Wednesday, May 21
Intergenerational Writers Lab Night 3
with Bushra Rehman, Jeff Chang
and IWL 2008 participants
A collaboration of Kearny Street Workshop and Intersection for the Arts
Join Kearny Street Workshop and Intersection for the Arts for an evening of literary exploration and the third night of the 2008 Intergenerational Writers Lab (IWL). The evening features readings by two IWL lead artists, creative nonfiction writer Bushra Rehman and journalist and music writer Jeff Chang, and IWL 2008 participants Cathlin Goulding, Vickie Vértiz, Juliana Mojica, Anthem Salgado, Joyce Futa, Amir el-Chidiac, and Tessa Fontaine.
Left: IWL 2008 graphic design by Kelly Biele
Date: Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Time: 7 -9 pm
Location: Kearny Street Workshop, 180 Capp Street #5, @ 17th Street, San Francisco
Cost: $5 - 15 sliding scale.
The 2008 Intergenerational Writers Lab is supported by a grant from the Irvine Foundation.
About the artists
Jeff Chang has written extensively on culture, politics, the arts, and music. His first book, Can't Stop Won't Stop, garnered honors including the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award. He has also edited the acclaimed anthology, Total Chaos: The Art & Aesthetics of Hip-Hop. Jeff was a founding editor of ColorLines magazine, and a Senior Editor/Director at Russell Simmons' 360hiphop.com. He began writing for URB and The Bomb Hip-Hop magazines, and has written for the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Vibe, Foreign Policy, The Nation, and Mother Jones, among many other publications.He covered the 2000 presidential elections for 360hiphop. In 2007, he interviewed Barack Obama for the cover of Vibe. In 1993, he co-founded and ran the influential hip-hop indie label, SoleSides, now Quannum Projects, helping launch the careers of DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born and Lateef the Truth Speaker. He has helped produce over a dozen records, including the "godfathers of gangsta rap", the Watts Prophets. After being politicized by the anti-apartheid and anti-racist movements at the University of California at Berkeley, Jeff worked as a community, labor and student organizer, and as a lobbyist for the students of the California State University system. He has lectured at dozens of colleges, universities, festivals, and institutions in the U.S. and around the world. For more information visit http://www.cantstopwontstop.com/self.cfm
Bushra Rehman’s mother says Bushra was born in an ambulance flying through the streets of Brooklyn. Her father is not so sure. Since there are no definitive records of the time of her birth, there is no real way of knowing, but it would explain a few things. Bushra is a vagabond poet who traveled for years with nothing more than a greyhound ticket and a book bag full of poems. Now, she performs her poetry regularly in theaters and colleges around the country. Lately, she’s been spending her time flying through the streets of Oakland and Brooklyn, writing an on the road adventure novel for Muslim girls. Bushra is co-editor of the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism (Seal Press, 2002) which has been adopted as essential reading material in women’s studies and ethnic studies classes around the United States. She has been featured in The New York Times and NY Newsday and her work has appeared in ColorLines, Mizna, Curve, SAMAR, and Bottomfish. Her writing is forthcoming in Writing the Lines of Our Hands: An Anthology of South Asian American Poetry (Creative Arts Press), Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality (Seal Press)and Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies (Kent State University Press).
Amir el-Chidiac is strongly influenced by hip hop and the traditions of Arabic poetry. Amir's poetry and prose explores issues of identity, the body, the social consciousness of political expression, the censored tongues and the bordered chorus of oppression. Amir recently received an MFA in Writing and Consciousness from the New College of California. Amir's work has been published in Riffrag, Mizna, and Tea Party Magazine. He has most recently performed at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Galeria de La Raza and the SOMARTS Bay Gallery.
Joyce Futa is old enough to be your mother and stays young by walking her dog in the park every morning and writing poetry.
Cathlin Goulding teaches English at Newark Memorial High School, where she organizes a spoken word/poetry program for youth writers. She has written and performed comedic monologues in collaboration with various Bay Area arts organizations including Kearny Street Workshop's APATure Festival, The Marsh Theater, and most recently with Bindlestiff Studio's Stories High 2007. She is currently working on a collection of short fiction and essays about Asian Supermarkets. She lives in Oakland.
Tessa Fontaine is a poet, playwright, performer and fiction writer who grew up in the Bay Area, but has spent the last seven years living in Santa Barbara, Ghana, and New York City. She holds a BA from UCSB in Dramatic Arts and Global Studies. She has written and performed two critically acclaimed One-Woman shows California and New York. During a year living in Ghana, Tessa worked at a Liberian Refugee camp with teenagers to create a Theatre for Development piece addressing HIV/AIDS prevention and stigmatization. A recipient of the Chilton Fellowship for Poetry and Robert G. Egan Award for Dramatic Arts, Tessa has attended the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Summer Poetry Workshops in 2000 and 2007. In 2001, she released a chapbook of poems titled Flight. Her plays have been performed in Santa Barbara, her living room, her parents’ living room, and many other comfy rooms nationwide. When not writing, Tessa can be found running through Golden Gate Park or searching for the perfect spicy bean dip.
Anthem Salgado is a seasoned multi-disciplinary artist. He is a graduate of the historical San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited art in numerous spaces including Oakland Museum of California. But it is Salgado's love of 'real time' language that inspired his role as poet and moreover, his "riveting verses" [Nick Carbo, author)] in live performances. Salgado’s spoken word has been presented throughout New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, and Manila. He has shared billing with rainmakers: the legendary Last Poets, cutting edge author Jessica Hagedorn, and lyricist/beatboxer Radioactive of international music group Spearhead, among many others. His microphone time naturally inspired his study of theater and as an actor, Anthem Salgado has created and performed original solo works in such reputable places as Asian Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Intersection for the Arts. Salgado's written work can be found in the recently published anthology Field of Mirrors (Philippine American Writers and Artists, 2008).
Vickie Vértiz, a poet, fiction writer, and hopeful playwright, was born and raised in Los Angeles. Vickie's work has been published in Mujeres de Maiz and her poem “Cuatolól” is currently featured on the Art by Latina Artists’ website. She has studied with and taken copious notes from Lorna Dee Cervantes, Cherríe Moraga, Opal Palmer Adisa, and Willie Perdomo. Forthcoming work includes a racy modeling cameo and an article on eco- and labor-friendly style in the Bay Area Guide to Independent Fashion, along with the chapbook of poems and short stories “El Amor y Otros Cuentos.” She lives and loves in San Francisco.
About the Intergenerational Writers Lab
The 5th Intergenerational Writers Lab (IWL) 2008 is a unique program with three of SF’s oldest arts organizations that challenges writers to thoroughly explore and develop writing. The IWL 2008 program takes place March 1 - July 16, 2008, and features workshops, public readings, and a chapbook publication. IWL workshops are led by playwrights Ricardo Bracho, poets devorah major and Truong Tran, creative nonfiction writer Bushra Rehman, journalist and music writer Jeff Chang, and journalist and blogger Annalee Newitz.
The goals of the IWL program include the following:
1) to provide local emerging writers with the opportunity to challenge, develop, and expand their writing by working with emerging and established writers in a variety of genres;
2) to contribute to the development of new literary forms and language that incorporate multiple forms of creative expression;
3) to provide emerging writers with the opportunity to connect and work with each other and with established writers in the literary world;
4) to provide the community with an opportunity to engage with new work and new explorations of form and language;
5) to contribute to the wealth of independent literary publications by publishing a new chapbook from KSW Press & Intersection for the Arts that highlights work by exciting new writers committed to exploring new forms and voices..
About the Collaborating Organizations
Kearny Street Workshop is a multidisciplinary arts organization based in San Francisco's Mission District at KSW's exhibition and arts events space, space180. The mission of Kearny Street Workshop is to produce and present art that enriches and empowers Asian Pacific American communities. Our vision is to achieve a more just society by connecting Asian Pacific American(APA) artists with community members to give voice to our cultural, historical, and contemporary issues. For more information please visit www.kearnystreet.org.
Intersection for the Arts is San Francisco's oldest alternative art space (est. 1965) and has a long history of presenting new and experimental work in the fields of literature, theater, music, dance and the visual arts, and also in nurturing and supporting the Bay Area's cultural community through service, technical support, and mentorship programs. Intersection provides a place where provocative ideas, diverse art forms, artists, and audiences can intersect one another. For more information please visit www.theintersection.org
