Girls Write Now Celebrates International Day of the Girl

Taysha Clark, right, poses with her mentor, Mayuri Chandra. Clark is the Youth Board Co-Chair of Girls Write Now, and will be a panelist at Tishman Speyer on October 10th. Photo: Courtesy of girlswritenow.org

October 11th is International Day of the Girl. Girls Write Now, an organization of professional writers established to serve underserved high school girls, will celebrate this cross-cultural event on October 10th, with a special meeting at the United Nations. There they will debut their music video, “Ode to Malala,” on a global scale. The video, inspired by the life of a 15-year-old Pakistani education activist, is a celebration of the voices of girls and women worldwide, as much as it is a recognition of the dire need to support those voices.

Though the U.N. events are private, GWN will be holding a roundtable discussion and cocktail party afterward at Tishman Speyer in Tribeca at 6 PM. Representatives of Penguin Random House, Little Brown & Co., and Tumblr will be in attendance, as well as authors such as Robin Morgan and Bridget M. Davis. More info, as well as access to tickets, can be sought at Girls Write Now.

Watch “Ode to Malala” before it premiers globally.

Check out Breaking Through, the latest edition of GWN’s annual anthology of student writing.

Learn more about Girls Write Now.

 

VIDEO: Advance Release from Motionpoems Season 5

Motionpoems is an organization that brings video artists and publishing companies together to create video shorts of poetry, aptly dubbed “motionpoems.” Started by Angella Kassube and Todd Boss, animator/producer and poet, respectively, Motionpoems has gone on to partner with such companies as Wave Books, Graywolf Press, McSweeney’s, and several others to bring poetry into a new medium. Following a premiere at the Walker Art Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, the fifth season of motionpoems is currently being released via Motionpoems’ subscription. Augury Books has the honor of being able to preview one of season five’s poems before it is sent out! View Matthew Zapruder’s “Albert Einstein,” adapted by John Akre, below:

In addition to a new season of work, Motionpoems and Todd Boss recently produced “Arrivals & Departures at St. Paul’s Union Depot,” a video-art installation on the Union Depot building in St. Paul, set to premiere October 10-12 at the St. Paul Art Crawl. Motionpoems will soon be taking submissions from U.S. poets for next year’s installation! Check back at the “Arrivals & Departures” page above for updates.

 

 

PICS: Augury Books at the 2014 New York City Poetry Festival

On Saturday, July 26, Frances Justine Post (Beast, 2014) and B.C. Edwards (To Mend Small Children, 2012) read on behalf of Augury Books at the  4th annual New York City Poetry Festival, put on by the Poetry Society of New York. The festival took place on Governors Island, and featured three stages with over 250 poets reading their work. Check out some photos here:

Augury Books moved stages. Photo: Nicolas Amara

B.C. Edwards reads from his new book, ‘From the Standard Cyclopedia of Recipes’ (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). Photo: Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Frances Justine Post reads from ‘Beast’ (Augury Books, 2013). Photo: Dave Bledsoe, FreeVerse Photography

Thanks to everyone who came out to the reading!

More on BEAST by Frances Justine Post

More on TO MEND SMALL CHILDREN by B. C. Edwards

LAST DAY: Augury Books’ reading period is open — Submit your manuscript!

VIDEO and AUDIO: New Work from Maureen Alsop in ‘Menacing Hedge,’ ‘Your Impossible Voice,’ and More

Image courtesy of Fred J, Wikimedia Commons

Maureen Alsop (Mantic, Augury Books, 2013) has emerged with new pieces in her short video series for literary journal Your Impossible Voice. “Portentum” and “Esopus” now join “Sweepspear” and “Terrestris” to complete the YIV series.

Watch the videos for “Portentum” and “Esopus” here; find out more about YIV here.

Also, listen to Alsop read four new poems in this summer’s edition of Menacing Hedge, and check out her new work in First Literary Review-East.

More on MANTIC

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Augury Books’ reading period is open — Submit your manuscript!

PICS & VIDEO: "Bonus Round" at Fowler Project Space

Last week, Luke Degnan and  BOMB Magazine put on the reading, Bonus Round, a final event in the Game Show exhibition at Fowler Project Space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The reading included poetry and fiction by presenters Frances Justine Post (BEAST, Augury, 2014), Jack Christian, Michael Coffey, Vincent Katz, and Micaela Morrissette. The exhibition itself displayed work spanning several mediums by Ted Carey, Susan Fang, Kurt Freyer, Elizabeth Hoy, Shanjana Mahmud, Emilie Selden, and Cecelia Post. Enjoy the video and photos documenting the night’s events.

 

Frances Justine Post reads “Heart Hunted” (Video: Cecelia Post):

 

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Sarah Gerard of BOMB Magazine and Luke Degnan introduce. Photo: Frances Justine Post

 

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Michael Coffey reads from his forthcoming story collection, The Business of Naming Things (Bellevue Literary Press, 2015). Photo: Frances Justine Post

 

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Vincent Katz prepares to read in front of a video piece at Fowler. Photo: Frances Justine Post

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Jack Christian reads new work. Photo: Frances Justine Post

More on BEAST

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Augury Books’ reading period is open — Submit your manuscript!

 

VIDEO: Frances Justine Post and Kate Angus Visit ‘The Casserole’ Online Reading Series

BEAST author Frances Justine Post stopped by The Side Dish, part of the online reading series, The Casserole, to read from her new book (available here) and talk with series runner Chelsea Kurnick about the imagery of the book, its narrative arc, and writing “creepy poetry.”

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Also check out Augury Books editor Kate Angus’ reading on The Casserole:

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The Casserole is a weekly online reading series hosted by Chelsea Kurnick and featuring poetry and prose writers every Sunday. Writers hang out with Chelsea on Google Hangouts and the result is aired live on Youtube. The Casserole goes live at 6:30pm until 7:30pm PDT each week. If you miss an episode, you can come back any time to watch the recordings.

Submit your manuscript to Augury Books — Our reading period is open!

Connotation Press Talks BEAST Video Trailer With Justine and Lia Post

You’ve seen the video trailer for “Self-Portrait as Beast,” read by author Frances Justine Post and designed by her twin sister Cecelia Post, and now you can learn about everything that went into the vision and production of the video (including details about the body suit, which has been christened “The Lady”) in this excellent interview by Erica Goss on Connotation Press, “The Third Form.”

Order BEAST here.

A story by Diana Spechler

We’re happy to continue presenting work from our readers at the upcoming Augury Books & Friends offsite AWP reading/shindig in Seattle. The reading will be at Noble Neon, 3130 Airport Way S on Friday, February 28th from 7:30 until we all feel like going back to our hotels. If you’ll be in Seattle, please join us! In the meantime, here’s a story by Diana Spechler

Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who by Fire (Harper Perennial, 2008) and Skinny (Harper Perennial, 2011). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, Salon, O The Oprah Magazine, CNN Living, Paris Review, GQ, Esquire, Glimmer Train Stories, and Southern Review, among other publications; as well as in a number of anthologies, including, most recently, Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (W.W. Norton, 2013) and True Tales of Lust and Love (Counterpoint/Soft Skull, 2014). She is the recipient of an MFA degree from the University of Montana, a Steinbeck Fellowship from San Jose State University, a LABA Fellowship from the 14th Street Y, residencies from the Anderson Center and Portsmouth Abbey School, and a fellowship from the Sozopol Fiction Seminars. She is also a six-time Moth StorySLAM winner whose stories have been featured on The Moth podcast and The Moth Radio Hour.