30 July 2015

SUMMER is here! And soon... la rentrée will begin

Dear Paris writers, readers and lovers of literature--

The Paris Readings Monthly Listing has been offline on a prolonged summer break which will end as the SEPT 2015 rentrée gets underway. We are, however, looking for a guest blogger or two to help out with the listings this year, so if you have a few hours a month and are interested, please contact me, Jennifer K Dick, at my fragment78 gmail address and we can hopefully find a 2015-2016 listings guest blogger schedule that works for both of us! FOR NOW, ENJOY THE SUN and here are a few events and workshops I know about before and for SEPT:

CONTINUING ALL SUMMER:
AUGUST READINGS: PLU and Spoken Word Paris are still running this August, so if you are in need of a little poetry, prose or music, or want to share some of your own, check out these ongoing series:
PLU: THURSDAY NIGHTS info here: http://parislitup.com/paris-lit-up-open-mic/
Spoken Word Paris: MONDAY NIGHTS hosted by David Barnes et al: info here: http://spokenwordparis.org/
SPOKEN WORD THEMES:
Aug 3rd – POSTCARDS guest poet Janine Booth
Aug 10th – BAKSHEESH
Aug 17th – ESCAPE
Aug 24th – HATS
Aug 31st – HEAT
SPOKEN WORD 2: OCCASIONAL Weds nights--get onto the Spoken Word email listing or FB page to keep up on the occasional fabulous weds night events hosted by David Leo Sirois.

A SNEAK PEEK INTO SEPTEMBER: 
IVY READING:
22nd SEPT--19h30 come out for the season premier of IVY WRITERS PARIS bilingual reading series with Cole SWENSEN, Donna STONECIPHER and Marie BOREL. This will likely be at Delaville Cafe, 34 blvd bonne nouvelle 75010. This will be followed by a reading on Oct 6th as well.

HELP NOMINATE NOVELISTS--for the not-the-booker-prize Guardian Contest:
Ivy reader Richard Makin's novel Mourning has been nominated for The Guardian newspaper's annual Not-the-Booker prize. Readers are invited to vote for two books on the list; here's a link to the relevant page on The Guardian's website if you want to vote for any of the novels listed:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/27/the-magnificent-70-guardian-not-the-booker-prize-longlist-announced
Equus Press recently posted an interview with Richard Makin about his book, Mourning, which may be of interest:

SEEKING A Sept 28-Oct 2nd WORKSHOP?
Cecilia Woloch Fall Paris Writers Workshop:

Writers working at all levels, in all genres, are invited to join poet, novelist and memoirist Cecilia Woloch in Paris, France, for an intensive, intimate 5-day workshop. Come to focus the lens through which you see the world, to experiment with ways to translate your experiences and perceptions into language, to move your passion onto the page and to give it form.
 The workshop will meet in the private upstairs room of the Café de la Mairie, in the 3rd arrondisment of Paris, for four hours each afternoon. There will be time for discussion of literary models, exploration of themes and approaches used in those models, inspiring generative writing exercises, time to write and then share your work for constructive feedback and suggestions for further development.
 
Each workshop participant will generate a body of new writing over the course of the workshop and receive guidance toward bringing that work to fruition.
 
Whether you’re at the beginning of a new writing project or already immersed in a work-in-progress, the workshop will offer tools for keeping your creative juices flowing, keeping the inner critic at bay, and keeping your writing on track. We’ll end each afternoon with an “apero” (coffee or tea or cocktail) and informal literary salon, joined by writers and artists from the Paris community.
 
The workshop is limited to 12 participants and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. The workshop fee includes hand-outs and a half-hour private consultation with Cecilia. For further information or to enroll, contact Cecilia at: ceciwo@aol.com OR
 
September 28 – Oct. 2, 2015
Café de la Mairie
51 rue de Bretagne
75003 Paris
Fee: $650

About Cecilia Woloch:
 
Cecilia Woloch is a poet, writer, teacher, and traveler based in Los Angeles but "on the road" across the US and Europe six months each year. She has published essays, reviews and six award-winning collections of poems—most recently Earth (Two Sylvias Press, 2015) and Carpathia (BOA Editions, 2009). Her second collection, Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem, was published in French translation (Tzigane, le poème, Gitan, Scribe-l'Harmattan, 2014) and has been adapted for multi-media performances in the U.S. and Europe. A novel, Sur la Route, was published by Quale Press in 2015. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, Chateau de La Napoule Retreat for Artists, CEC/ArstLink International and the Center for International Theatre Development. She collaborates regularly with musicians, dancers, visual artists, theater artists and filmmakers, and conducts workshops for writers around the world. The founding director of Summer Poetry in Idyllwild, The Istanbul Poetry Workshop and The Paris Poetry Workshop, she has also served on the faculties of a number of graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs.
 
About the evolution of Sur la Route, Cecilia says: The manuscript began with journal entries I made in the mid-1990’s during an extended stay in Paris; I began turning some of the journal entries into prose-poems, then linking the prose-poems into a narrative; over time, the prose poems became more like vignettes and scenes, and took on some of the attributes of fiction, and the manuscript grew until it was novel-length. When it was published, I was as surprised as anyone that I’d written a novel. Although I work in a fairly disciplined way, writing at least a little every day, I’m always surprised by the writing process and by the fruit it bears. I think a writer needs both what Adrienne Rich called a “wild patience” and a wild impatience for getting things down and keeping them moving forward.
 
 
Feedbackp from workshop participants:
 
Eve Hoffman: “In Cecilia Woloch’s workshops you work hard in the amazing safe space she creates. I continue to learn about clarity, craft, content. I learn about me. In the end I am always simultaneously energized and exhausted. That’s why I keep coming back. “
 
Anastassia Politi: “Cecilia invites us to concentrate on the essential.”