Literary Paris- March 2015

Literary Paris Calendar March 2015

PART I: Reading and events

PART II: Writing and other workshops in Paris

PART III: Calls for work, new book and publication releases, submission requests

PART I: EVENTS

Monday 2 March; 20h30; Spoken Word Open Mic; Theme: Questions and Answers

Au Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud 75011. Métro Parmentier/Couronnes. Sign up 8pm to 9.30pm in the bar. Poetics start from 8.30pm underground.

Monday 2 March @ 19h; Shakespeare and Company presents… Deni Béchard on Empty Hands, Open Arms: The Race to Save Bonobos in the Congo and Make Conservation Go Viral; When acclaimed author and journalist Deni Béchard learned of the last living bonobos—matriarchal great apes that are, alongside chimpanzees, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom—he was astonished. How could we accept the disappearance of this majestic species, along with the Congo rainforest it calls home? The Congo has been devastated by war and aggressive resource extraction, and its people are often skeptical of foreign intervention. But Deni Béchard’s moving account reminds us that poverty does not equate to ignorance, that change requires more than wealth and power, and that only through collaboration can we make conservation go viral.

He will explain his decision to write a book about environmental issues within the larger context of his work as a novelist and journalist. In his introduction, he will touch upon his novel Vandal Love, which won the Commonwealth Writers' PRIZE, and Cures for Hunger, a memoir about his father who robbed banks. He will then discuss his most recent book about bonobo conservation in the Congo.

Deni Béchard has traveled in over fifty countries and reported from India, Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Northern Iraq. He has written for a wide range of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Outside, and Salon.com.

Shakespeare and Co. 37 rue de la Bucherie

Wednesday 4 March; 20h; Spoken Word 2: Open Secret; Hosted by David Sirois; Bistrot 82, 82 rue des Martyrs, Montmartre. Metro Pigalle or Abbesses

Wednesday 4 March @ 19h30; The American Library in Paris presents… Evenings with an Author: Dana Thomas, Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano; Dana Thomas returns to the Library to present her latest book. In February 2011, John Galliano, the lauded head of Christian Dior, imploded with a drunken, anti-Semitic public tirade. Exactly a year earlier, celebrated designer Alexander McQueen tookhis own life three weeks before his women’s wear show. Both were casualties of the war between art and commerce that has raged within fashion for the last two decades. BIO: In addition to her latest book, Dana Thomas is the author of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, published by The Penguin Press in 2007. She began her career writing for the Style section of The Washington Post in Washington, D.C. and from 1995 to 2008, she served as the European cultural and fashion correspondent for Newsweek in Paris. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Los Angeles Times and Financial Times in London and serves as the Paris correspondent for Australian Harper's Bazaar. Thomas is a member of the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris and the Overseas Press Club. She taught journalism at The American University of Paris from 1996 to 1999. In 1987, she received the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation Scholarship and the Ellis Haller Award for Outstanding Achievement in Journalism.

American Library in Paris; 10 rue du Général Camou, 75007                     

Thursday 5 March; 20-23h55; PLU Open Mic Featuring Julian Feeld; As special treat for our weekly Open Mic shenanigans, we have multinational author, artist and DJ, Julian Feeld! BIO: Julian Feeld, born in Montevideo, Uruguay, grew up travelling between Switzerland, France, New Jersey, Venezuela, and Brazil. After studying FILM at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, he immediately moved to Paris, where he founded the deBonton music label, infamous for its nude happenings. (inside the fountain of the Place de la Concorde, in the Paris metro, etc.)

His first novel, Even the Red Heron is a visceral portrait of a psychologically dysfunctional family living in Venezuela before its financial collapse, and was launched in 2014 in Brooklyn, London, and Los Angeles through an illegal street art campaign. Julian recently finished his second book, And We Came To Find It Beautiful, and has created several series of photos and film INSTALLATION pieces in his distinct “physical” style. His first movie (created in collaboration with artist Mathilde Huron), SOIL, is slated for release early next year.

Culture Rapide, 103 Rue Julien Lacroix, 75020 Paris

Thursday 5 March @ 19h; Shakespeare and Company presents… Philosophers in the Library with Kevin Kennedy on Georges Bataille; For most of the 20th century, the French writer Georges Bataille (1897-1962) remained on the margins of the philosophical and literary mainstream. The recent decades, however—especially in Britain and the United States—have seen a growing interest in Bataille’s work, not least inspired by his position as a preeminent precursor of poststructuralism. This talk will provide an introduction to some of Bataille's most influential ideas, such as sovereignty, general economy, and transgression, with a particular focus on his theory of art and literature. BIO: Kevin Kennedy is a Paris-based lecturer and translator. His first book Towards an Aesthetic Sovereignty: Georges Bataille's Theory of Art and Literature was published in 2013.

Shakespeare and Co. 37 rue de la Bucherie

Friday 6 March; 20h-5h The Poetry Brothel is back!

The Poetry Brothel is bilingual interactive poetry experience set up as a decadent fin de siècle brothel. In this Maison Close, clients can approach poetry whores (man and women, local and international) and in exchange for money (tokens) buy intimate private readings in candlelit back rooms. This time our venue is really unusual: Le Fabuleux Cabinet des Curiosité, in the ancient cellars and dungeons of Les Caves Saint Sabin, 50 rue Saint-Sabin Paris. Metro: Bastille.

Of course, any true brothel needs a good cover: live music, burlesque performances, vaudeville, fortune tellers and other related acts. Doors open at 8pm. The show begins promptly at 9pm.

Meet our new selection of Poetry Whores, our burlesque stars: Sucre d’Orge, Soa de Muse, and Velena Rossa and our DJs: DJ Elo until 1am and DJ Atomstaub until 5pm.

Tickets are €15 online (€14 if you share the event on Facebook/Twitter) or €20 at the door. The price of admission includes one free drink.

The theme is: Bestiary so wear your claws, tails, fur, fangs and feathers and dance all night long.

https://www.facebook.com/events/783614868399373

http://www.lebordeldelapoesie.com/

Le Bordel de la Poesie: Bestiaire

50 Rue Saint-Sabin, Paris.

Friday 6 March @ 15h30-18h“Conceptualisms” Seminar #13 with US poet, artist and critic Marjorie WELISH; Organized by Vincent BROQUA and Brigitte FÉLIX for EA1569 (“Transferts critiques et dynamique des savoirs”, Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis), and Hélène AJI for ELAN (CREA, EA 370, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) with the support of Université Paris-Lumières.

The seminar will be followed by a Double Change reading :Marjorie Welish will read with Canadian poet Nicole Brossard and French poet Jean Frémon at 8 pm (Fondation des Etats-Unis, 15 Boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris). See  www.doublechange.org BIO: Marjorie Welish is the author of In the Futurity Lounge / Asylum for Indeterminacy (2012). Other poetry books are Isle of the Signatories (2008), Word Group (2004), and The Annotated 'Here' and Selected Poems (2000). With a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellowship, she taught seminars in art criticism at the University of Frankfurt in 2009. Of the Diagram: The Work of Marjorie Welish (Slought, 2003) is the 300-page conference book on the complete range of her practice in art and literature, at the University of Pennsylvania, 2002. A second conference on her poetry, art and critical practice was organized by Poets and Critics in Paris in 2013. Her art often constructs work and image, as in Oaths? Questions? (Granary Books, 2009), and Push Bar to Open, a movie incorporating her art in relation to site. Her art criticism may be found in Signifying Art: Essays on art after 1960 (1999). She is the Madelon Leventhal Rand Distinguished Lecturer in Literature, Brooklyn College.

Université de Paris 8

Room #B313

Monday 9 March @ 19h; Shakespeare and Company presents… Tansy Hoskins on Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion; Tansy Hoskins dissects fashion’s vampiric relationship with the planet and with our bodies to uncover what makes it so damaging. Why does ‘size zero’ exist and what is the reality of working life for models? In a critique of the portrayal of race in fashion, the book also examines the global balance of power in the industry.

Beautifully illustrated with specially commissioned designs, Stitched Up ultimately explores the use of clothing to resist. Can you shock an industry that loves to shock? Is ‘green fashion’ an alternative? Stitched Up provides a unique critical examination of contemporary culture and the distorting priorities of capitalism.

Tansy Hoskins is a writer, journalist, and activist. She has worked for the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and the Islam Channel. She writes for the Guardian and Business of Fashion, and has appeared on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and Channel 4's Ten O'Clock Live. Stitched Up won the ICA Bookshop's Book of the Year 2014.

Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005

Wednesday 11 March; 20h; Spoken Word 2: Open Secret; Hosted by David Sirois; Bistrot 82, 82 rue des Martyrs, Montmartre. Metro Pigalle or Abbesses

Wednesday 11 March @ 19h30; The American Library in Paris presents… Evenings with an Author-Musician: Ben Watt, Patient and Romany and Tom; Ben Watt, of the British music duo Everything But the Girl, speaks about his award-winning memoirs Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness and Romany and Tom, as well as his life as a popular musician. This is a rare opportunity to hear from a notable pop culture figure going back three decades.

The evening will be in the form of a conversation with Library programs manager Grant Rosenberg, discussing the expanse of his eclectic career in music and writing.

Watt's frank memoir Patient was praised by The New Yorker for its "quiet elegance and ringing epiphanic lyricism. Watt's writing shares these qualities and his book is a nearly flawless telling of his unexpected and drawn-out battle.”

His most recent book, Romany and Tom, a memoir of his parents' lives, was nominated for the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize.

American Library in Paris; 10 rue du Général Camou, 75007       

Thursday 12 March @ 16h30-18h30; “Conceptualisms” Seminar # 14 with US poet Elizabeth WILLIS; Organized by Hélène AJI for ELAN (CREA, EA 370, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense) in collaboration with Vincent BROQUA and Brigitte FÉLIX for "Transferts Critiques et dynamique des savoirs" (EA1569, Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) with the support of Université Paris-Lumières. BIO: Elizabeth Willis is the author of five books of poetry: Address (Wesleyan, 2011), Meteoric Flowers (Wesleyan, 2006), Turneresque (Burning Deck, 2003), The Human Abstract (Penguin, 1995), and Second Law (Avenue B, 1993). She has also edited a volume of essays entitled Radical Vernacular: Lorine Niedecker and the Poetics of Place (University of Iowa Press, 2008). Her New and Selected Poems is forthcoming from New York Review Books in 2015. A recent Guggenheim fellow, Willis is Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing at Wesleyan University. Links to online publications may be found at www.elizabethwillis.net

Université Paris Ouest Nanterre

Bibiothèque Lawrence Durrell (Bâtiment V, salle V230)

Thursday 12 March @ 20h-23h55; PLU Open Mic Featuring James Navé; PLU Open Mic this week welcomes a special guest and longtime friend, all at the way from the good ol’ US of A, James Navé! BIO: For over twenty-five years, poet, public speaker, creative strategist, and arts entrepreneur James Navé has spent his time working globally as a facilitator and presenter in workshops, assembly programs, conferences, salons, and creativity coaching situations. He is one of the pioneers of the spoken word movement having Co-founded Poetry Alive!, a theater company, which has performed poetry for over ten million students (K-12) throughout America. He and author Julia Cameron founded The Artist’s Way Creativity Camp in Taos, NM. He is involved in some of the country’s longest running poetry and arts events, including The Lake Arts Festival, where he has been Poetry Director and Slammaster for twenty years; TEDxNewYork Salons, where he PARTICIPATES as an organizing member and facilitator; The louder ARTS Project in New York, where he serves as an advisory board member; and the Taos Poetry Festival, of which he is Festival Director.

Culture Rapide, 103 Rue Julien Lacroix, 75020 Paris

Sunday 15 March; 19h30; Moving Parts Script Reading: Yoga by Michael Elias

Carr’s Pub and Restaurant; 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris; Metro : Tuileries

Monday 16 March @19h; Shakespeare and Company presents… Cecilia Ekbäck on Wolf Winter; There are six homesteads on Blackasen Mountain. A day's journey away lies the empty town. It comes to life just once, in winter, when the Church summons her people through the snows. Then, even the oldest enemies will gather. But now it is summer, and new SETTLERS are come.

It is their two young daughters who find the dead man, not half an hour's walk from their cottage. The father is away. And whether stubborn, or stupid, or scared for her girls, the mother will not let it rest. To the wife who is not concerned when her husband does not come home for three days; to the man who laughs when he hears his brother is dead; to the priest who doesn't care; she asks and asks her questions, digging at the secrets of the mountain… They say a wolf made those wounds. But what wild animal cuts a body so clean?

Cecilia Ekbäck was born in Sweden in a small northern town. Her parents come from Lapland. Over twenty years, her work for a multinational took her to Russia, Germany, France, Portugal, the Middle East, and the UK. In 2010, she finished a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway. She now lives in Calgary with her husband and twin daughters, 'returning home' to the landscape and the characters of her childhood in her writing.

Shakespeare and Co. 37 rue de la Bucherie

Tuesday 17 March @ 19h30; The American Library in Paris presents… Panel Discussion: Graphic Novels with Laurent Seksik and Jason Rodriguez; Comic books and graphic novels have become an important force in serious literary culture and storytelling. Two comic book writers, Jason Rodriguez (Colonial Comics, Once Upon a Time Machine) and Laurent Seksik (The Last Days of Stefan Zweig, Modigliani), join us in a panel discussion about their work and the power of visual storytelling and the exploration of history.

American Library in Paris; 10 rue du Général Camou, 75007                     

Tuesday 17 March; 19h30; Poets Live presents Elizabeth Willis, Eugene Ostashevsky and Alberto Rigettini; Bios: Elizabeth Willis is the author of Alive: New and Selected Poems, forthcoming from New York Review Books in April 2015. Her other books of poetry include Address (Wesleyan, 2011); Meteoric Flowers (Wesleyan, 2006); Turneresque (Burning Deck, 2003); and The Human Abstract (Penguin, 1995), a National Poetry Series selection. Her critical work includes the editing of Radical Vernacular: Lorine Niedecker and the Poetics of Place (University of Iowa Press, 2008). Recipient of the PEN New England Prize and a recent Guggenheim fellow in poetry, she teaches at Wesleyan University and is in residence this week at Paris X Nanterre. Eugene Ostashevsky is a Russian-American poet and translator currently teaching at New York University in Paris. He is the author of two books and ten chapbooks of poetry, most notably The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza, published by Ugly Duckling Presse. His writing (samples on lyrikline.org) is characterized by multilingual punning, humor puerile and set-theoretical, philosophical depth and narratological dysfunction. He might, or might not, read from his new manuscript The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi. He has had his librettos for contemporary classical music performed in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. Alberto Rigettini, Italian, is a poet, playwright, screenwriter, poetry pimp and freak-show barker. He is host of “Spoken Word Paris”, the fight club “Writers Get Violent” and “The Poetry Brothel in Paris”. He has been awarded The Lorca in Translation Competition, the Troubadour International Poetry Prize and his writing is included in the anthology Strangers in Paris: New Writing Inspired by the City of Light. He is currently writing a poetry collection in 5 settings: London, Spain, Italy, U.S. and France. In this special challenge for Poets Live, entitled “Whadda Hell? or The Divine Comedy for Dummies” he'll invite you to enter the Inferno, 5 ^th Canto, 2 ^nd circle, also known as the circle of lust. May you all burn in the flames of Hell!

Berkeley Books of Paris, 8 rue Casimir Delavigne, 75006 Paris

Métro: Odéon

Wednesday 18 March; 20h; Spoken Word 2: Open Secret; Hosted by David Sirois; Bistrot 82, 82 rue des Martyrs, Montmartre. Metro Pigalle or Abbesses

Thursday 19 March @ 20h-23h55; PLU Open Mic featuring Stephanie Papa; Poetry, prose, music, dance: CONTINUING our weekly Open Mic adventure with an international Parisian writer, Stephanie Papa! Sing up is free and open to all, starting at 20h. BIO: Stephanie Papa is a writer and teacher living in Paris, France. She is originally from Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in the Prose Poetry Project and 5×5 magazine, Rumpus, and Cerise Press. She is a Poetry Editor for Her Royal Majesty magazine. She also organizes the Writers on Writing program, a series of readings with international writers in Paris.

Culture Rapide, 103 Rue Julien Lacroix, 75020 Paris

Friday 20 March @ 19h; Shakespeare and Company presents… Poetry in the Library with Jack Hirschman; Jack's published volumes of poetry include Black Alephs, Lyripol, The Bottom Line, and Endless Threshold. In 2006, he published his most extensive collection yet, The Arcanes, which contains 126 long poems spanning 34 years. In that same year, Hirschman was appointed Poet Laureate of San Francisco. He is also an assistant editor at the left-wing literary journal Left Curve and a correspondent for The People's Tribune. Jack Hirschman is currently Poet-in-Residence at The Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

Shakespeare and Co. 37 rue de la Bucherie

Saturday 21 March @ 14-15h; The American Library in Paris presents… Writers and their Heroes: a literary discussion with Jake Lamar; Between 1940 and 1952, four major African American authors each published a landmark first novel. In Native Son, Richard Wright created Bigger Thomas, an amoral Chicago hoodlum. James Baldwin, in Go Tell It on the Mountain, told much of his family saga through the eyes of a sensitive adolescent in Harlem. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is narrated by a nameless protagonist who struggles to be a role model in both the segregationist South and the complicated North. The hero of Chester Himes's If He Hollers, Let Him Go is an ornery, fiercely independent foreman in a Los Angeles naval shipyard. During this literary discussion we'll take a close look at the protagonists of these four novels. How does each lead character incarnate the vision of his author? How are the racial and social questions of mid-twentieth century America illuminated by the experiences of these protagonists? To what extent do they succeed or fail as literary creations?

American Library in Paris; 10 rue du Général Camou, 75007                     

Wednesday 25 March @ 19h30; The American Library in Paris presents… Evening with an Author: Mai Al-Nakib, The Hidden Light of Objects; The headlines tell of war, unrest, and religious clashes.  But if you look beyond them you may see another side of life in the Middle East—adolescent love, yearnings for independence, the fragility of marriage, pain of the most quotidian kind. Mai Al-Nakib’s short stories carefully trace overlooked moments in the lives of those who reside in this fraught region of the world—and the power of objects to hold extraordinary memories.  The Hidden Light of Objects (Bloomsbury 2014) has been described by Hanan Al-Shaykh as expressing “the poetry of the heart” with “the eye of the hawk” and by A. Manette Ansay as “the most original first collection of short fiction [she has] read in years.”

American Library in Paris; 10 rue du Général Camou, 75007                     

Wednesday 25 March; 20h; Spoken Word 2: Open Secret; Hosted by David Sirois; Bistrot 82, 82 rue des Martyrs, Montmartre. Metro Pigalle or Abbesses

Thursday 26 March @ 19h; Shakespeare and Company presents… Emily St. John Mandel on Station Eleven; DAY ONE: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. WEEK TWO: Civilization has crumbled. YEAR TWENTY: A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and he threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.

STATION ELEVEN: Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: famous actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan — warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend Clark; Kirsten, a young actress with the Travelling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed 'prophet'. Thrilling, unique and deeply moving, this is a beautiful novel that asks questions about art and fame and about the relationships that sustain us through anything — even the end of the world.

Emily St. John Mandel was born and raised on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. Her fourth novel, Station Eleven, was a 2014 National Book Award Finalist. All four of her novels—previous books were Last Night in Montreal, The Singer's Gun, and The Lola Quartet—were Indie Next Picks, and The Singer's Gun was the 2014 WINNER of the Prix Mystère de la Critique in France. Her short fiction and essays have been anthologized in numerous collections, including Best American Mystery Stories 2013. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Shakespeare and Co. 37 rue de la Bucherie

Thursday 26 March @ 20h-23h55; PLU Open Mic featuring Evan LaFlamme; Evan Laflamme is an inspired artist, performer, producer and composer looking to continue developing his skills while collaborating with other musicians and writers. His favorite instruments to play are saxophone and guitar and he also has a few composition degrees. He considers himself a permanent student of music. Over the past year he’s parted from a full-time role as an educator in order to fully immerse in writing, producing and performing. During this time he’s catalogued and published over 50 cues for television and FILM, both independently and in collaboration with other producers. As a performer, he’s been featured as a saxophonist, fluter and guitarist under a couple different record labels, while CONTINUALLY working to expand his network with other musicians and writers. He’s also released an EP featuring work with some incredible artists. In addition to that, he’s had the privilege of producing a few projects for other friends and artists, not only around Boston but also internationally in Paris and London.

Culture Rapide, 103 Rue Julien Lacroix, 75020 Paris

Sunday 29 March; 19h30; Moving Parts Script Reading: Two One-Act Plays by Deirdre Ruth Ryan

Carr’s Pub and Restaurant; 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris; Metro : Tuileries

Monday 30 March @ 19h; Shakespeare and Company presents… Maggie Gee on Virginia Woolf in Manhattan; Bestselling author Angela Lamb is going through a mid-life crisis. She dumps her irrepressible daughter Gerda at boarding school and flies to New York to pursue her passion for Woolf, whose manuscripts are held in a private collection. When a bedraggled Virginia Woolf herself materialises among the bookshelves and is promptly evicted, Angela, stunned, rushes after her on to the streets of Manhattan. Soon she is chaperoning her troublesome heroine as Virginia tries to understand the internet and scams bookshops with ‘rare signed editions’. Then Virginia insists on flying with Angela to Istanbul, where she is surprised by love and steals the show at an International Conference on—Virginia Woolf.

Maggie Gee is the author of eleven acclaimed novels, including The White Family (shortlisted for the Orange and IMPAC PRIZES), My Cleaner, and My Driver, and a memoir, My Animal Life. She is a Fellow and Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature, and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her work has been translated into fourteen languages. Maggie Gee was awarded an OBE in 2012 for her services to literature. Virginia Woolf in Manhattan was nominated for the Folio Prize 2015.

Shakespeare and Co. 37 rue de la Bucherie

Tuesday 31 March @ 19h30; The American Library in Paris presents…Evenings with an Author: Eduardo Halfon, The Polish Boxer and Monastery; From programs manager Grant Rosenberg: Last summer I came across a book, Monastère, by Eduardo Halfon, in a French bookstore whose cover intrigued me. It depicted an orthodox Jewish boy in traditional garb. Why was it the image on a book with a title referencing a Christian dwelling? I looked up more information about the book and its author, a bilingual writer born in Guatemala and living in Nebraska. Though Monastery, the English version of Monasterio wasn't yet translated, I immediately read The Polish Boxer and was quite moved by Halfon's simple, compelling prose. The book - exploring cultural and religious identity as well as the complications of attraction, is either a collection of short stories about a central character who shared his name, or it was a novel, or both. When Monastery was released, I read it all well, this continuation of the life of the character from The Polish Boxer, and still only want to read more from him.

American Library in Paris; 10 rue du Général Camou, 75007                     

PART II: WORKSHOPS

Sunday 1 March @ 18h30-20h30; The Other Writers’ Group

An excellent feedback workshop for 6 euros.  Join us afterwards for happy hour at The Gentleman, 1 bis rue Hautefeuille, 75006, behind place St Michel.

Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005

Sunday 7 March @ 15h-17h; PLU Slam Poetry Workshop; We’ve got six months until the 12th Grand Slam National in Paris, and this year Paris Lit Up would like to take our PARTICIPATION one step further by having our own slam team competing. The PLU Slam Team will be coordinated by Megan Bullock. The first meeting will be held on Saturday, January 24th from 3-5pm at Le Centquatre–Paris located 5 rue Curial, Paris 75019. Workshops will then be held every other Saturday until June. Come with a slam, original or not. Since slams are just as much about the delivery as the text, the workshops will focus on both production/editing and expression/performance. Anyone who has interest in slam or spoken word poetry is invited to the workshops, though the ultimate goal is to form a PLU slam team to perform at the 2015 Grand Slam.

Donations of 3€ to support the team will be gladly accepted.

Check out the website for the Grand Slam 2014 here: http://www.grandslam2014.com/

Le Centquatre-Paris; 5 rue Curial, Paris, Ile-de-france 75019

Sunday 8 March @ 18h30-20h30; The Other Writers’ Group

An excellent feedback workshop for 6 euros.  Join us afterwards for happy hour at The Gentleman, 1 bis rue Hautefeuille, 75006, behind place St Michel.

Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005

Saturday 14 March @ 15h-17h; PLU Drop-In Writing Workshop; Are you a writer? Have you written something that needs fresh eyes? Want some feedback on your work? Paris Lit Up has weekly Drop-in Writing Workshop. This feedback workshop is for any writer – poetry or prose – looking for eagle-eye editing and constructive group criticism of their work. The workshop is held every other Saturday afternoon.

3€ donation

L’Autre Café, 62 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud (métro Parmentier)

Sunday 15 March @ 18h30-20h30; The Other Writers’ Group

An excellent feedback workshop for 6 euros.  Join us afterwards for happy hour at The Gentleman, 1 bis rue Hautefeuille, 75006, behind place St Michel.

Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005

Sunday 21 March @ 15h-17h; PLU Slam Poetry Workshop; We’ve got six months until the 12th Grand Slam National in Paris, and this year Paris Lit Up would like to take our PARTICIPATION one step further by having our own slam team competing. The PLU Slam Team will be coordinated by Megan Bullock. The first meeting will be held on Saturday, January 24th from 3-5pm at Le Centquatre–Paris located 5 rue Curial, Paris 75019. Workshops will then be held every other Saturday until June. Come with a slam, original or not. Since slams are just as much about the delivery as the text, the workshops will focus on both production/editing and expression/performance. Anyone who has interest in slam or spoken word poetry is invited to the workshops, though the ultimate goal is to form a PLU slam team to perform at the 2015 Grand Slam.

Donations of 3€ to support the team will be gladly accepted.

Check out the website for the Grand Slam 2014 here: http://www.grandslam2014.com/

Le Centquatre-Paris; 5 rue Curial, Paris, Ile-de-france 75019

Sunday 22 March @ 18h30-20h30; The Other Writers’ Group

An excellent feedback workshop for 6 euros.  Join us afterwards for happy hour at The Gentleman, 1 bis rue Hautefeuille, 75006, behind place St Michel.

Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005

Saturday 28 March @ 15h-17h; PLU Drop-In Writing Workshop; Are you a writer? Have you written something that needs fresh eyes? Want some feedback on your work? Paris Lit Up has weekly Drop-in Writing Workshop. This feedback workshop is for any writer – poetry or prose – looking for eagle-eye editing and constructive group criticism of their work. The workshop is held every other Saturday afternoon.

3€ donation

L’Autre Café, 62 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud (métro Parmentier)

Sunday 29 March @ 18h30-20h30; The Other Writers’ Group

An excellent feedback workshop for 6 euros.  Join us afterwards for happy hour at The Gentleman, 1 bis rue Hautefeuille, 75006, behind place St Michel.

Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005

Friday 10 April-12 April; Sign up for a Creative Writing Weekend in Paris!

A weekend of prose and poetry workshops on the Canal St Martin bookshop/boat!

Venue: Péniche Librairie L'eau et Les Rêves, Quai de l'Oise, 75019

Continuing the series of workshops begun in Amsterdam in 2009 (Amsterdam, Oxford, London, Lancaster, Zurich), led by experienced writers and teachers of writing, Amal Chatterjee and Jane Draycott invite you to the Péniche Librairie L’eau et Les Rêves, the floating bookshop on the Canal St. Martin.

Instructors: Amal Chatterjee, novelist and historian, and Jane Draycott, poet

Weekend Schedule:

Friday, 10th April: 10.30 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.

Saturday, 11th April: 10.30 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.

Sunday, 12th April: 10.30 a.m. - 1.30 p.m.

Day 1, the fiction workshop with Amal, will focus on elements like description, dialogue, themes and plots, exploring how these can be realised and developed.

Participants can choose to start on a new piece or to improve one they have.

Day 2, the poetry writing workshop with Jane, will be a day of informal and fun writing exercises (no requirement to read out what you're experimenting with!) aimed at producing first drafts for new poems in a supportive atmosphere

Day 3 will be a session of reading the new work and commentary by participants

The course fee is €250, not including optional get-togethers and meals.

All welcome, whether novice or experienced.

SPACE IS LIMITED

Email writing@tomali.net for further details and to reserve a place.

PART III: REVIEWS, RELEASES, SUBMISSIONS

Monmartre Dionysia Calls for Plays! *Competition closes March 31^st*

We're happy to announce that we're now accepting entries for the next Montmartre Dionysia: Fire For Yourself To Burn.

The Montmartre Dionysia is a showcase of original English-language theatre in Paris. Twice a year, playwrights, directors, actors, volunteers, and theatre-lovers meet for a week-long celebration of new theatre — all together, ten new plays performed over the course of six days. 

But the Montmartre Dionysia is, at heart, a competition, and it is for this competition that we're now looking for entries. Send us your 16-25 minute play for two or more actors by the 31st of March, and you'll have a chance to see your play produced in the festival, where all of the four selected plays will compete for the Best Play and Best Actor (competition) prizes.

Entries must be 16-25 minutes in length; for two or more actors; sent to submissions@montmartredionysia.com by 31st of October; and must otherwise follow the guidelines found on the Montmartre Dionysia's website.

Release of DIAGRAM 15.1!

We are writing here to alert you to the new issue of DIAGRAM, 15.1, has just been released! Find it online here. Or just click the links below to go direct. The new issue features:

TEXT & IMAGE >>> Scott Russell Duncan, Ryan Flanagan, Emma Grimsley, Charles Hood, Shane Jones, Brandon Krieg, Gary L. McDowell, Bryan Reid, Kathleen Rooney, Richard Siken, Chaulky White, and Brooke Juliet Wonders

REVIEWS >>> Kim Parko on Emily Kendal Frey, Allie Leach on Kerry Howley and Cameron Conaway, Andie Francis on Melanie Jordan, and On Chaulky White.

SCHEMATICS >>> Key Stumps, Map of Transport Isotims Showing Theoretical Line of Indifference and Actual Areas and Points of Indifference in the Landed Cost of Products of Two Competing Companies Operating Under F.O.B. Origin or Individual Delivered Pricing Policies, Positive Correlations Between Plant Species in Grassland, Forming a Constellation, Schematic Diagram of the EMMA-4 Instrument for Combined Electron Microscopy and Microanalysis, Stump Points are Usually the Best and in Lakes with a Current, the "Up-Current" Point is Better, and The Use of Permanent Quadrats to Show the Change of Abundance of Festuca (shaded) and Hieracium (H) in enclosed (A) and control (B) plots.

The bi-monthly publication, Belleville Park Pages, calls for writers!             Submission Mission: The Pages are focused on supporting the growth of writers from around the world. We publish all forms: poetry, short stories, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, essays, etc. Submissions will be considered for both print and online publication. Submit your work to: words@bellevilleparkpages.com     Stop by http://www.bellevilleparkpages.com for more information and to find a Pages vendor near you!