Dan Albergotti at "Southern Spaces"

Shadows along the Waccamaw

Dan Albergotti, Coastal Carolina University

Overview:

Dan Albergotti reads five poems in and around his current home of Conway, South Carolina, in locations that include the Waccamaw River and nearby Pawley's Island. For Albergotti, the natural world allows explorations of beauty, love, serendipity, and death. His poems also examine the "emotional landscape of denial" that marked his childhood and youth.

See the entire presentation here:
http://www.southernspaces.org/contents/2008/albergotti/1a.htm

14th Annual "Will Read for Food" Benefit Reading for Greensboro Charities

The 14th anniversary of "Will Read for Food", the annual program of readings by local authors to benefit Greensboro charities, was held Thursday, November 20th, at the Weatherspoon Auditorium as The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Featured writers were Michael Parker, Stuart Dischell, Craig Nova, Terry Kennedy, Jennifer Grotz, Mark Smith-Soto, Allison Seay, and Lee Zacharias. The event raised $1,100 for the Glen Haven Community Development Center, which serves immigrant and refugee populations.

The event was recorded and photographed by Tina Firesheets and Jerry Wolford of the Greensboro News & Record.

Listen to each of the readings here:

http://webmedia.news-record.com/legacy/indepth/08/poet_writers/

A. Van Jordan Wins $50,000 USA Fellowship

UNITED STATES ARTISTS ANNOUNCES THIRD ANNUAL USA FELLOWSHIPS

CHICAGO, IL, November 10, 2008—United States Artists (USA), the national artists’ advocacy organization, today announced the recipients of fifty USA Fellowships for 2008 totaling $2.5 million. This marks the third consecutive year of the USA Fellows program, which provides direct support for artists by annually awarding fifty unrestricted grants of $50,000 to artists of all disciplines from across the country. The USA Fellows for 2008 hail from 21 states and range in age from 31 to 82; they were chosen by panels of experts in each field in recognition of the caliber and impact of their work. The artists will be honored tonight, November 10, in a celebration at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago.

Read the entire release here: http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/documentFiles/25.pdf

Visit A. Van Jordan's USA Fellow's page here:
http://www.unitedstatesartists.org/Public2/USAFellows/2008Fellows/Alphabetically/AVanJordan/index.cfm

Natasha Trethewey Featured in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

ELECTION 2008: The Challenge of Change

Race
A personal essay by Natasha Trethewey
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, November 09, 2008

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey, an Emory University professor, considers the election of America’s first biracial president in terms of her own mixed background. Her poem below imagines her pregnant mother in the Deep South contemplating her unborn child’s uncertain future.

A few years ago, when I was working on the poem, “My Mother Dreams Another Country,” I was compelled to consider what my mother must have been thinking —- in 1966 —- about the biracial child she and my father were bringing into the world. The year before, my parents had broken two laws of the state of Mississippi by traveling to Ohio to marry and then returning to my mother’s home state. It was just after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but still before the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. State of Virginia in which state anti-miscegenation laws were ruled unconstitutional. And it was years before those unconstitutional state laws were no longer enforced —- by custom, by intimidation, and by other deterrents imposed upon couples seeking marriage licenses. Barack Obama was just 5 years old when my mother was contemplating another country —- another America —- in which interracial marriage would be legal in the entire country. In 1961, when Obama was born, 21 states still had laws forbidding the marriage of his parents —- of blacks to whites.

Read the entire essay here:
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/11/09/trethewey.html

Listen to Natasha read the essay here:
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printedition/2008/11/09/trethewey.html#

Bianca Diaz Awarded 2008 Robert Watson Poetry Award

Bianca Diaz of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has been awarded the 2008 Robert Watson Poetry Award for her chapbook, No One Says Kin Anymore. The final judge was Dan Albergotti. Check back soon for more information and a list of finalists.

Bianca Diaz was born and raised in Miami, FL where she earned a BA in English from Florida International University. She then earned an MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. She married the poet and chef Josh Stefanko and they moved to Milwaukee, WI. She currently teaches English and is the English Department Chairperson at St. Joan Antida High School. Her poems have been published in literary magazines all over the U.S.

"Brewing In Eden" by Elizabeth Volpe Now Available

Brewing in Eden by Elizabeth Volpe is the winner of the 2007 Robert Watson Poetry Award. $20 with shipping.

About the author. A 2001 and 2004 Pushcart Prize nominee, Elizabeth Volpe lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including: Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Diner, Crab Creek Review, Comstock Review, The MacGuffin, Atlanta Review, Louisville Review, Porcupine, Siren, Ward6, Thema, and Lumina. She received first prize in the Briar Cliff Review 2004 Poetry Contest and the 2006 Metro Detroit Writers Contest. She won the 2008 Juniper Prize from Alligator Juniper and has also been nominated for 2008 Best New Poets. New work is forthcoming in Connecticut Review, Tar Wolf, Epicenter, roger, Cave Wall, Crab Orchard Review, and River Styx.

About the book. Handbound and letterpress-printed at Birch Book Press. Wood engravings by Frank C. Eckmair.

Purchase online here: http://www.springgardenpress.com/spg/books.html