A Community for Writers

• Thursday Night Workshop and Reading
• Writers Studio Opens Online Gallery
• WS Club News Update
• News About Campus and Town

Thursday Night Workshop and Reading with Poet Jared Smith and Poet/Playwright/Writer Rita Brady Kiefer, October 29th starting at 5:30 p.m. Half Moon, Main ACC Building. Advanced Reservations Required!

Writers Studio is pleased to present an evening of workshops and readings on the ACC campus with two esteemed Colorado writers, Poet Jared Smith and Poet/Playwright/Writer Rita Brady Kiefer.
Workshops begin at 5:30 p.m. Readings begin at 7:30 p.m.

Workshop Descriptions:

EXPLODING THE I/EYE THROUGH LANGUAGE Rita Brady Kiefer

Together we will PLAY with language - tapping into one of many voices inside us - to discover what we are trying to say. As "first among equals" I will stir the waters by suggesting ways to engage with words.

POETRY AND THE LANGUAGE OF IMAGES Jared Smith

Poetry is largely the language of pictures and images. We'll practice writing and critiquing poems to find out what makes certain pictures more memorable or better able to communicate the feeling we want to our readers. Particular attention will be paid to including the "unexpected images" in our poems-the images that make our readers "be there" with us and feel what we feel. We'll also discuss what makes the images of some of our most famous poets so memorable, and how we might adapt their techniques.

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About the Authors

Rita Brady Kiefer, Poet/playwright/creative non-fiction writer, currently directs the Gateway Poetry Program for survivors of domestic violence. Kiefer, Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies, says "It took me half my career to discover there is no such thing as teaching." That realization has shaped her style of facilitating workshops, especially in safehouses where the residents have served as her mentors for over twenty years.

Kiefer's published poetry collections include Nesting Doll (University Press of Colorado), Unveiling (Chicory Blue Press) and Trying on Faces (Monkshood Press). Her work has been solicited by and published in numerous anthologies including Face to Face (Farrar Straus & Giroux/North Point Press). Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, The Connecticut Poetry Review, The Yalobusha Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Bloomsbury Review, Many Mountains Moving, The High Plains Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Southern Poetry Review, Southwest Review, etc.

Her work has received several regional and national awards and she has been recognized internationally, receiving invitations to lecture and deliver poetry readings in Spain and Argentina. Since retiring Kiefer has completed a full-length play and a creative non-fiction manuscript. The play, "My Name Is Not Eve," based on the stories of four battered women, has been performed in Denver at the Acoma Center Theatre and in Grand Junction at Mesa State College Experimental Theatre. Beyond Unveiling, her non-fiction manuscript, combines the work of survivors with her memoir.

About her Poetry: In this important volume of poetry, Rita Kiefer invites us to see the Western world anew through the eyes of "Sister Mailee, a female Jesuit" (15). It's a world invigorated and enriched by the female genius that inhabits it, a genius that speaks from the past and in the present, in spite of the patriarchyand, even, because of it. What we see is a powerfully cohesive collection of personal-confessional poems that explore the psyche of a speaker torn, yet molded, by her past. But the collection is much more than that. It is also an invitation outward to galleries and ecclesiastical histories, one that will result in epiphanies for us as we discover the voices of women too important to be further silenced. Unveiling is Rita Kiefer's Cantos, her Portrait of the Artist, a contemporary literary achievement of great importance.
--Robert M. Hogge

Jared Smith is the author of seven critically-acclaimed volumes of poetry, as well as numerous essays, reviews, and pieces of literary commentary in U.S. and international literary journals. His Selected Longer Poems (1983-2009) is forthcoming from Tamarack Editions next spring, and his ninth volume of poetry, Grassroots, is forthcoming from Wind Publications. His other volumes include: The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations (from Higganum Hill Books and nominated for a Colorado Book Award in 2009;) Where Images Become Imbued With Time (from Puddin'head Books in 2008;) Lake Michigan and Other Poems (Puddin'head Books, 2007;) Walking the Perimeters of the Plate Glass Window Factory (from Birch Brook Press, 2001;) Keeping the Outlaw Alive (Erie Street Press, 1988;) Dark Wing (Charred Norton Publishing, 1984;) and Song of the Blood (The Smith Press, 1983.)

Jared is a member of The New York Quarterly Advisory Board, as well as a past Board Member for that magazine; past Contributing Editor to Home Planet News; two-time Guest Editor of The Pedestal Magazine; and former President of Poets & Patrons. Jared's work has been adapted to stage in New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and in the suburbs of Chicago, and he has appeared several times on NPR and Pacifica radio networks.

He's often been compared to Whitman, but here, where he pays his respects at our collective graves, he puts me more in mind of Blake--not the young one of the Songs, but the darker Blake of the visionary prophecies. I would call this a sad book, but that would not account for how joyous it feels to be reminded that every inch of earth we walk is a sacred bone-heap, and this is now true of our highways and dams and bridges. His elegy grows stronger, more urgent...I'd call him a prophet of doom if it were not for the love that simply aches in every line.
--Diana Hume George

Reservations and Fees:

Workshop and Reading: $15 Donation to the ACC Foundation in Support of the Writers Studio Scholarship Fund.

$5 Donation asked from ACC registered students for Workshop and Reading.
Reservations and payment will be accepted until October 26. No refunds after October 26.
$5 suggested donation for Reading only--no reservations required to attend the reading.
To Make Reservations, please e-mail writerstudio@arapahoe.edu by October 26. Be sure to include the Workshop you wish to attend.

The Writers Studio Opens Online Gallery in Celebration of NCTE's National Day on Writing

In celebration of The National Day on Writing on October, 20, 2009, Writers Studio has created an online gallery at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) website. ACC students, faculty, employees and friends of Writers Studio are welcome to enter one submission to our gallery that relates to "Racial & Ethnic Stereotypes: Fear & Fascination: A Travelling Display from CU Boulder," currently on display at ACC through October 30th.

The CU exhibit is located on the 2nd floor of ACC's main building across from the Student Services Center. The display presents "the history of American racial and ethnic imagery as portrayed in newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and commercial logos. It focuses on depictions of Blacks, Native Americans, Latin Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Eastern Europeans, Italians, Germans and Moslem peoples." We invite writers to submit a reflective piece that explores their experiences, past and present, in a "multi-ethnic culture." Multiple genres and mixed compositions are welcome.

To submit your work, go to http://galleryofwriting.org/galleries/260792, read the gallery guidelines and click on "Contribute To This Gallery." After creating a profile, you must log in to submit your work. You will be asked for personal information, but you will have privacy options. Your submission will then be previewed by the curators of the Writers Studio gallery and you will be notified within a month if your submission has been chosen for display. Writers will retain all rights to their work. Public internet viewing of the Writers Studio Arapahoe Community College gallery begins on October 20, 2009, the National Day on Writing.

Writers Studio Club News

By popular demand, the Writers Studio Club will begin holding meetings on the 2nd Thursday of each month at 4:00 p.m. in Room 4890 on the 4th floor near the elevators.. Please join club president, Oliver Brainerd, for food, drink, and the merriments of writing. To quote Oliver completely out of context . ..

Fearless pres of Writers Studio Student Club here. Viking hails and grunt of endearment be upon your house, family, and all your conquests. We raise our mead to your name, etc, etc.May your longhouse stay long, may your dragon boat's figurehead stay figurative, etc, etc.

For more information, e-mail iamtomisbehave57@yahoo.com

News About Campus and Town

Lucy Graca, ACC English faculty, published an essay on the word "friend" and its latinate synonyms, "What to do with Friends: A Gothic Romance," in the Vocabula Review. The essay was inspired by a sidebar in one of Lucy's favorite books, the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology. Lucy also presented, "The Coldest Case," a recounting of the events and trial surrounding what may have been Denver's first serial murders, the so-called "Market Street Strangler" case of 1894-95, to the Denver Westerners. Her presentation will be published in text form in the Westerners' magazine, Roundup.

Linda Rinehart, past student of ACC Writers Studio classes, recently published an opinion piece on health care reform in The Denver Post, "A Hand Up, Not a Hand-Out."

Anushka Anastasia Solomon, a poet featured during our past Writers On War event, announces that her new poetry chapbook, "The Hindu and The Punk" has been released by Pudding House Press. Her poem "Of The Indian I am Not" (originally published in MalaysiaKini.com, 2008) was read outloud by Anne Fine at the 2009 Edinburgh International Book Festival at Amnesty International's annual Imprisoned/Writers at Risk or In Exile Series. Solomon is also one of eight women profiled in Amnesty International's "International Heroines Exhibition" in celebration of freedom of expression and the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Each has dared to speak out against human rights abuses in the face of repression and they are presented here as an inspiration to us all.

Congratulations to Lynn Wagoner, co-winner of last year's Writers Studio Poetry contest. Wagoner has won the 2009 Slapering Hol Chapbook competition for her chapbook, No Blues This Raucous Song.

Join Kathryn Winograd for Fusion III, a collaborative gallery exhibit of painters and poets at Square Deal Framing & Gallery, 1460 S. Colorado Blvd at Florida. Reception is Friday, October 9 from 5:00 p.m.- 9:00 p.m.