WordSpace presents Next Generation Project @ SMU Lit Fest
What: WordSpace presents Next Generation @ SMU LIT FEST 2014
Where: McCord Auditorium
When: Wednesday, March 19, 7 pm
Admission: FREE!
Reception at 6:30 pm
WordSpace is honored to present an annual program of youth writers at the SMU Literary Festival.
Schools include Hockaday School, Booker T. Washington School for the Visual and Performing Arts, Yavneh Academy, Hockaday School, Trinity Valley School, Prometheus Academy and a presentation by Dallas Youth Poets students.
These Students bring the mentorship of some of the most talented writers working in education- including Dr. Tim Cloward, Scott Davison, Luke Jacob, Kyle Vaughn, Alexandra Marie Thurston, Joaquin Zihuatanejo, Isabella Russell-Ides and Karen X Minzer.
Nothing gets these students going more than their annual presentation at SMU Lit Fest, as they open the Festival with a reception and fill the auditorium with their fans. WordSpace has presented an annual student reading since 2002. Other venues have included the Kessler Theater and Lucky Dog Books. Many of these young writers have gone on to win major awards.
Join us for an evening of inspiring previews of literary artists and the first cornerstone of the WordSpace Next Generation Project.
Check out the many fine writers being presented at the 2014 SMU Literary Festival: For More Information about 2014 Southern Methodist University Lit Fest and presenters, click here:
Seamus Heaney Salon with David Holdeman
What: Seamus Heaney Salon, facilitated by Dr. David Holdeman
When: Thursday, April 10, 7 pm
Where: Private Residence, RSVP wordspace@wordspace
Please Note: This is a public event but requires RSVP for address
Admission: Suggested Donation at event, Members Free
Celebrate National Poetry Month!
Seamus Justin Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright, translator and lecturer, and the recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.In the early 1960s, he became a lecturer in Belfast after attending university there, and began to publish poetry. He lived in Sandymount, Dublin, from 1972 until his death.
Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997 and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994 he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford and in 1996 was made a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. Other awards that he received include the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1968), the E. M. Forster Award (1975), the PEN Translation Prize (1985), the Golden Wreath of Poetry (2001), T. S. Eliot Prize (2006) and two Whitbread Prizes (1996 and 1999). In 2012, he was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry. His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland.
David Holdeman, professor of English at the University of North Texas, leads us through a reading of the poems of Seamus Heaney, the great Irish poet and winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. His death last year at the age of 74 brought mourning and joyous memories of the great poet, teacher and critic. William Logan has called Heaney’s “the most flexible and beautiful voice of our age.” Andrew Motion in The Guardian says one of Heaney’s great strengths is that “his high-mindedness never escapes the limits of the familiar experience – but at the same time he leaves us in no doubt that his first loyalty is to what Yeats called ‘the spiritual intellect’s great work.’”
Dr. Holdeman’s insightful explication and reading of Yeats’ poems here two springs ago was buoyant and moving, and he is also a lover of Heaney’s life-enhancing poems of Seamus Heaney. Holdeman’s scholarly books include The Cambridge Introduction to W. B. Yeats (Cambridge, 2006) and W. B. Yeats in Context (Cambridge, 2010).
Justen Ahren Salon
What: Salon with Justen Ahren
When: Thursday, February 20, 7 pm
Where: Private Residence, RSVP wordspace@wordspace.us
Please Note: This is a public event but requires an RSVP for address of the private residence
Admission: Suggested Donation at the event
West Tisbury, Massachusetts Poet Laureate Justen Ahren has published poems in numerous literary journals including, most recently, Fulcrum, BorderSenses, Borderlands, Texas Poetry Review, and Comstock Review. A graduate of Emerson College’s MFA program in creative writing, Mr. Ahren is founder and Director of Noepe Center for Literary Arts and the Martha’s Vineyard Writers Residency. He teaches poetry and writing workshops on Martha’s Vineyard and in Labro, Italy.
Swirve Presents Swirve and Matt Bagley
What: Swirve Presents Swirve
Special Guest: Matt Bagley
When: Saturday, December 14, 8 pm
Where: WordSpace, 415 North Tyler Street
Bonus: It’s Block Party Night on Tyler Street! Friendly folks, arts and culture and complimentary beverages with From the Ends of the Earth, Manuel Pecino Gallery, and Drive by Pickers
Swirve is a Dallas music, spoken word and experimental performance ensemble featuring Tamitha Curiel, Chris Curiel and Gerard Bendiks. The members have been known to play the trumpet backwards, the drums upside-down, and shout sideways. They have performed in galleries, nightclubs, festivals and bbqs. They have also collaborated with many of Dallas’s other fine artists, including Tammy Gomez, Mad Swirl. Alison Starr, Kenny Withrow, and members of Yells at Eels.
In conjunction with his “Artifacts of the Imagination” exhibition opening at Mighty Fine Arts, Matt Bagley joins spoken word/music group Swirve as a special guest to present his rock operetta on SpaceBugRobot Wars at WordSpace. Swamp Daddy Matt Bagley has returned from his interstellar teleportation travels back to the earthly realm with tales of remote universes and cosmic dramas. He brings back stories of his encounters with sentient robots and trained insects and exotic space critters that suffer ordeals not unlike those those in the bayou. The artifacts he returns with bear witness to the universality of being, life in space and earth, couched in metaphor and imagination.
Writing the Assassination with Hugh Aynesworth, Tim Cloward and Bryan Woolley
Panel and Book Signing: Writing the Assassination: Dallas Authors Respond to November 22, 1963
Who: Hugh Aynesworth, Bryan Woolley, Dr. Tim Cloward
Video Presentation: JFK Unspoken Speech Project
When: Sunday, November 17, 4-6
Where: Half Price Books, NW Highway
Tim Cloward facilitates a discussion among authors Hugh Aynesworth and Bryan Wooley who have recent books released on the assassination. A diverse range of topics will be addressed and books will be available for purchase.
Hugh Aynesworth is an American journalist, investigative reporter, author, and teacher. Aynesworth has been reported to have witnessed the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza, the capture and arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theater, and the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters. In a 1976 Texas Monthly article, William Broyles, Jr. described Aynesworth as “one of the most respected authorities on the assassination of John F. Kennedy”.
Through a myriad of characters both real and invented (and some whose names have been changed) journalist and author Bryan Woolley presents one of the best dissections of Dallas life in 1963 in his novel November 22. Covering the twenty-four hours surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Woolley accurately captures the essence of the day’s atmosphere, resulting in a rich cross section of a city more complex and diverse than many observers have been willing to acknowledge. He describes in microcosm how the world changed in the twinkling of an eye and peers into the shifting lives of all people affected by this shattering event. Readers will be surprised at how relevant the book is to the Dallas–and America–of right now.
Panel Facilitator: Tim Cloward, Ph.D., is the author of the upcoming book The City that Killed Kennedy: A Cultural History of Dallas and the Assassination (Winner of the 2013 Mayborn Conference Book Manuscript Award). His essay “Conspiracy-A-Go-Go,” an excerpted chapter of his book, will be published in the upcoming Fall issue of the Southwest Review.
David Haynes
Who: DAVID HAYNES
What: New Book! Meet the Author of “A Star in the Face of the Sky”
When: Thursday, January 30, 7:00
Where: Salon, Private Residence
RSVP: wordspace@wordspace.us or 214-838-3554
Admission: Members Free. NonMembers-donation suggested. Refreshments served.
A STAR IN THE FACE OF THE SKY examines the consequences of family tragedy. Left with the care of her only surviving grandchild, Janet Williams desires that his life not be contaminated by his mother’s insanity. When her imprisoned daughter reaches out to him, Janet scrambles to keep Daniel from her clutches. Janet’s best friend, Estelle, provides refuge for her own misunderstood grandson, Ari, all the while pursuing her father’s dying wish that his riches leave the world a better place. These four lives intersect—with each other, with the past, with the dead, with memory. The novel explores the legacy of history, the evils of spite and, ultimately, the power of love. A STAR IN THE FACE OF THE SKY (New Rivers Press, October 2013)-Click here for the website.
David Haynes earned a B.A. in literature from Macalester College, Minnesota, in 1977 and an M.A. from Hamline University, Minnesota, in 1989. A former fifth and sixth grade teacher, he served as a teacher in residence at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Haynes also served on the leadership team at the experimental Saturn School of Tomorrow. His book Right by My Side (New Rivers Press, 1993) was a winner in the 1992 Minnesota Voices Project and was selected by the American Library Association as one of 1994’s best books for young adults. Two of Haynes’s stories have been recorded for the National Public Radio series “Selected Shorts.” In 1996 Granta magazine named Haynes as one of the best young American novelists. Haynes is currently an associate professor and the director of creative writing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He teaches regularly in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and has taught in the MFA programs at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Hamline University, and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD, and at the Writers’ Garret in Dallas. His teaching interests include gender, class, race, and generational differences – all themes that he explores in great depth in A Star in the Face of the Sky.
David Searcy, Joaquin Zihuatanejo, RockBaby
What: David Searcy, Joaquin Zihuatanejo, RockBaby and Dallas Poetry Slam Team
When: October 15, 7:00 pm – 9:15, 8:50 9:15 p.m. Audience Q & A with the three writers, followed by book/CD signing.
Where: Northwood University Literary Festival, Lambert Commons on Northwood’s 400 acre campus, located 25 minutes from downtown Dallas, just off Highway 67 south — the Joe Pool Lake exit.
Map to Northwood
David Searcy is an award-winning Dallas-based novelist and essayist. His recent wide-ranging essays have appeared in Paris Review, Granta and other thought-leading journals. He has a forthcoming collection of essays to be published later this year by Random House. He will read from “El Camino Dolorosa,” an evocative essay about his grandfather’s old pickup which is nominated for the 2013 Pushcart Prize.
Joaquin Zihuatanejo is a poet, spoken word artist, and acclaimed teacher. Born and raised in the barrio in East Dallas, his work captures the duality of Chicano culture. Honest, brutal and evocative, his poems are often hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time. He has won many awards as a teacher of creative writing and high school English, and for his collection of poems Stand Up and Be Heard. He conducts writing workshops in America and Europe, and his one-man spoken word performances are in demand at universities and literary conferences on three continents.
Rockbaby and Dallas Poetry Slam Team Members complete the evrning show with solo and group performances. Popular Dallas slam poet and comic writer, Rockbaby has become a favorite at Northwood over the past few years. This year he brings along two members of the Dallas Slam Team to close the LitFest with high spirits and homeboy poems.
ABOUT NORTHWOOD UNIVERSITY
Northwood University is committed to the most personal attention to prepare students for success in their careers and in their communities; it promotes critical thinking skills, personal effectiveness, and the importance of ethics, individual freedom and responsibility.
Special Thanks to writer, critic Martha Heimberg, Northwood Lit Fest Chair. Martha Heimberg has been writing about theater, the arts and historic preservation for over 30 years for numerous Texas newspapers and magazines, including Dallas Weekly, D Magazine and Texas Monthly. She currently writes a weekly theater column for Turtle Creek News. She has won awards from the Dallas Press Club and the Texas Historic Commission, and is a founding member of the Dallas Fort Worth Theater Critics Forum. She coordinates DART’s Poetry in Motion program, and a WordSpace board member for nine years. Her degrees in English and comparative literature are from Southern Methodist University. She is associate professor of English at Northwood University in Cedar Hill, Texas.
WordSpace is honored to partner with Northwood Literary Festival for this dynamic gathering of poets and fiction writers.
Tim Cloward Lecture-Dallas Literature on the Assassination
Who: Tim Cloward, in multi-media lecture
What: “The City That Killed Kennedy, the Literary History of Dallas and the Assassination”
Hosted by: Willard Spiegleman
When: Wednesday, October 9, 7 pm, Reception 6:30 pm
Where: The Dallas Institute of Culture and Humanities, 2719 Routh St.
Directions: Click Here
Free to the public
This WordSpace program is presented in partnership with Dallas Institute of Culture and Humanities and Southwest Review.
This presentation chronicles what Dallas-area writers have written about the November 22, 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. From the city’s original attempts to deal with the guilt, self-loathing and ostracism that came with its christening as “The City of Hate,” to its current attempts to memorialize the event at its 50th anniversary, Dallas has produced an extensive literature that mirrors in fascinating ways the larger national debate on the real meaning of the JFK assassination.
Presenter: Tim Cloward, Ph.D., is the author of the upcoming book The City that Killed Kennedy: A Cultural History of Dallas and the Assassination (Winner of the 2013 Mayborn Conference Book Manuscript Award). His essay “Conspiracy-A-Go-Go,” an excerpted chapter of his book, will be published in the upcoming Fall issue of the Southwest Review.
The Dallas Institute of Culture and Humanities has, since 1980, conducted public programs aimed at discovering what the humanities have to offer to the cultural life of the city. It will be presenting the all-day symposium “Understanding Tragedy: The Impact of the JFK Assassination on Dallas” on November 2 at the Southside Ballroom.
Dr. Larry Allums is the Executive Director of The Dallas Institute. The Dallas Institute Fellows are comprised of a distinguished group of scholars, teachers, writers, and public intellectuals in the arts and humanities.
It has been edited since 1984 by Willard Spiegleman, winner of the 2005 the PEN/Nora Magid award for literary editing.
Laurie Anderson
Who: Laurie Anderson
What: “The Language of the Future”
When: Thursday, October 23, 8 pm
Where: The Kessler Theater, 1230 West Davis
BUY TICKETS
WordSpace is honored to present the genius of Laurie Anderson in a one night only fundraiser benefiting WordSpace’s many emerging writers and urban youth programs. Buy a ticket to support the thriving Dallas literary scene!
Laurie Anderson is one of today’s premier performance artists. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist. O Superman launched Anderson’s recording career in 1980, rising to number two on the British pop charts and subsequently appearing on Big Science, the first of her seven albums on the Warner Brothers label. Other record releases include Mister Heartbreak, United States Live, Strange Angels, Bright Red, and the soundtrack to her feature film Home of the Brave. A deluxe box set of her Warner Brothers output, Talk Normal, was released in the fall of 2000 on Rhino/Warner Archives. In 2001, Anderson released her first record for Nonesuch Records, entitled Life on a String, which was followed by Live in New York, recorded at Town Hall in New York City in September 2001, and released in May 2002. Anderson has toured the United States and internationally numerous times with shows ranging from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events. Major works include United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), The Nerve Bible (1995), and Songs and Stories for Moby Dick, a multimedia stage performance based on the novel by Herman Melville. Songs and Stories for Moby Dick toured internationally throughout 1999 and 2000. In the fall of 2001, Anderson toured the United States and Europe with a band, performing music from Life on a String. She has also presented many solo works, including Happiness, which premiered in 2001 and toured internationally through Spring 2003. Anderson has published six books. Text from Anderson’s solo performances appears in the book Extreme Exposure, edited by Jo Bonney. She has also written the entry for New York for the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Laurie Anderson’s visual work has been presented in major museums throughout the United States and Europe. In 2003, The Musée Art Contemporain of Lyon in France produced a touring retrospective of her work, entitled The Record of the Time: Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson. This retrospective included installation, audio, instruments, video and art objects and spans Anderson’s career from the 1970’s to her most current works. It continued to tour internationally from 2003 to 2005. As a visual artist, Anderson is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York where her exhibition, The Waters Reglitterized, opened in September 2005. As a composer, Anderson has contributed music to films by Wim Wenders and Jonathan Demme; dance pieces by Bill T. Jones, Trisha Brown, Molissa Fenley, and a score for Robert LePage’s theater production, Far Side of the Moon. She has created pieces for National Public Radio, The BBC, and Expo ‘92 in Seville. In 1997 she curated the two-week Meltdown Festival at Royal Festival Hall in London. Her most recent orchestra work Songs for A.E. premiered at Carnegie Hall in February 2000 performed by the American Composers Orchestra and later toured Europe with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. Recognized worldwide as a groundbreaking leader in the use of technology in the arts, Anderson collaborated with Interval Research Corporation, a research and development laboratory founded by Paul Allen and David Liddle, in the exploration of new creative tools, including the Talking Stick. She created the introduction sequence for the first segment of the PBS special Art 21, a series about Art in the 21st century. Her awards include the 2001 Tenco Prize for Songwriting in San Remo, Italy and the 2001 Deutsche Schallplatten prize for Life On A String as well as grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA out of which she developed her solo performance “The End of the Moon” which premiered in 2004 and toured internationally through 2006. Other recent projects include a commission to create a series of audio-visual installations and a high definition film, Hidden Inside Mountains, for the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan and a series of programs for French radio called “Rien dans les Poches/Nothing in my Pockets”. Her score for Trisha Brown’s acclaimed piece “O Composite” premiered at the Opera Garnier in Paris in December 2004. Anderson was also part of the team that created the opening ceremony for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Currently she is working on a series of documented walks, a new album for Nonesuch Records, “Homeland”, and an accompanying touring performance. Anderson lives in New York City.
Swirve and Rosemary Meza-DesPlas
Who: SWIRVE and ROSEMARY MEZA-DESPLAS
What: Readings and Performances
When: Saturday, September 14, 7:30-10 pm
Where: WordSpace, 415 Tyler Streets
Admission: WS Members & MFA Gallery Exhibition Guests Free, Non Members: $5 Donation Suggested
Swirve is a Dallas music, spoken word and experimental performance ensemble featuring Tamitha Curiel, Chris Curiel and Gerard Bendiks. The members have been known to play the trumpet backwards, the drums upside-down, and shout sideways. They have performed in galleries, nightclubs, festivals and bbqs. They have also collaborated with many of Dallas’s other fine artists, including Tammy Gomez, Mad Swirl. Alison Starr, Kenny Withrow, and members of Yells at Eels.
