{SALON NYC}

Salon NYC offers the Big Apple's tastiest prose each month. Drop on by for a sample and hear what's going on.

{ON TAP TO READ}

NYC | May 19, 2013

Yes, we love all kinds of literature, but we appreciate fine mathematics too. Try this equation: four stellar writers + their bold, beautiful books = ? (Answer: a great reading at this month’s Salon! Of course.) Join us! Jimmys no. 43. At 7pm.

Joshua Henkin is the author of the novels Matrimony, a New York Times Notable download 150x150 NYC | May 19, 2013Book, and Swimming Across the Hudson, a Los Angeles Times Notable Book. His new novel, The World Without, is recently out in paperback from Vintage Books. It has been named an Editors’ Choice Book by The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune and is the winner of the 2012 Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction and a Finalist for the 2012 National Jewish Book Award. His short stories have been published widely, cited for distinction in Best American Short Stories, and broadcast on NPR’s “Selected Shorts.” He lives in Brooklyn, NY, and directs the MFA program in Fiction Writing at Brooklyn College.

Jen Michalski is author of the novel The Tide King, winner of the 2012 Big Moose Jen Michalski cover 150x150 NYC | May 19, 2013Prize, the short story collections From Here and Close Encounters, and the novella collection Could You Be With Her Now. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is the founding editor of the literary quarterly jmww, a co-host of The 510 Readings and the biannual Lit Show, and interviews writers at The Nervous Breakdown. She also is the editor of the anthology City Sages: Baltimore, which Baltimore Magazine called a “Best of Baltimore” in 2010. She lives in Baltimore, MD. She tweets at https://twitter.com/MichalskiJen.

Scott Nadelson is the author of a memoir, The Next Scott Nadelson: A Life in Scott Nadelson cover 150x150 NYC | May 19, 2013Progress, and three story collections, Aftermath, The Cantor’s Daughter, and Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories. A winner of the Oregon Book Award, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, and the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, he teaches creative writing at Willamette University and in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program at Pacific Lutheran University.

Rachel Sherman is the author of the novel Living Room (Open City, 2009) and the Rachel Sherman cover 150x150 NYC | May 19, 2013book of short stories The First Hurt.  The First Hurt was short-listed for the Story Prize and the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and was named one of the 25 Books to Remember in 2006 by the New York Public Library. Her short stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, Fence, Open City, Conjunctions, and n+1, among other publications. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, and teaches writing at Rutgers and Columbia Universities.

 

See all Salon NYC reading summaries»

{SALON NYC BLOG}

Introducing A Tale of Four Cities

A Tale of Four Cities is an online literary magazine featuring fiction and creative nonfiction set in real locations in four cities — New York, London, Mumbai, and our first featured city, Dubai. This magazine seeks to highlight the similarities and differences between our cities, creating a cultural mosaic of writers and locations in a world that has grown increasingly small.

Check out it out here: www.talefourcities.com

A Reading in New York

By Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Harruna Attah, Managing Editor of The Accra Daily Mail, Ghana

This article first appeared in The Accra Daily Mail

The arts, it is said, enhance what science makes possible. Those societies that have found the right mix between science and the arts also somehow manage to get the development equation right. It certainly sounds like a cliché but any society that is made up of only science breeds automatons and when only the arts dominate, romantics take over… It’s almost like Kwegir Aggrey’s axiom of the black and white keys of the piano: Both are needed to create harmony.

Two editions ago of The Accra Mail I reported on Vice President John Mahama’s literary pursuits and his book-in-progress, “My first Coup d’etat”. For me it was most propitious, for if a Ghanaian politician at that level would find the time to write, then perhaps we are beginning to witness the birth of the “philosopher kings” which not only Ghana but other African nations need to break out of the cycle of poverty, ignorance, disease and underdevelopment.

There are other Ghanaians of course engaged in similar pursuits – a new corps of young people, who are making serious writing their business and encouragingly some of the most promising ones are young women. There is Farida Bedwei with her “Definition Of A Miracle”, Alba Kunadu Sumprim with “The Imported Ghanaian”, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond with “Powder Necklace”, Ayesha Harruna Attah with her “Harmattan Rain”.

These are young women with the abilities and capabilities to pursue other disciplines but chose to take the literary path. Farida’s case is particularly poignant. Disabled by a neurological ailment since childhood, she pursued a course in computer programming and has become a competent expert in the field. Defying all odds of her disability she’s been able to take up writing in addition to her “normal” day’s job.

Nana Ekua is a cum laude graduate of Vassar College in the US who has written for Bluefly, AOL, Parenting Magazine, the Village Voice, Metro and Trace Magazine. Powder Necklace is her debut novel and is loosely autobiographical. Other writings include “Bush Girl”, “The Whinings of a Seven Sister Cum Laude Graduate Working Board as as Assistant”.

Ayesha majored in Biochemistry at Mount Holyoke College, also in the US. She spurned the medical field in favour of a journalism programme at Columbia where she earned her MSc. It was after this that she worked on Harmattan Rain which was short-listed last year for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Book, African Region. She has just graduated with a second Masters Degree from New York University.

In New York last Sunday, Ekua and Ayesha joined Jess Row, a young American writer once named as a “Best Young American Novelist” and Cynthia Morrison Phoel another American writer to read extracts from their works: Two Ghanaian young writers rubbing shoulders with their US contemporaries in this very crowded and difficult field. It was not their first public reading and certainly not the last. It is one of the platforms they use to showcase their works and make sales – when possible. Both Ekua and Ayesha have spoken of the immense difficulties faced – from idea conception to distribution and sales – but with determination, not resignation. They held their own against their American colleagues exhibiting the kind of confidence needed to persevere to take over from the Achebes, Ayikwei Armahs, Ngugis and the other African literary giants who are now in the twilight of their years.

Even though over the years different Ghanaian governments have published cultural policies to advance the country’s arts, none has been able to go beyond the politics of it and give it meaning. For the likes of Farida, Alba, Ekua and Ayesha to contribute in enhancing life, they need the support at home to fully actualize their creative potentials…

NYC | June 12, 2011: The Salon celebrates 9 years!

Break out the champagne! This month, Sunday Salon will celebrate 9 years of literary love. Since 2002, we’ve welcomed to the stage over 360 fantastic writers from near and far, and we’re going to, as the fabulous M. Jackson put it, “Keep on with the force don’t stop!” Join us in welcoming four more literary powerhouses and a special musical guest. Let’s celebrate! At Jimmys 43, 7pm.

Justin Taylor is the author of the novel, The Gospel of tn NYC | June 12, 2011: The Salon celebrates 9 years!Anarchy, and the story collection, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever. Both books were New York Times Editor’s Choice selections. With the poet Jeremy Schmall he edits The Agriculture Reader, a limited-edition arts annual.

Cara Hoffman is the author of So Much Pretty. Cara grew up tn 1 e1306275835828 NYC | June 12, 2011: The Salon celebrates 9 years!in an economically depressed town in upstate New York. She dropped out of high school, bought a one-way ticket to London with her savings, and spent the next three years working under-the-table jobs in Europe and the Middle East. In the 1990s, she returned to the United States, became a mother, and began working as an investigative reporter at a daily newspaper. Hoffman covered New York State’s rural and rust-belt communities for over a decade, reporting on environmental politics, county legislatures and crime. In 2000, she received a New York State Foundation for the Art Fellowship for her writing on the aesthetics of violence and its impact on children.

Benjamin Hale is the author of The Evolution of Bruno Hale e1306275670654 NYC | June 12, 2011: The Salon celebrates 9 years!Littlemore. He is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. He is the recipient of an Iowa Provost’s Fellowship and a Michener-Copernicus Award. He grew up in Colorado and now lives in New York.

Sarah Rose Etter is the author of Tongue Party, which was NYC | June 12, 2011: The Salon celebrates 9 years! selected by Deb Olin Unferth as the winner of the 2010 Caketrain chapbook competition. Tongue Party is available for pre-order from Caketrain Press. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Collagist, Flatmancrooked, PANK Magazine, elimae, The Baltimore Review, and more. her stories have also been performed in London by the Liars’ League. She earned her B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University and her M.F.A. in Fiction from Rosemont College.

MUSICAL GUEST:

R.A. Villanueva lives in Brooklyn. A finalist for the Beatrice Hawley Award and the Alice James Books/Kundiman Poetry Prize, his writing has appeared in Gulf Coast, AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, DIAGRAM, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere.
ronv NYC | June 12, 2011: The Salon celebrates 9 years!

See all Salon NYC news»

{SALON NYC RECENT WRITERS}

Roger Reeves

Roger Reeves’ poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, and the Indiana Review, among others. Kim Addonizio selected “Kletic of Walt Whitman” for the Best New Poets 2009 anthology. He was awarded a Ruth Lilly Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation in 2008, two Bread Loaf Scholarships, an Alberta H. Walker Scholarship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and two Cave Canem Fellowships. Recently, he earned his MFA from the James A. Michener Center for Creative Writing at the University of Texas. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student in the English Department at the University of Texas and an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His first book, King Me, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2013.

John Murillo

John Murillo’s first poetry collection, Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher 2010), was a finalist for both the 2011 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award. A graduate of New York University’s MFA program in creative writing, his other honors include a 2011 Pushcart Prize, two Larry Neal Writers Awards, and fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the New York Times, the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in such publications as Callaloo, Court Green, Ninth Letter, and Ploughshares, and is forthcoming in Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of African-American Poetry. His choreo-play, Trigger, was commissioned by Edgeworks Dance Theater and premiered in spring 2011. A founding member of the poetry collective, The Symphony, he has taught at Cornell University, New York University, Columbia College Chicago, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Currently, he is visiting assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Miami.

Jamaal May

Jamaal May is a Cave Canem Fellow, Callaloo Fellow and graduate from Warren Wilson’s MFA for writers. He is the author of a poetry chapbook (The God Engine, Pudding House Press, 2009) and editor of the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Series. His work appears in Callaloo, Indiana Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Sou’western, Blackbird and Verse Daily among other journals, magazines, and anthologies. He has appeared on radio and television, as well as in documentaries such as “A Poet in Every Classroom” and “Televising a Revolution,” jury prize winner at the Trinity Film Festival. May has received two scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, two Pushcart Prize nominations, an International Publication Prize from Atlanta Review, and he was a finalist for the 2010 and 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowships. Currently, he is the 2011-2013 Stadler Fellow at Bucknell University where he runs a poetry slam, reads for the lit journal West Branch and tweaks his first full-length manuscript, which was a finalist for The National Poetry Series as well as the Levis Prize from Four Way Books.

Rickey Laurentiis

Rickey Laurentiis was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. His manuscript, “One Country,” received an honorable mention in the 2010 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, judged by Claudia Rankine, and was a finalist for the 2011 National Poetry Series. The recipient of fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and a Work-Study Scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and have appeared or are forthcoming in Callaloo, The Feminist Wire, Indiana Review, jubilat, and elsewhere. Currently, he is pursuing his MFA in creative writing at Washington University in St Louis, where he is a Chancellor’s fellow.

Darrel Alejandro Holnes

Darrel Alejandro Holnes is an award-winning poet and playwright from Panama City, Panama and the Programs Director of the Poetry Society of America. He holds degrees in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and the University of Houston. He and his work have been featured nationally and internationally in the Kennedy Center Annual College Theater Festival, TIME Magazine, and The Caribbean Writer among others. He is the recipient of scholarships to Cave Canem, Summer Literary Seminars, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a writer’s residency at VCCA. He continues to work as a writer and emerging performance artist in New York. The latest news about his performances can be found at www.darrelandpreston.com. And most recently, he was selected as one of “The Phantastique 5″ by Jericho Brown for the Best American Poetry blog.

See all Salon NYC writers»

{ABOUT SALON NYC}

Nita Noveno and co-host/fellow New School grad Caroline Berger keep a refreshing blend of new and experienced literary voices on tap at Stain Bar every third Sunday of the month and online in the Sunday Salon zine.

Nita Noveno and Caroline Berger Nita Noveno is a graduate of the New School MFA Creative Writing Program. She founded the Sunday Salon series in the summer of 2002. She has most recently been published in Lost and Found: An Anthology of Teachers Writing and Worldview and was a finalist for the Missouri Review's 2005 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors Prize. Nita read at the July 2002 Salon.

Caroline Berger lives in up-and-coming Bed Stuy (she's waiting patiently). Her proetry (that's not a typo; she likes to make up her own genres) has appeared most recently on La Petite Zine and Pindeldyboz and in Barrow Street. She is the co-host of the Sunday Salon and once used all 7 letters in a game of Scrabble to spell e-t-i-o-l-a-t-e. She teaches writing at The New School & has recently succumb to the world of blogging: Apocalyptic Whimsy. Caroline read at the August 2002 Salon.