Aaron Teel is the author of “Shampoo Horns”, winner of the Sixth Annual Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook Award. His work has appeared previously in Tin House, Monkeybicycle, Matter Press, Brevity Magazine, North Texas Review, Side B Magazine, and others, and his debut collection is forthcoming from Rose Metal Press. He teaches Language Arts and English as a Second Language and is a workshop instructor for Badgerdog Literary Publishing in Austin, TX.

Poet Kim Vodicka grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana and received her B.A. in English from UL Lafayette in 2010. She is currently working on her M.F.A. in Poetry at LSU, where she is also a Graduate Teaching Assistant and Co-Coordinator of Delta Mouth Literary Festival 2012. Kim is an avid lover of music, hosts a psychedelic rock show, “Shangri-La-La Land,” on KLSU, and is involved in musical-poetic projects. She believes that poems want to be songs very badly, and she can recite most of her work from memory. She is the author of the self-published chapbook “Hustle”, featuring poems and collages constructed from pornographic literature. Her artwork has been published in Tenderloin, and her poems have been published in Shampoo, Ekleksographia, and Dig. “Aesthesia Balderdash” (Trembling Pillow 2012) is her first full-length collection.

Praise for Aesthesia Balderdash:
“Belatedly—like everything we wait for—Kathy Acker’s great, I mean really great, grand‐daughter appears…in Louisiana, naturally (or un‐naturally). Her ‘blood runneth cheesecake’ who penneth this collection of see-sick lyrics drunk w/ semantic play and painful as ‘all lights…even stars.’Vodicka’s Aesthesia Balderdash sisters the disaster of gender in ways that matter: ‘chronically, / abashedly, / rosily, cockily, / dazzlingly.’ Not for the faint of art, ….”–Laura Mullen

Ben Kopel was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1983. He holds degrees from Louisiana State University, The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and The University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program for Poets and Writers. He currently lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he teaches creative writing and English literature to high school students. He is the author of a chapbook, “Because We Must” (Brave Men Press), and his work has been published injubilat, Conduit, The New Delta Review, Makeout Creek, Everyday Genius, and elsewhere. “Victory” (H_NGM_N Books 2012) is his first full-length collection.

Praise for Victory:
“Meteoric as pop songs, as fist-fights between best friends, Ben Kopel’s poems blaze out like declarations of love and vendetta spray-painted on overpasses. Victory is raw and tender as a crying-jag, while being full of a new savagery’s swagger and grace.”
–Dean Young

WordSpace is pleased to partner with Lucky Dog Books to present a booksigning, hosted by WS Director, Karen X Minzer and Summer Intern, Jessica Tolbert of Oberlin College.

Half Price Books and WordSpace  are honored to partner with Dallas Poetry Slam to bring Poetry and Slam outreach to area youth. Created by Alexandra Marie, a host and organizer for Dallas Poetry Slam.

Half Price Books and WordSpace  are honored to partner with Dallas Poetry Slam to bring Poetry and Slam outreach to area youth. Created by Alexandra Marie, a host and organizer for Dallas Poetry Slam.

Darryl Smyers of the Dallas Observer raves that Emmeline’s “straight-ahead take on folk/rock may actually be the best thing” on a bill of seasoned, signed artists.  The Ghost of Blind Lemon blog says she “not only possesses a beautiful voice, but writes songs that are simply beautiful and heartfelt.”  Fellow musicians Avoiding Disaster refer to her as “some sort of sonic angel,” and songwriter Jenni Mansfield Peal declares that her “images and passages of the songs, whether gently reflected or emphatically pronounced, create a sampler of genuine soul observations.”

A mixture of confidence and California sunshine led her to Scripps College, where she studied voice, piano, and music theory with a zeal that eventually earned her a Bachelor of Arts in general music.

Emmeline’s extensive classical training is not the only thing that sets her apart from her pop-minded peers.

Her live show is as personal as the songs on her new EP, Someone To Be.  Having honed her live skills in venues such as Dallas’s legendary Opening Bell Coffee, the House of Blues, and Poor David’s Pub with local powerhouses like Glitter Rose, Phoenix Hart, and Acoustic Distortion, Emmeline has developed a stage presence as warm as summer in Texas.  Alex P. of Lost Art’s recently exclaimed, “Emmeline’s set was a musical treat.  Her sometimes blatantly optimistic and sometimes bittersweet songs were laden with emotion, and her soulful performance was actually enhanced by the between-song banter, which is awesome.”

As Smyers explains, “the diminutive Emmeline has a sincere quality to her music that sets her apart from your standard coffee house beat poet.”  Give her songs a listen.  You just might find a friend between the lines.

Steve Paul Productions is proud to present ArtSlam. ArtSlam is a silent auction to benefit WordSpace.us

What: Art Slam
When: Sunday June 24th, from 5-9 pm at
Where: Steve Paul Productions, 2814 Main St. Dallas Tx 75226

The 2012 Art Slam will be a fun filled late afternoon of drinks, munchies and lot’s of great artwork and packages to bid on. 100% of the proceeds will go to benefit WordSpace.

WordSpace is a non-profit North Texas literary organization dedicated to supporting indigenous literature and connecting the best of world literature to local readers. Throughout the year WordSpace presents author readings, workshops, concerts and salons. In 2011, WordSpace sponsored over 35 events. Founded in 1994, WordSpace is the longest running literary group in Dallas.

WordSpace has presented programs and workshops with many writers and songwriters, including Robert Creeley, Gerald Burns, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Townes Van Zandt, Jeff Liles, Booker Prize winner James Kelman, Isabel Nathaniel, Terry and JoHarvey Allen, Cristina Henriquez, David Searcy, O. Henry Prize Winner Ben Fountain, Ed Sanders, NPR correspondent, poet, and novelist Andrei Codrescu, internationally acclaimed media pundit, activist, Dan Savage, and most recently, Amy Sedaris

Thank you in advance for your support of the 2012 Art Slam silent auction.

Dee Mitchell
President Of WordSpace

Karen X has moved so many places, she’s had a hard time keeping up. Help Karen get back on track and find her poems, scattered all over the place. She will be rifling through drawers and file cabinets, reading from her work as she goes. Bring a poem of your own to fill in for her inevitably distracted  good-will hostessing.  She’ll have an electric piano  if you want to play along. Or bring an electric bass or guitar. It will be a Houseshoes-and-Hoodie Floor Show.

Karen X aka Karen Minzer is program director of WordSpace–At Your Service!–and has been, in turn, a teen mess, a beat hippie mess, a punk mess, a rehab mess, and a yoginic mess–everywhere and nowhere, with everyone and noone,  still looking for her Sufi triumph.

Sign UP Now!

This five-day theater camp will engage kids in exploring imagination through games, developing unique characters, original art, songs, and stories, and challenge inhibitions by allowing a place to just be silly and weird. At the end of the camp we invite the parents and friends to come see a short showcase of all the creative work we have done.

Maggie Smith started her theater education at age four with the Dallas Theater Center’s children’s classes. Upon discovering an art form that could channel her need for creativity, drama, and plain old silliness, she realized from a young age that theater was something she could never give up. For children, who often have to grow up so fast, theater can be a thrilling and inspiring cultivator of imagination and an inviting venue for socialization. It grants a medium for kids to express themselves without fear of criticism, to find individuality in themselves and others, and discover creative and courageous abilities they can be proud of. Maggie was hooked after finding real lasting joy in these kid’s acting classes and continued her career throughout high school and into college, earning a degrees in performance art and psychology. She recently graduated from the University of North Texas Theater Department in 2011 and has worked professionally in Dallas/Fort Worth for several years. Now she hopes to provide the same kind of exhilarating, memorable experiences in more young ones and animate their senses of imagination and uninhibited joy through theater.

From noon-3, every hour on the hour, poets from the Dallas Poetry Slam pump up the jam Deep Ellum Outdoor Market with a 15 minute performance between music sets.

From noon-3, every hour on the hour, poets from the Dallas Poetry Slam pump up the jam Deep Ellum Outdoor Market with a 15 minute performance between music sets.