WRITERS READ

A monthly series of established poets and writers reading from their works. Each fourth Friday of a month will usually feature a poet and writer reading from their works for approximately 30 (or less) minutes each.  This month we are featuring a poet and a graphic novelist.  Our series has really taken off, with more people attending each month! 

It costs money and time to keep the Gallery space open, lit, and warm (or air-conditioned), so  Gallery personnel have asked that Writers Read ask a suggested donation of $3.00 per person.  $1.00 will go to the gallery for expenses, and each reader will receive $1.00 also.  I want to emphasize that this is a suggested donation.  Those who can’t donate or can’t donate $3 will not be turned away, frowned at, or cajoled.  We want you to attend and enjoy the readings!  Do what you can.

~ Friday April 26th @ 5:30 presenting ~

Karen  Chase—poet and writer
&  Howard Cruse—graphic novelist 

(who will project his work on a screen) 

KAREN CHASE’s poems, stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Gettysburg Review and Southwest Review, among others. Her book of poems, Kazimierz Square, was short-listed by Foreword Magazine as “Best Indie Poetry Book of 2000.” Land of Stone, her non-fiction book about her work as Poet-in-Residence at a psychiatric hospital won a Bronze medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Bear, her second collection of poems, was released in 2008 and her book-length homoerotic poem, Jamali-Kamali:  A Tale of Passion in Mughal India, was released in 2011.  Polio Boulevard, a work of non-fiction, is forthcoming from SUNY University Press in 2014.  Her work has been widely anthologized, including poems in The Norton Introduction To Poetry and Billy Collins’ Poetry 180. Among her honors, she has been a Fellow at The MacDowell Colony, The Sanskriti Foundation, and at The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center. She has been the recipient of numerous grants, including several from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and The Rockefeller Foundation.  Chase lives in The Berkshires with her husband, the painter, Paul Graubard.

HOWARD CRUSE’s comic strips and humorous illustrations have appeared in Playboy, The Village Voice, Artforum International, Heavy Metal, and numerous other mainstream American magazines and underground comic books. He was the founding editor of Gay Comix in 1980 and the creator of the Wendel comic strip series for The Advocate, the entire run of which can be found in The Complete Wendel, published in 2011. His best-known work is the critically acclaimed and international award-winning graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby, which has been translated into German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Polish. His most recent collection, The Other Sides of Howard Cruse, was published this summer by Boom Studios. Cruse and his husband Ed Sedarbaum have been residents of the Berkshires since 2003. For more about Cruse and his work, visit Howard Cruse Central. 

We welcome these fine artists to our free reading series and we hope you will attend!  Readings will begin at 5:30 in the gallery. The authors’ books will be available for purchase after their readings.  Buy local!  I hope to obtain a grant for next year’s readings.  I hope. 

Hope to see you at the readings!

David

If you have questions and/or are interested in reading in the series, though we can make no promises initially, please email David Giannini, coordinator of the WRITERS READ series, at davidgpoet@gmail.com