TWO NEW PUBLICATIONS FROM MFA STUDENTS, AND ONE FROM THE PROGRAM

MFA students Giuseppe Infante, Gulay Isik, Kyle De Ocera, and Micah Sivaglio have teamed up to establish Overpass Books, a small press that publishes a quarterly journal of art and literature, By The Overpass. Their first issue just came out. Check out their web page here: http://overpassbooks.com/

Another publishing venture that has come out of Long Island University's MFA program is a hand-made poetry journal called Sun's Skeleton. Issue two just came out and is available via their website. MFA student Tony Iantosca started this one with friends from Vermont and New York.  

Sun's Skeleton will also host a release party on March 26th at Unnameable Books. Here's a blurb from their facebook event page:

"Issue Two is finally here and it is our honor to present it to you in person. Join us for a reading at the perfectly nameable Unnameable Books in Brooklyn and hear poets from the current issue reading their work. 

Readers will include, but may not be limited to: M.A. Vizsolyi, Daniel Owen, Stephanie Gray, Marc Paltrineri, and Tony Iantosca. 

Copies of the journal will, of course, be available for sale. But it's your presence that we're really after. 

Bring friends and facebook friends, strangers and babies, and feel free to pass this on to anyone and everyone you think might be interested. 

Yours Sincerely, 

Jony Pal Owemqusica"

And finally, the MFA program has just finished assembling its new journal, Brooklyn Paramount. This journal does not have a website just yet, but it sure is beautiful. Like Sun's Skeleton, it was hand-bound and assembled. Copies are available at various MFA events, and by contacting program director Lewis Warsh. Brooklyn Paramount exclusively features work by students, faculty, and alumni from the MFA program. 

Summer Writer's Lab

Professor Jessica Hagedorn has put together an excellent line-up of fiction writers for liu's first-ever summer writer's lab. the three day event will feature workshops, readings, and panel discussions about publishing. From the website:

SUMMER WRITERS LAB

JUNE 2011: FICTION IMMERSION

The Summer Writers Lab features three days of workshops, panels, readings and performances by prominent writers working in a wide range of styles.

Master Workshops in Fiction

What makes a story pop? What makes for a complex and surprising character? What is voice? How do we create tension and sharp dialogue? Why is setting important? In these intensive writing workshops, we will explore various strategies for creating compelling narratives. In the crime novel workshop, we’ll examine how to create an intriguing and sympathetic protagonist, how to write vivid and multi-layered scenes, how to build an effective and suspenseful plot, and how the crime novel can do much more than just deliver a few quick thrills.

JENNIFER EGAN (FICTION WORKSHOP)

Thursday, June 16 through Saturday, June 18, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

MARLON JAMES (FICTION WORKSHOP)

Thursday, June 16 through Saturday, June 18, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

GABRIEL COHEN (THE CRIME NOVEL)

Thursday, June 16 through Saturday, June 18, 3 p.m. – 6 p.m.

Panels and Special Events

OPENING NIGHT READING

Gabriel Cohen, Jennifer Egan and Marlon James. Hosted by Jessica Hagedorn. Followed by book signing and reception.
Thursday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m.

CONVERSATION AND PERFORMANCE

Rick Moody and Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley Harding), followed by Q&A with audience, booksigning and reception.
Friday, June 17 at 7:30 p.m.

THE LITERARY MARKETPLACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

A lunch-time panel with Rakesh Satyal (editor at HarperCollins and author of the acclaimed novel, Blue Boy), Johnny Temple (publisher and editor-in-chief, Akashic Books and chair of the Brooklyn Book Festival), and veteran literary agent, Faith Childs, who represents some of today’s leading writers of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The panel will be moderated by Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards.
Saturday, June 18 at 1 p.m.

More complete bios are available online. 

MFA Director Lewis Warsh will read at the poetry project in February

From the Poetry Project's Website:

The Poetry Project

Program Calendar

Readings

Workshops

Studying Hunger Journals

February 23, 2011

8:00 pm

Come celebrate the release of  Bernadette Mayer’s STUDYING HUNGER JOURNALS (Station Hill Press). In part, the journals explore psyche and were undertaken, in cahoots with a psychiatrist via two running journals, so that while she kept writing in one he could read the other. She wrote in colored pens, intending to “color-code emotions”—to see if her synaesthetic ability to see letters as colors might act as a bridge to seeing emotions. She had had an idea: “…if a human, a writer, could come up with a workable code, or shorthand, for the transcription of every event, every motion, every transition of his or her own mind, & could perform this process of translation on himself, using the code… he or we or someone could come up with a great piece of language/information.” While an abridged edition appeared in 1975 with Adventures In Poetry/Big Sky, this is the full text of that enterprise. Bernadette Mayer is the author of more than two dozen volumes of poetry, including Midwinter Day, Sonnets, The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters, and Poetry State Forest. A former director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery and co-editor of the conceptual magazine 0 to 9 with Vito Acconci, Mayer has been a key figure on the New York poetry scene for decades. The book will be read by a wide range of luminaries including, Lee Ann Brown, Barbara Epler, Phil Good, Bernadette Mayer, Don Yorty, Michael Ruby, Marie Warsh, Lewis Warsh, Adam Fitzgerald, Peggy Decoursey, Bill Kushner, Bill Denoyelles, Deborah Poe, Peter Baker, Miles Champion, Anne Waldman and CA Conrad.

Posted Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 in Program Calendar, Readings

www.poetryproject.org

From the Fall 2010 semester: Anne Waldman reading at LIU, Lewis Warsh reading at Old American Can Factory

Anne Waldman was the visiting professor for the fall 2010 semester. She taught a workshop, and gave a reading at LIU in November.


And in October 2010, the head of the MFA program, Lewis Warsh, read at the Brooklyn Rail's 10th anniversary reading at the Old American Can Factory in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

 

New Blog, New Publications, New Semester, New Year

Hello, Internet

This is the first post on what I hope will become a vibrant and informative blog for the MFA program at Long Island University in Brooklyn. I would like for this to become an accurate reflection of all the literary action going on in and around the LIU community. I'll post poems and excerpts from stories by LIU students, videos of readings, information about upcoming events and readings, links to various independent publishing endeavors by MFA students, among other useful information. In keeping with these goals, I'll just start here and now:

Three literary journals have cropped up since the Fall 2010 semester. MFA students Joe Infante, Gulay Isik, Micah Sivaglio, and Kyle De Ocera have started a journal of art, fiction, and poetry called By The Overpass. Their first issue will be out in March. By The Overpass will also host a reading series at Rhythm and Booze in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Another student, Tony Iantosca, has collaborated with some poet-friends he made while he was living in Vermont. This journal focuses exclusively on publishing poetry, and it's called Sun's Skeleton. Their second issue will be out in February.
  
The third journal that has emerged recently is called Brooklyn Paramount. It will also be out quite soon, and it focuses on publishing writers associated with the MFA program at LIU (professors, students and alumni).  

Stay tuned for postings of videos of readings by MFA students and faculty.