POD with Downing and Collins

Our next POD, featuring Brandon Downing and Arda Collins, takes place on April 5th at 6:30 pm at the Red Horse Cafe.

Brandon Downing is a writer and visual artist originally from California. His books of poetry include The Shirt Weapon and Dark Brandon (Faux Press, 2005); a monograph of his literary collages from 1996-2008, Lake Antiquity, was released late 2009. A long poem, AT   ME, is just out from Octopus Books; his next collection, Mellow Actions, will be published by Fence this fall. In 2007 he released a feature-length collection of collaged digital shorts, Dark Brandon: Eternal Classics, with a 2nd volume forthcoming next year. You can see some at his online channel  www.youtube.com/user/bdown68

Arda Collins is the author of It Is Daylight, awarded the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and published in 2009, and the May Sarton Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, A Public Space, jubilat, and elsewhere. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in poetry at the University of Denver. 

POD with Jarcho and George

Our next POD features playwrights, Julia Jarcho and Madeleine George and takes place on Thursday, March 8th at the Red Horse Cafe.

Julia Jarcho is a playwright and director. Her plays include Dreamless Land (New York City Players, 2011) American Treasure (13P and Bay Area Playwrights Festival, 2009), The Highwayman (Missiles With Teeth), A Small Hole (Performance Lab 115), and Nursery (Young Playwrights Festival). She is a member of 13P. Artists she has worked with include Aaron Landsman, Tory Vazquez, Richard Maxwell, Mark Ravenhill, Ami Garmon, Benjamin Gassman, and Ásta Bennie Hostetter. She has studied with Mac Wellman and has been a writer-in-residence at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, a winner of the Berrilla Kerr award, and a Resident Playwright at the Playwrights Foundation in San Francisco. She is also a grad student in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley.

Madeleine George's plays include THE ZERO HOUR, PRECIOUS LITTLE, and SEVEN HOMELESS MAMMOTHS WANDER NEW ENGLAND. Her plays have been produced and developed by 13P, Clubbed Thumb, Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, City Theatre in Pittsburgh, About Face Theatre in Chicago, The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, Two River Theater Company in New Jersey, and the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, among other places. Her novels for young readers, LOOKS and THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND ME, are published by Viking. Madeleine is a founding member of the Obie-Award-winning playwrights' collective 13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.), and she lives in Brooklyn.

POD with Coan and Walker

Our next POD features Jaime Shearn Coan and Ken L. Walker and takes place on February 2nd, 6:30 pm at the Red Horse Cafe.

Jaime Shearn Coan teaches creative writing and literature at the City College of New York and facilitates a writing workshop with LGBT elders through the NY Writers Coalition. A 2010 Lambda Literary Fellow, Jaime's poems have appeared in journals including the Mississippi Review, L.E.S. Review, drunken boat, and The Portland Review. He has been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and VCCA. His artist book dear someone, the product of a collaborative letter-writing project, is distributed through Printed Matter.

Ken L. Walker still has a Kentucky driver’s license and sadly completed leading a poetry workshop at the Riker’s Island Correctional Facility. He received his MFA degree from Brooklyn College and has published criticism and poetry in the Boxcar, the Poetry Project Newsletter, The New Yorker on-line, Lumberyard, The Wolf, Crab Orchard Review, La Fovea, No, Dear magazine, and Well-Greased. He is the features editor for Coldfront magazine and curates the semi-annual Letter Home Reading Series. 

POD with Alcalá and Grinnell

Our next POD features Rosa Alcalá and E. Tracy Grinnell at the Red Horse Cafe.

January 12^th, 2012

6:30-8:00

Rosa Alcalá is the author of a poetry collection, Undocumentaries (Shearsman Books, 2010), and two chapbooks, Some Maritime Disasters This Century (Belladonna, 2003) and Undocumentary (Dos Press, 2008). Alcalá has also translated poetry by Cecilia Vicuña, Lourdes Vázquez, and Lila Zemborain, among others. Recent translations include Zemborain’s Guardians of the Secret (Noemi Press, 2009), and poems for The Oxford Book of Latin America Poetry (2009).  She teaches in the Department of Creative Writing and Bilingual MFA Program at the University of Texas at El Paso. 

E. Tracy Grinnell is the author of Helen: A Fugue (Belladonna Elder Series #1, 2008), Some Clear Souvenir (O Books, 2006), and Music or Forgetting (O Books, 2001), as well as the limited edition chapbooks Mirrorly, A Window (flynpyntar press, 2009), Leukadia (Trafficker Press, 2008),  Hell and Lower Evil (Lyre Lyre Pants on Fire, 2008), Humoresque (Blood Pudding/Dusie #3, 2008) Quadriga, a collaboration with Paul Foster Johnson (gong chapbooks, 2006), Of the Frame (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2004), and Harmonics (Melodeon Poetry Systems, 2000). She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the founding editor and director of Litmus Press.

POD with Schwartz and McDonnell

Our next POD takes place Thursday, November 10th at the Red Horse Cafe...

Brian Schwartz's fiction and non-fiction have appeared or will appear soon in Harvard Review, Ascent, Washington Square, The Seattle Review and others. His story “Different Skin” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. When he has time, which is almost never, he writes the sports column A Fan’s Notes at TheRumpus.net. Schwartz received an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of California, Irvine, where he was awarded a Regents Fel...lowship and the Cheng Fellowship in Fiction. He is now a lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at New York University.

Caitlin McDonnell's poetry and prose have appeared in numerous print and online journals and her chapbook, Dreaming the Tree, was published by Belladonna Books in 2003. Her poetry manuscript, Looking for Small Animals, was a finalist for several first book prizes. She's been awarded fellowships and prizes for her poetry from the New York Times Foundation, Washington Square, the Yaddo Colony, Blue Mountain Center and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Currently, she teaches writing at Laguardia Community College, spends time with her two year old daughter, Kaya Hope and is finding her way back to writing.

POD with Conrad and Smith

You do not want to miss our next POD!  We'll host CA Conrad and Tracy K. Smith on October 13th at 6:30 at the Red Horse Cafe in Park Slope, Brooklyn. 

CAConrad is a recipient of a 2011 Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He is the author of A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon (Wave Books, 2012), The Book of Frank (Wave Books, 2010), Advanced Elvis Course (Soft Skull Press, 2009), Deviant Propulsion (Soft Skull Press, 2006), and a collaboration with poet Frank Sherlock titled The City Real & Imagined (Factory School, 2010). The son of white trash asphyxiation, his childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. Visit him online at http://CAConrad.blogspot.com

 - For more on his new book, coming soon:  http://CAConrad.blogspot.com/

- To see his new film (under 2 minutes):  THE SINGING RINGS OF SATURN:  http://youtu.be/61D3Kogw8tM

 - Milano's Poetry Series:  http://MilanoPHILADELPHIA.blogspot.com

Tracy K. Smith is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Life on Mars (Graywolf Press 2011).  She is the recipient of the James Laughlin Award, a Whiting Writers' Award, and a Rona Jaffe Award, among other honors.  She is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University.

POD with Knox and Joseph

The first POD of our second season takes place September 8 at the Red Horse Café and features Jennifer L. Knox and Rajiv Joseph.

Jennifer L. Knox’s new book of poems, The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway, is available from Bloof Books. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and four times in The Best American Poetry series, including the upcoming 2011 edition.

Rajiv Joseph's plays have been produced in Romania, Australia, Mexico and across the United States.  His play "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo", a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama, was produced this past spring on Broadway.  He attended NYU for grad school, and then subsequently taught essay writing there for 5 years.  He is currently a staff writer on the Showtime Series "Nurse Jackie".