Alum Update: Sarah [Kolbasowski] Ghoshal, Creative Writing MFA Alum

Many of you knew Sarah when she was a grad student here in the English Department. She's now teaching at Montclair State University and publishing poems all over the place. For example, check out new poems at Empty Mirror.

UPDATE: Sarah's new chapbook, Changing the Grid, available for pre-order now, ships in early June 2015.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Release Party, Sunday, June 28, 1PM. More info.

NYC Performances of YOU ARE CONFUSED! (a play by Eduardo Leanez & Patrick Horrigan)

Brooklyn-based Ryan Repertory Company, now in its 43rd season, is proud to present Eduardo Leanez in YOU ARE CONFUSED!, a funny, heart-breaking one-man show about the relationship between a Venezuelan boy and his charismatic mother.

If you wish you could travel the world with Menudo . . . if you spend hours watching telenovelas with your mother. . . if you love beauty pageants and imagine yourself as one of the contestants . . . if Jean-Claude Van Damme comes to your rescue in your dreams . . . if you can't take your eyes off of Greg Louganis, his smile, his dimples, the shape of his body . . . if you are ten years old, and it's 1986 in Caracas, Venezuela, and you are a boy . . . YOU ARE CONFUSED!

YOU ARE CONFUSED!
written by Eduardo Leanez & Patrick E. Horrigan
directed by Rosalie Purvis

Where: Harry Warren Theatre, 2445 Bath Avenue (at the corner of Bath Ave. and Bay 38th St.), Brooklyn, NY 11214; take the D train to 26th Ave. or the N train to Avenue U

Performance Schedule:

Thursday, June 11, 7:30pm
Friday, June 12, 7:30pm*
Saturday, June 13, 7:30pm
Sunday, June 14, 3pm

Thursday, June 18, 7:30pm
Friday, June 19, 7:30pm*
Saturday, June 20, 7:30pm
Sunday, June 21, 3pm

Tickets:  General Admission: $20; Students and Seniors: $15; TDF Vouchers accepted
*Special performances Friday nights include pre-show beverages and a post-show reception with beverages and snacks: $25

Purchase tickets here.

Tickets can also be purchased at the door on the day of the performance.

Barbara Henning: Poetry Reading at Unnameable Books

Barbara Henning (Professor Emerita, English) will be reading with Laura Woltag and Yosefa Raz. Host:  Brenda Iijima

June 1, 2015
6 PM

Unnameable Books Garden
600 Vanderbilt Avenue
(between Dean St & St Mark's Avenue)
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Neighborhood: Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
(718) 789-1534
unnameablebooks.blogspot.com

Nearest Transit: 7th Ave (Q, B), Grand Army Plaza (2, 3), Clinton-Washington Aves (C)

Barbara Henning is the author of three novels and nine collections of poetry, her most recent, A Day Like Today (Negative Capability Press, 2015), A Swift Passage (Quale Press) and Cities & Memory (Chax Press); and a collection of object-sonnets, My Autobiography (United Artists).  Born in Detroit, she has lived in New York City since 1983.  She teaches for writers.com and Long Island University in Brooklyn, where she is Professor Emerita.

Laura Woltag is a poet living in the east bay. She is the author of the chapbook Hush Hyletics (Portable Press @ Yo Yo Labs) and is at work on her first book-like thing. When she can, she records loons and thinks about the circulations of sonic time and toxins. Her poems have been installed along the Deer Creek trail in Nevada City by Unmanned minerals, and appear in print in Where Eagles Dare, Try, OMG!, and the anthology It's Night in San Francisco but it's Sunny In Oakland.

Yosefa Raz’s poetry and translations have appeared in ZYZZYVVA, Tikkun, Lilith, Zeek, Try!, Sundial, and Mrs. Maybe. She is the author of the poetry book In Exchange for a Homeland (Swan Scythe Press 2004) and co-translator of Women's Hebrew Poetry on American Shores (Wayne State University Press 2015). She lives in Toronto, Oakland, and Tel-Aviv.

Stephanie Gray: Film Screening / Poetry Reading

film still from "You Know They Want
to Disappear Hell's Kitchen As Clinton" (super 8, 2010)

Stephanie Gray is an alum of the English Department's Creative Writing MFA program.

Film retrospective/poetry reading at Anthology Film Archives, East Village, NYC
Super 8 mm Poetics: The Films of Stephanie Gray: Friday-Sunday, June 12-14, 7:30 nightly.
This film retrospective coincides with the publication of Stephanie's second poetry book, Shorthand and Electric Language Stars (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs). She also has a chapbook coming out on Argos Books soon, called A Country Road Going Back in Your Direction.


NYC poet-super8 filmmaker Gray explores hidden mysteries of of the city and vanishing authenticity, as well as pop culture feminist and queer icons and hearing loss in her first film retro. Gray will be reading poetic voiceovers live with many films and guest musicians will provide live sounds for select silent films: Rachael Guma on night 2 and Jeremy Slater on night 3.


Screening schedule + info/location.

Humanities-Division Tea for This Year's Graduates

On Monday, May 11, 2015, the Humanities Division of Richard L. Conolly College is hosting a tea for those undergraduate and graduate students who are graduating this year. We invite you to please join us as we honor our students and mingle with them one last time before they depart these hallowed halls. 

Any student who graduated in September 2014 or January 2015 or who is graduating in May 2015 is invited to attend. Family and friends are welcome as well!

May 11, 2015
4:00 PM
The Robert Spector Lounge
Humanities Building, Fourth Floor

Lewis Warsh Reading with Dale Herd and Michael Lally

Sunday, May 10th, 7PM
KGB Bar
85 E. 4th Street
Manhattan
212 505-3360

Lewis Warsh's most recent books include Alien Abduction (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015), One Foot Out the Door: Collected Stories (Spuyten Duyvil, 2014), A Place in the Sun (Spuyten Duyvil, 2010) and Inseparable: Poems 1995-2005 (Granary Books, 2008). He is editor and publisher of United Artists Books and teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Long Island University (Brooklyn).

Dale Herd is the author of four short story collections: Early Morning Wind (The Four Seasons Foundation, 1972), Diamonds (Mudra, 1976), Wild Cherries (Tombouctou, 1980), and Empty Pockets (Coffee House Press, 2015). He currently lives in California.

Michael Lally is the author of more than twenty books, among them It’s Not Nostalgia, an American Book Award winner, and Cant Be Wrong, recipient of a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Among other honors: two National Endowment for the Arts grants, the second denounced on the floor of Congress by Republicans claiming Lally’s autobiographical poem My Life was “pornography.” Lally has also written for The Washington Post, The Village Voice, and other publications. An actor and screenwriter as well, he appeared in White Fang, Basic Instinct, and other films, and on TV shows such as NYPD Blue and Deadwood. His blog, Lally’s Alley, offers his views on poetry, music, politics, movies, and more.

Interview with Barbara Henning

Read a new interview with Barbara Henning on Rob McLennan's blog.

Annual Awards Ceremony / UPDATE: Winners' names added 5/6/2015

Please join us tomorrow, May 5, 2015, at 3:30, as we recognize this year's winners of the English Department's awards and prizes, including the Popper-Edelman Essay Prizes, the Excellence in English Award, the Esther Hyneman Awards in Creative Writing, and others.

After the ceremony, winners' names will be added to this post.

UPDATE: Winners are as follows.

Excellence in English Award, Undergraduate. Presented by Srividhya Swaminathan.

Stacy D'Cunha
Muzahid Mowla
Warline Norzeus
Brittany Rader

Excellence in English Award, Graduate. Presented by Srividhya Swaminathan.

Tina Barry
Harry Ewan
Christopher Iverson
Jacob Matkov

The Louis & Ann Parascandola Graduate Award. Presented by Louis Parascandola.

Christopher Iverson, "Students and the Community: The Reciprocal Benefits of Service-Learning." Thesis Advisor: Thomas Peele.

The Edward Edelman and Susanne Popper-Edelman English Essay Prizes. Presented by Michael Bokor.

Freshman Composition (English 16)
Nichia McFarlane, "Sexual Violence on College Campuses in the United States." Instructor: Kristen Hoffman

Upper Division (English 100 level and above)
Jessica Montrose, "Masked Desire in Medieval Literature." Professor: Sealy Gilles

Senior Seminar Paper (English 190)
Stacy D'Cunha, "Anti-Semitism in Medieval English Popular Literature: Dissecting Chaucer's 'The Prioress' Tale'." Professor: Sealy Gilles.

The Elaine Spielberg Award. Presented by Marilyn Boutwell.

Ernest Agyeman. Professor: Barbara Henning

The Esther Hyneman Graduate Awards in Creative Writing. Presented by Jessica Hagedorn, Lewis Warsh, and John High.

Poetry: Sarah Kaplan Gould.
Cross-genre: Harry Ewan.
Fiction: Kimarlee Nguyen.

Add this event to your Google Calendar. 

New Books from Lisa Rogal & Sarah Anne Wallen, Published by United Artists (Lewis Warsh, Editor)

United Artists Books (edited by Lewis Warsh, English Department) presents new books by Lisa Rogal and Sarah Anne Wallen, alumni of the English Department's Creative Writing MFA Program.

Warsh will also be presenting these new titles at the 13th Annual New York City Independent Publishers Book Party. 

May 21, 2015
6-8PM
Zieher Smith & Horton Gallery, 516 W 20th St., NYC
212 229 1088

Other participating presses: Belladonna; Litmus Press; The Figures; Purgatory Pie Press; Futurepoem; Tender Buttons; Ink, Inc.; Ugly Duckling Presse; Wonder; Roof; Granary Books; and Birds, LLC.


PLEASE NOTE THERE WILL BE WINE!