Archive for August 27th, 2014
Beat Poetry Festival Workshops with Chuck Taylor and Christopher Carmona
What: Dallas is the site of the 2014 Beat Poetry Festival. In conjunction with this free featival, WordSpace sponsors Chuck Taylor’s Memoir workshop and Christopher Carmona’s poetics workshop.
Where: Lucky Dog Books, 633 W. Davis St.
When: The festival begins on Thursday, November 6 and runs through Saturday night, November 8. The workshops are 10-12 for Memoir, and 12-2 for Poetry. Both workshops are free.
Registration for the festival is open until October 16th and more information can be found here. More coming on venues and readers for this beatific festival coming soon.
The Beat Poetry Festival was founded by a group of Texas poets, inpsired by the movement made famous by writers like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, The 4th Annual Beat Poetry Festival will be held this year in Dallas, TX on Nov. 6-8. Organizers Christopher Carmona and Chuck Taylor will be offering workshops.
Christopher Carmona was a nominee for the Alfredo Cisneros de Miral Foundation Award for Writers in 2011 and a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2013. He has been published in numerous journals and magazines including Trickster Literary Journal, Interstice, vandal., Bordersenses, the Sagebrush Review, and tecolote. His first collection of poetry called beat was published by Slough Press and his second book, I Have Always Been Here is published by Otras Voces Press. He is also editing a Beat Texas anthology called The Beatest State In The Union: An Anthology of Beat Texas Writings with Chuck Taylor and Rob Johnson and is working on a book called Nuev@s Voces Poeticas: A Dialogue about New Chican@ Poetics with Isaac Chavarria, Gabriel Sanchez, & Rossy Lima Padilla to be published by University of New Mexico Press in 2015. Currently he is the organizer of the Annual Beat Poetry and Arts Festival and the Artistic Director of the Coalition of New Chican@ Artists. Visit his website here.
Chuck Taylor is a Texas Yankee reared in Texas, Minnesota, Illinois, and North Carolina, won the Austin Book Award for his collection, What Do You Want, Blood? He has worked in the Poets- in-the-Schools program, been a CETA poet in Salt Lake City, operated a used bookstore, worked in the laundry of a hospital, labored for the Terrill State Mental Hospital and the Texas School for the Deaf, owned a small press, and is the former Coordinator of Creative Writing at Texas A&M University. Conversations with the poet Lucien Stryk in 1967 stimulated his interest in Asian culture and he was able to work and study in Japan from 1991-94. Married three times, he has three children, three stepchildren, and six grandchildren. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including most recently, Like Li-Po Laughing at the Lonely Moon (Pecan Grove, 2008).
Vievee Francis
What: Vievee Francis at The SDCC
When: April 23, 7 pm
Where: South Dallas Cultural Center, 3400 Fitzhugh
VIP Reception: 6:30-7:30, Refreshments provided by Buttons!
Master Class Enrollment is limited. To apply go here.
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED FOR MASTER CLASS
WordSpace is honored to partner with South Dallas Cultural Center to present great writers in conjunction with their theater series “Black Pain Black Power”.
Vievee Francis is the author of Horse in the Dark (Northwestern University Press, 2012), which won the Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for a second collection, and Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University, 2006). Her third book, Forest Primeval, is slated for release in 2015 (Northwestern University Press). Her work has appeared in numerous print and online journals, textbooks, and anthologies including Poetry, Best American Poetry, Cura, Waxwing and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry (W.W. Norton 2012). She has also been a Poet in Residence for the Alice Lloyd Scholars Program at the University of Michigan. In 2009 she received a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award and in 2010, a Kresge Fellowship. She is currently an Associate Editor for Callaloo, and a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing (Undergraduate Creative Writing Program) at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC.
Member Salon with John Slate
John H. Slate is the archivist for the City of Dallas, where he is responsible for historic city government records in the Dallas Municipal Archives. Slate is the author of “Lost Austin,” a recently published book in the “Images of America” series. “Lost Austin” records some of the city’s rich and unique history and most of the images depicted in the book are of seminal Austin places and institutions that no longer exist but that played an important role in shaping Austin’s special character. He is also the author of “Historic Dallas Parks” and “Dealey Plaza.”
Mitchell S. Jackson
When: February 6, 7:30 pm
Where: South Dallas Cultural Center, 3400 Fitzhugh
VIP Reception: 6:30-7:30, Refreshments provided by Buttons!
More Info: WordSpace@WordSpace.us
Mitchell S. Jackson is a Portland, Oregon native who lives in Brooklyn, New York. He received an M.A. in writing from Portland State University and an M.F.A in Creative Writing from New York University. He has been the recipient of fellowships from Urban Artist Initiative and The Center For Fiction and is the former winner of the Hurston Wright Foundation’s award for college writers. Jackson teaches writing at New York University. He published the e-book Oversoul: Stories and Essays in the summer of 2012. His novel The Residue Years was released in the summer of 2013 and was praised by publications such as The New York Times, The Times of London, and O, the Oprah Magazine. The novel was a finalist for the Center For Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First novel prize, the PEN/ Hemingway award for first fiction, The Hurston / Wright Legacy Award for best fiction by a writer of African descent; it was long-listed for the William Saroyan International Prize for writing and the Chautauqua Prize. As well, it was named an “Honor Book” by the BCALA
WordSpace is honored to partner with South Dallas Cultural Center to present great writers in conjunction with their theater series “Black Pain Black Power”.
About South Dallas Cultural Center:
 With everything from classes for the education-minded to finger-poppin’ jazz jams for the young and the old hipsters, the SDCC, located just outside the Fair Park complex, is a community resource for all Dallas residents. With a wide variety of programs inspired by the vibrancy and diversity of the African Diaspora, the SDCC seeks to educate and inspire through the visual, media, literary and performing arts.Join the South Dallas Cultural Center on facebook and sign up to receive our e-newsletter! |
About Buttons: 15207 ADDISON ROAD, Addison, Texas, 972.503.2888
Buttons is built around the idea that the ‘love of great food’ and ‘music’ are universal, the idea that diversity is beautiful and that all people have much in common. We strive to offer much more than a plate of great food…we create a great experience.
Buttons has been creating this Vibe since our opening in Fort Worth in 2008. The vision caught on so well in Fort Worth, and so many of our guests were coming all the way from Dallas and Addison, we decided to bring the Vibe to Addison and opened our second location, Buttons Addison there in September of 2009. The response in Addison was overwhelmingly positive and we are grateful that our new location was so readily embraced. We also believed that many of our guests would like a more intimate, supper club feel so we decided to launch the Buttons Jazz Cafe in Desoto in April of 2011. The Jazz Cafe focuses on Chef Hicks’ signature cuisine combined with a more intimate style of musical offerings. We have had requests to expand to numerous other cities and it is our ambition to expand nationally. We have received many awards for our upscale Southern cuisine and for our Live Music, but in many ways we measure our success by our guests. We love being a diverse venue, where people of different backgrounds and races mingle, eat, laugh and dance together. It is our mission to bring that experience around the country, to be a place where our guests have joyful experiences and where people from different backgrounds get to know one another. Chef Keith Hicks is known for his signature upscale Southern menu featuring classics like Chicken and Waffles and Shrimp Fish and Gritz, and Old School Pot Roast. Chef Hicks has made comfort food into an art form and above all we are a restaurant with outstanding food. To help create the ambience we crave, we feature live music in all Buttons locations. Jazz, R&B, Blues and Motown era music are the staples, and most evenings many of our guests are dancing by the end of the night. We have a unique mission for a restaurant, and our staff are the ones who make it a reality. They are passionate about what we stand for as a company and are partners in the movement. They have become the Buttons family. We operate on a few simple principals:
- Create a great experience by serving award winning food accompanied by soulful live music.
- Treat each and every guest like we were inviting them into our homes.
- Show respect for each and every guest and each and every staff member
Those are the guiding lights for Buttons, and while they are few we believe if we follow them we can achieve great things together.
