bowen brings to his new book a social conscience and multicultural perspective developed in his volunteer work with the United Farm Workers and Amnesty International. These perspectives, coupled with his personal trauma as both an observer and victim of domestic violence in his extended family, are evident in the yeasty, gritty, and multicultural facets of the anthology.

About Familia Books:

Familia Books is Eric Bowen’s publishing enterprise. In addition to Wisdom of Our Mothers, Bowen plans further anthologies including Wisdom of Our Children and Surviving Domestic Violence.

###