Here are a couple of articles about our Lit Fest on Saturday, August 22nd. Our wrap-up will be posted soon!
NYWC's Summer Lit Fest writers
Our workshops for young people in Fort Greene Park are featured on the NY Times website. Check it out here and also listen to 11-year-old Anjelica Amog readone of her poems! More poems by our amazing young writers will be featured in the weeks to come.
Added 8/6: call for illustrators and a poem by 12-year-old Jarrett Moore
Added 8/13: A Poem Is by 8-year-old Aidan Amog (with illustration!)
Added 8/17: My Heart by 9-year-old Talaia Regist
Added 8/18: I Wish by 7-year-old Evan Campbell
Added 8/19: Outside My Window by 11-year-old Karen Marks, with illustration by Pascale Leone, 8-year-old member of our Ridge Kids workshop
Added 8/20: Magic Telephone and a Man-Eating Shark by 10-year-old David Nduka, with illustration by Tristan Leone, 6-year-old member of our Ridge Kids workshop
Added 8/21: Poems by 8-year-old Ashley Quarless, 11-year-old Joseph Francois, and 11-year-old Tristan Regist
Colson Whitehead
Touré
Staceyann Chin
We are proud to announce the return of our popular Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival. The 5th annual free outdoor reading will be held on August 22nd at 3:00 PM. This year features young writers, ages seven to seventeen reading alongside Fort Greene residents Colson Whitehead, Touré, and Nelson George Staceyann Chin. Music will be provided by Master Kora player Yacouba Sissoko. This exciting event brings several generations of writers together to build on the rich literary traditions of the neighborhoods surrounding beautiful Fort Greene Park.
The Festival celebrates the end of a free summer-long series of creative writing workshops for youth held in the historic Fort Greene Park. The event is free and will take place at the monument in Fort Greene Park. Come join us for a fun day of music and poetry in the park! Plus free milk and cookies from Rice!
The Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival is presented by NY Writers Coalition, Akashic Books, GTHQ and the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, with additional support from the Walt Whitman Project. Laurie Cumbo, Founder and Executive Director of MoCADA, returns as MC for the third time.
Sponsors include State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Time Warner, the Hot Topic Foundation, Independence Community Foundation, the Valentine Perry Snyder Fund, and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation.
Colson Whitehead is the author of the novels The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, and Apex Hides the Hurt. He has also written a book of essays about his home town, The Colossus of New York, and is a recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. His new novel, Sag Harbor, was published this spring. Whitehead’s reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in a number of publications, such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper’s and Granta.
One of America’s leading young African-American journalists and critics, Touré is the author of three books: the novel Soul City, a collection of short stories The Promised Land and Never Drank the Kool-Aid, a collection of his work for magazines including The New Yorker and Rolling Stone, where he has served as a contributing editor for the past decade. In addition to his new TV role with TREASURE HD’s I’LL TRY ANYTHING ONCE, Touré is the host of BET’s “The Black Carpet” and regularly appears as a pop culture expert on NBC’s “TODAY.” He has also served as CNN’s first pop culture correspondent and has made appearances on “Dateline NBC,” CNN’s “American Morning,” “Anderson Cooper 360°” and “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Staceyann Chin is a fulltime writer and activist. She identifies as Caribbean and Black, Asian and lesbian, woman and resident of New York City. A proud Jamaican National, her poetry has seen the rousing cheers of audiences everywhere including the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, one-woman shows Off-Broadway, and writing-workshops in Sweden, South Africa, and Australia. She is best known as co-writer and original performer in the Tony award winning, Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. Most recently Staceyann received the 2007 Power of the Voice Award from Human Rights Campaign. She was also featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Her work has also appeared on “60 Minutes.” The film Staceyann Chin was released in theaters in Denmark in 2001. It was also aired on the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian national TV stations. Between the Lines, a documentary that explores the notion of being Asian and woman and writer, also featured Staceyann. September 2005 brought the pleasure of nabbing a small part in Across The Universe, the new film musical from director Julie Taymor, which features music from the Beatles. Chin’s three one-woman shows, HANDS AFIRE, UNSPEAKABLE THINGS, and BORDER/CLASH all opened to rave reviews at the Culture Project in New York City. Staceyann is the author of the memoir, The Other Side of Paradise, published by Scribner. Simon and Schuster, Inc. 2009.
Click the poster to download it!
Writing by our workshop members at Sylvia’s Place, an emergency shelter for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsesxual and questioning homeless youth is featured all week (August 10-15) at I’m from Driftwood. Check out these amazing stories!
Readers from all NYWC workshops are invited to share the stage for this marathon reading. Reflecting the rich diversity of NYC, this event features a myriad of writers with previously untapped talent: among them retired adults, recent immigrants, the formerly incarcerated, the homeless, and survivors of serious illness.
Join us Saturday, June 20, 1 PM at Jefferson Market Branch, NY Public Library, 425 Avenue of the Americas at 10th Street for an inspiring afternoon. Admission is FREE.
View Calendar
✔ Subscribe
Add to Google
