Thursday, March 29, 2007

Michael Hyde reading

On Thursday March 29th FIT Words had a fellow FIT professor from the English department speak to our club. Our club met at Binsky's II on the 6th floor in the A building.

Michael Hyde read one of his short stories from his short story collection "What Are You Afraid Of?" to get a sense of what a short story is composed of. Afterwards we asked questions pertaining to writing and then did a writing exercise on how to compose a fictionalized character. This helped us because the short story Michael Hyde read to us was from the narrative of a young girl which is a fictionalized character with certain traits to explore within the short story the character is part of.

The exercise got our minds working on as to compose a fictionalized character. We also brainstormed as a group on each others characters. Our characters we even further developed by thinking in a psychological sense.

We were given a picture each at the end for us to use in any way we wanted alongside our new fictionalized character.

Bio:Michael Hyde’s debut short story collection What Are You Afraid Of? won the 2005 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and M.F.A. in Writing from Columbia University, where he was a Teaching and Writing Fellow. His stories have appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories, Bloom, Ontario Review, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Recipient of a Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in fiction from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and a Fundación Valparaíso artist grant, he currently lives in New York City. Access his website at
http://www.michaelhyde.org/

Monday, March 26, 2007

National Poetry Month!!!

Hey Poetry Affionados!!!

Remember when we created "Random Word" poems.....well if you would like to display them in a display case that will be celebrating National Poetry Month and FIT Words and want to contribute your poem by all means do so.

In addition you can also contribute your Visual Poetry written on bias tape with the theme of Bias that we created when Denise Duhamel spoke about how Visual Poetry was used and some of her visual poetry works.

Please send all queries to either me or Prof. Lemmon.

Thanks.

Pres.

Reading

Michael Hyde

Thursday March 29th
1-2pm
Binsky's II

He will be doing a reading of his works in Binsky's II on the 6th floor. Located near the elevators and on the same floor as the internship center in A building.

Hope to see you there.

Pres.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

readings at union square

Hey!!!

Just to let you know....not only can you pick up schedules of readings at local bookstores but you can also find them on the web.

see the following links:
Barnes and Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/writers/writers_cds2.asp?z=y&PID=12211&z=y&cds2Pid=1302&linkid=726995
**Upstairs at the square events at barnes and noble in union square

Borders
http://www.bordersstores.com/mystores/mystores.jsp
click my stores, put in a zip code and then the events show up and you can even select "see more events" on any location that shows up.

I think the web is more utilized than going to the book stores themselves and picking up a monthly calendar event schedule. But now you see there are an abundance of events.

Visual Poetry

Hey Everyone!!!

Denise Duhamel spoke to our club today about some of her own poetry but this time with a focus on "visual poetry". She showed us some rather creative approaches to presenting poetry on objects such as a window blind and type writer, among other interesting objects that it seems almost like art in way. Something that could be displayed in an art gallery. But Denise Duhamel said that she had to think about bridging both the visual poetry and art aspect.

All of the people present at the event were able to create their own visual poetry. We made a list of ten items that we thought were "Bias" and then wrote them on...bias tape....hmmm.....only our school would sell such a thing to which conversely use for a medium to create visual poetry and not the standard use that most of us would consider as fashion students. It was quite creative.

It was so nice to also have Denise Duhamel visit again. She was at the school last spring and that was equally as fun.

Pres.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

If you're interested...

From this week's Village Voice:

Friday 03.16
[Reading]
LADY'S NIGHT
East Village poetry scene still thrives
Bowery Poetry Club has defied the odds of survival (gentrification of the East Village was already well under way) but it's also managed to build a thriving community of poets and performers. Tonight's Bowery Women Salon Reading features some of the 76 contributors to the new anthology Bowery Women, which contains poems by those who have left their makr on the club over the last five years. Fay Chiang, Cynthia Kraman, Amy Ouzoonian, Marjorie Tesser, and others share their work.
At 7, Penington Friends House, 215 East 15th Street, 212-673-1730, free

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Quiet getaway

I know I'm up late finding yet more interesting things for the club as Pres. but I don't know, I just find that New York Magazine's latest issue on the Best of practically everything NY-ish came out recently and......

There's this really cool art gallery/ book-like-library place not too faraway from the school that they highlighted. I thought I'd just share the review and post the links.

Best Store to Hear an Author
192 Books
192 Tenth Ave., 212-255-4022
With an atmosphere that’s more home library than bookstore, this airy shop provides a welcome reprieve from the big-box feel of the city’s larger chains, making it an excellent, cozy place to catch a reading by your favorite author-of-the-moment. The readings are free but require reservations because of limited space, so bibliophiles in attendance are assured an experience free of the jostling and neck-craning that accompany most such events. They’re also a great deal, as most of the authors are A-listers (Jane Smiley, Salman Rushdie, John Ashbery, to name a recent few) whom fans pay big money to see at venues like the New York Public Library or the 92nd Street Y—meaning attendees can pick up one of the gorgeous art books the store’s famous for without feeling a bit of spender’s remorse.

http://nymag.com/listings/stores/192_books/index.html

It looks totally interesting and seems to have artsy related books there!

Official Website:
http://www.192books.com/

Denise Duhamel at FIT

Hey Everyone!!!

With all the midterms and budgets due and all else in between. I hope you're coping with all of it and hopefully by next Wednesday you can all join the club for yet another guest speaker.

Denise Duhamel
Speaking on Visual Poetry
Wednesday March 21st
1-2pm
The Pizza Lounge*
*Located on the 5th floor of the A building right outside the elevators. You can't miss it!!

Links you should read:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/33
http://www.rocksaltplum.com/RSPWinter2005/DeniseDuhamelInterview.html

Hope to all see you there!!

Pres.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

If you're interested...

From this week's Village Voice:

"Brooklyn's Lit Up"
Waxing poeting in Williamsburg
The folks behind the weekly Burning Chair literary series at the Fall Cafe in Carroll Gardens host today's Brooklyn Poetry Bazaar, a full afternoon of readings and music, in celebration of the borough's thriving independent-media community. Featured guests include Anna Moschovakis, an editor and designer at Ugly Duckling Press and author of I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone; Anselem Berrigan, director of the St. Mark's Poetry Project; Ann Lauterbach, author of If in Time: Selected Poems 1975-2000; and Jess Mynes, author of Birds, for Example.
Sunday March 11
From 2:30 to 7, Galapagos Art Space, 70 North 6th Street, Brooklyn, 718-782-5188, $5

Mark Goldblatt

March 8th the club had Mark Goldblatt speak to our club on various topics. He was very knowledgeable on the fact that if we were to send short stories or poems out to literary magazines some are respectable while others can put a price on their published editions and might not be worth sending any material to. Though he said the newest thing to come up in literary form is online literary publications. This is good in terms of if you wanted to say that you've been published the web page with your piece will be up always not like print literary magazines which after an edition is over it might be hard to find the edition.

In another note to this he also mentioned that if you have your own website exhibiting your work that can also help your resume and you can be referenced to the website. This is a more modern approach to exposing your writings to prospective publishing places.

He spoke about this topic after reading a piece he wrote about killing a cockroach in NYC and it was satirical images which was very visual. I liked the story in the length he read for us. But he told us the reality of writing a long piece and then seeing if it could get published in print form and he said that when it was published it was only approximately 500 words where as the version he read to us was close to 4 pages in length. So he said that print form might not be such a good way of getting published in the electronic and internet world. This is true.

Mark Goldblatt is also the author of the book entitled "Africa Speaks" which I read up on and was intrigued to hear about how the topic for his book was thought up. He wrote in a different voice which was that of an African American man. See link http://markgoldblatt.com/ The topic for the book is very controversial but it takes a lot to write about something so daring. Definately check this book out!!!

If you want to buy his book check out http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781579620899&itm=4

It was really great to kick off the club with our first guest speaker and we appreciated the insight Mark Goldblatt shared with the club. :)

Pres.

Monday, March 5, 2007

News for Thursday March 8th

First off I'd like to address some events happening this week.

Mark Goldblatt
Thursday March 8th
1-2pm
Binsky's II (located A building 6th floor through the doors next to the elevators, it's a big open space where we can have a good enough space to discuss things. It's ideal for this event.)

Mark Goldblatt is a novelist, columnist and book reviewer as well as a professor at FIT.
His controversial first novel, Africa Speaks, was published in 2002 by Permanent Press, but he is perhaps best known as a political commentator. He has written hundreds of opinion columns for a combination of the New York Times, the New York Post, USA Today, the Daily News, Newsday, National Review Online and the American Spectator Online. Several of these essays have been anthologized in standard college textbooks, Across Cultures and Negotiations, and many more have been posted on popular web sites and blogs such as Arts and Letters Daily, Jewish World Review and Free Republic. He has been a guest on the Catherine Crier Show on Court TV and done dozens of radio interviews for stations across the country and in England. His integrity has been called into question by the Village Voice - which should count for something.

Secondly, Sorry the Thursday March 8th evening event with Kurt Anderson is cancelled. Due to insufficient ticket sales. Just thought anyone who signed up for tickets for the event should know.

Also ICON is still taking submissions of poems, you can submit your work in Room A713, or you can bring them to Prof. Lemmon and fill out a release form. Either way you can submit your poems and sign a release form.

But the beginning first few minutes of the meeting this Thursday we, we will approve the minutes from the first meeting and distribute copies of the revised club constitution. Then, our guest speaker Prof. Mark Goldblatt will read a short excerpt from his work and talk about his experience as a writer. He’ll be able to answer our questions, too!”

Hope to see you all there this Thursday!!!!

Pres.

Thursday, March 1, 2007

ICON needs submissons

ICON Alert!!!

They need submissions in poetry for the magazine asap!!! Pls. drop off your poems to ICON on the 7th floor Student Life room. The office is way in the back of the room. There is a short cut if you go past the elevators to your left you can also get to the office. Either way works.

When you submit poetry you have to sign release forms. They should give you a form in order to submit. Almost a contract of sorts.

I submitted way back in December and was one of the first to submit. But now that FIT Words Club has members interested in many literary forms not only poetry. I encourage you to submit any piece to ICON because any exposure in writing is very well a start.

You gotta get your poetry out yo!!!

Any questions: contact me or Prof. Lemmon

We can give you e-mails of who to contact in ICON.