Podcasts about maryland state arts council

A few years ago, she decided to leave her Maryland / suburban DC empty nest to find a rural getaway -- a small farmhouse where she could put her interest in conservation to work. With little experience in gardening or conservation, she had a crazy idea to cultivate a small native meadow to provide an acre or two where wildlife could thrive, and she could explore with her poodle. Then she set foot on two hundred acres of old farmland atop a Virginia mountain and her dream became a reality.In BAD NATURALIST: One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop (Timber Press | January 7, 2025), funded by the Maryland State Arts Council, author Paula Whyman explains how she cares for her mountain-sized ecological restoration challenge with a mixture of humility and humor. She quickly discovers it is impossible to be a “good” naturalist. https://paulawhyman.com/http://www.yourlotandparcel.org

Today I'm delighted to be joined by Paula Whyman, author of Bad Naturalist.Inspired by Isabella Tree's Knepp estate & Douglas Tallamy's Homegrown National Park Movement, Paula set out to find a small rural escape & establish a meadow. But Mother Nature had bigger plans & Paula found herself becoming guardian to 200 acres of neglected Virginia mountaintop where invasive species were causing havoc to this important ecosystem.Despite being a self confessed terrible gardener who knew nothing about plants, Paula threw herself heart & soul into her partnership with the mountain. She has already begun to tip the balance in favour of the native plants that support the insects, birds & wildlife of the region.The lessons Paula shares remind us all, that there is no single path or categorically right option, everything requires a degree of trade-off, expecting perfection is a fools folly that leads to frustration. But if we slowly embrace nature's timelines & make peace with tackling one challenge at a time, doing the best we can with the knowledge we have, it is possible to make a difference in this world. More about PaulaPaula Whyman decided to leave her Maryland / suburban DC empty nest to find a rural getaway, maybe a small farmhouse where she could put her interest in conservation to work. With little experience in gardening or conservation, Whyman had a crazy idea to cultivate a small native meadow to provide an acre or two where wildlife could thrive & she could explore with her poodle. Then she set foot on 200 acres of old farmland atop a Virginia mountain & her dream became a reality.Paula consults with experts & gets conflicting advice on how to best restore her land. She has to fight invasive plants that expand & push toxic substances into the soil. But to her surprise, her lovely Virginia Blue Ridge mountaintop is full of life.  Native elderberries, wild bergamot & jewelweed spring up.  Lichens sprawl, bees bumble & butterflies return, songbirds call & a few plans eventually go right.BAD NATURALIST: One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop, funded by the Maryland State Arts Council, author Paula Whyman explains how she cares for her mountain-sized ecological restoration challenge with a mixture of humility & humor.  She quickly discovers it's impossible to be a “good” naturalist. This is a blend of memoir, natural history, & conservation science, a chronicle of her attempts to restore retired farmland to natural habitat.  Whyman leads us on an exploration of nature and human nature. How can we learn, adapt & find patience from one season to the next? When there's no perfect option, does that mean there's no good option? In the end, Whyman's mountain is a metaphor & an inspiration for undertaking big, tangled challenges before we can possibly know what we're getting ourselves into. What matters, is taking that first step.Website: https://paulawhyman.com/bad-naturalist/Paula's Newsletter: https://paulawhyman.com/bad-naturalist-newsletter/Support the showThank you for being part of this journey with me, please Subscribe so you don't miss our future episodes, leave a review & share with friends to help these messages ripple out across the world. More information about the Podcast & our host Fiona MacKay: Fiona Mackay Photography WebsiteConnect with us & join the conversation on social media:Instagram @FionaMacKayPhotographyFacebook @FionaMacKayPhotographyTwitter @FiMacKay

Paula Whyman's journey from bug-obsessed city kid to mountaintop conservationist is an inspiring environmental tale. Now the owner of a 200-acre Virginia mountaintop, she's traded her childhood fascination with cicadas for an ambitious ecological restoration project. Her new book Bad Naturalist chronicles this transformation. Despite the self-deprecating title, Whyman is dead serious about her mission. She's working to restore native plants and wildlife to her Virginia mountaintop, fighting invasive species, and challenging the notion that nature only exists in national parks. With 85% of American grasslands privately owned, she argues that individual landowners have a crucial role in conservation. Though she finds the concept of land ownership "weird" – questioning if she really owns the beetles and lichens – Whyman embraces her responsibility as a steward. Her regenerative agricultural project might seem idealistic, but each small victory, from a patch of restored meadow to the call of a bog quail, fuels her optimism for America's environmental future.Paula Whyman's first book of nonfiction is Bad Naturalist. Her earlier book, You May See a Stranger, is an award-winning linked short story collection. Her writing has also appeared in The Washington Post and The American Scholar, and in journals including McSweeney's Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Hudson Review. She was awarded residencies by MacDowell, Yaddo, VCCA, The Studios of Key West, and Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Her work on this book was supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council. She spends her time on a mountain in Virginia with her husband and a mercurial standard poodle. Visit Paula online at paulawhyman.comKeen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Drummers, singers, guitar and accordion players - the folk music of Bulgaria is designed to spur dancers and entertain crowds with its striking blend of eastern and western sounds. How are Bulgarians in Maryland keeping this tradition alive and training the next generation of performers? We speak with father-daughter duo Kalin Kirilov and Yana Kirilov, who are pursuing a folklife apprenticeship through the Maryland State Arts Council. Listen to more music from the Balkan Soul Band. Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1157 Producer Sam Bermas-Dawes he/him/his sbdawes@wypr.org 410-235-1472

On this really fun episode I get the pleasure of sitting with Gerry LaFemina, frontman of the Maryland punk band The Downstrokes and creator of the Savage Mountain Punk Fest and Arts Program. We chat about his band and their new album “This Close to Vertigo” (being released on 9/29/23 on CD, Vinyl, and Digital through a joint partnership from Allegedly Records and Coffin Curse Records,) along with the grant they received from the Maryland State Arts Council to help finance it, as well as their free release party the same day. We also chat about our mutual friends Bree Meyer, Jay Prozac, Mike Billup, and others, when our favorite music become elevator music and music featured in commercials, trying to play music and do a festival in the current climate of punk rock in the digital age, bands that have played the Savage Mountain Fest stage, and lots more. So sit back and enjoy this wonderful episode of TIJAP! *** (tracks played from the soon to be released The Downstrokes album “This Close to Vertigo” include: “Kaput,” “Moral Dilemma,” “UFO Baby,” and “She.” - used with permission.)***

Often stories come to us in fragments: as a vivid image or a perfect sentence, but how do we turn those fragments into stories? Fiction writer, Jung Yun, shows how to create linear stories from nonlinear fragments and what happens when patience runs thin in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration. Jung Yun was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She studied at Vassar College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in Tin House, the Massachusetts Review, the Indiana Review, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She is the recipient of individual artist's grants in fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. She has also received residential fellowships from MacDowell, the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the National Humanities Center. Currently, Jung lives in Baltimore with her husband and is an associate professor of English at the George Washington University. She serves on the board of directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

My guest today is Bill McQuay, who's an  independent audio producer, NPR contributor, National Geographic Explorer and founder of Eco Location Sound. Before starting Eco Location Sound, Bill was Supervising Audio Engineer for the Library of Natural Sound at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and an audio producer for the Lab's Multi-media group. Prior to joining the Lab of Ornithology, Bill was an NPR sound engineer and technical director for NPR programs including: Morning Edition, Weekend Saturday and Sunday, Performance Today and NPR's Radio Expeditions. Radio Expeditions is where he began his long time collaboration with NPR science correspondent Christopher Joyce, a creative relationship that continues today. Bill led NPR's early surround-sound recording effort and was its first technical director. He was also the mastering engineer for NPR Classics CD's. He has also worked on many other 360 degree interactive projects. Along the way Bill has won the National Academy of Sciences award for the years best science reporting, a Grammy for the NPR recording of the Benjamin Britten War Requiem, The Alfred I Dupont-Columbia University Journalism award, and Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. During the interview we spoke about telling stories with sound, going around the world to capture audio, helping scientists use sound to understand the world, his setup for recording spatial audio, how sound is determining if insects are disappearing or not, and much more. I spoke with Bill via Zoom from his office in Ithaca New York. On the intro I'll take a look at BMI being acquired by a private equity fund, and a look at the glut of new musical instruments and audio gear on market today. var podscribeEmbedVars = { epId: 87324464, backgroundColor: 'white', font: undefined, fontColor: undefined, speakerFontColor: undefined, height: '600px', showEditButton: false, showSpeakers: true, showTimestamps: true };

Laura Grothaus is a writer and artist living in Baltimore. Her work has been featured by BUST, The Cincinnati Review, Ninth Letter, Pleiades, and Fairytale Review. It has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and garnered awards internationally, from Poetry in Pubs in Bath, England to the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition in Cary, North Carolina to a Creativity Grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. Her writing has been supported by workshops including Tin House–and scholarships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the Kenyon Writers Workshop. She's a recurring artist-in-residence at the Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center. Collaborations are key to her practice. As a teacher, she's partnered with kindergarteners, college students, and everyone in between. Her Baltimore writing workshop for adults has fostered the creation of several full-length manuscripts. She's co-directed plays, illustrated books, performed in train cars, and otherwise made a ruckus. Find out more about Laura on her website: LauraGrothaus.com or on Instagram @laura_e_grothaus Watch the podcast on YouTube at You + Happy and follow us on Instagram @youplushappy

The check engine light is on. #### Isolation Be Like... is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie). Phill  is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is a 2023 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's Creativity Grant and a 2019 Rubys Artist Award grantee for storytelling and performance. He is also a 2018 GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed "Hampton University: One of the Wonders of the World" which is currently on the film festival circuit. His previous film,  "Searching for Shaniqua," a documentary about the impact names have on our lives, won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Check out the trailer to his latest film: Hampton University: One of the Wonders of the World - https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/751713690 Director's BTS - https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/745073679 Listen to me on The Moth - https://themoth.org/storytellers/phill-branch Find me at @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com /  Email: phillbranch@gmail.com Subscribe and share!  

Your boy JBarber got to see the show Declaration and Resistance at the Reynolda House and immediately had to get the artist Stephen Towns to come on the show! Stephen has had a crazy busy couple of years but he had some time to talk to the Noize about his show. He has paintings in the National Museum of African American History & Culture and this show has been touring for a couple of years. We talk about his vibrant, beautiful paintings and his wonderful quilts from the show. Stephen talks about his process of research and adding life to his archived photography, how artists get to tour a show, and how teaching yourself a medium changes how you make art. More of that good art talk that we love over here. Listen, subscribe, and share!Episode 163 topics include:Declaration and Resistance at the Reynolda House through May 14, 2023researching stories as inspirationbreathing life into archive photographyswitching between painting and quiltingmagical elements in artvibrant color of Black peoplemaking work about life in the SouthStephen Towns was born in 1980 in Lincolnville, SC, and lives and works in Baltimore, MD. He trained as a painter with a BFA in studio art from the University of South Carolina and has also developed a rigorous, self-taught quilting practice. In 2018 the Baltimore Museum of Art presented his first museum exhibition, Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning. His work has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Artforum, the Washington Post, Hyperallergic, Cultured, Forbes, AFROPUNK, and American Craft. Towns was honored as the inaugural recipient of the 2016 Municipal Art Society of Baltimore Travel Prize, and in 2021, Towns was the first Black artist-in-residence at the Fallingwater Institute, located at Frank Lloyd Wrights' renowned Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania. In 2021 Towns was also awarded the Maryland State Arts Council's Individual Artist Award.See more: www.stephentowns.com/ + Stephen Towns IG @stephentownsPresented by: Black Art In AmericaFollow us:StudioNoizePodcast.comIG: @studionoizepodcastJamaal Barber: @JBarberStudioSupport the podcast www.patreon.com/studionoizepodcast

Hi there, Today I am excited to be arts calling John Becker! (jouskaproductions.com) About our Guest: John Becker has juggled life in film, theatre, and music with teaching the arts to children and adults. He has won three Individual Artist's Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council. He was asked to write a play for the One-Minute Play Festival at Round House Theatre. His musical, Everything I Do, was read at the Kennedy Center, chosen for a workshop at Artist's Bloc, and performed at the Atlas in DC to excellent reviews. He was commissioned by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in NY to co-write and co-direct the book trailer for Susan Coll's The Stager. His play Summit Meeting was performed at the Kennedy Center for a festival, where it was awarded 1st place by audience vote. John has had plays performed four years in a row at the Source Theatre in DC and had a play performed Off-Broadway at the Emerging Artists Theatre in New York. He has also had plays performed at the Baltimore Playwrights Festival, the Writer's Center, Company 13, the Run of the Mill Theatre (for which they won a Greater Baltimore Theatre Award), the Human Rights Arts Festival for Amnesty International, and many others. Enjoy some of John's recent projects on YouTube! The Playwright Zone 1st episode. Two men, an Israeli and a Palestinian, are trapped in an elevator in America.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd5I1dSroOw&t=8s&ab_channel=JouskaProductions 2nd episode: A woman struggling with mental health issues has a blind date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM70EUWZc3I&t=10s&ab_channel=JouskaProductions The Panic Room I ask two controversial questions of one left wing person and one right wing, then let them react to each other's responses while still remaining civil. 1st episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln_tRItxzWM&t=249s&ab_channel=JouskaProductions Eugene Cheese Gets It Wrong Actress Tia Shearer Bassett and her mischievous leopard gecko, Eugene Cheese, explore fun themes, while letting kids know that it's okay to be wrong sometimes. 1st episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mFFMcEKiTA&t=9s&ab_channel=JouskaProductions 2nd episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtNfypvuiFg&t=7s&ab_channel=JouskaProductions Thank you so much for taking the time to talk playwriting, John! All the best and happy writing! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro (cruzfolio.com). If you like the show: leave a review, or share it with someone who's starting their creative journey! Your support truly makes a difference! Go make a dent: much love, j https://artscalling.com/welcome/

Andre Mazelin (he/him) As Dance Place's new executive director, Mazelin will oversee the development and growth including strategic direction, operational oversight, talent acquisition and retention, and legal. Mazelin most recently served as senior manager for Prince George's Community College Center for Performing Arts and was a member of its launch team in 2019.Previously, Mazelin held several arts leadership roles in Baltimore, Maryland, as managing director of Motor House, an operations director of Creative Alliance at the Patterson and a grant panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council. Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Mazelin immigrated to the U.S. with his family as a child. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Baltimore and an associate degree in music and video business from the Art Institute of Fort LauderdaleInterview conducted in November 2022.This season of The Truth in This Art podcast is generously supported by The Gutierrez Memorial Fund and The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation invests in innovative people, projects, and ideas that improve the quality of life in Baltimore and beyond. The Gutierrez Memorial Fund was established in the spring of 2010, to honor the life of artist, visionary and community leader, John K. Gutierrez. The Gutierrez Memorial Fund is committed to supporting arts organizations and individual artists who are residents of Maryland and whose programs or projects serve Maryland communities.  Thank you to both of these foundations for their support and making this season possible. ★ Support this podcast ★

I'm not gonna lie...I couldn't even remember where I hosted my podcast. It's been THAT long. Here I am. Still standing...and, out here breathing air in close-ish proximity people. Life is wild. This episode: - My 'hiatus'/hibernation - Why I quit my professor gig - Remembering who tf I am Welcome Back and thanks for listening, fam! Check out the trailer to my latest film: Hampton University: One of the Wonders of the World - https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/751713690 Director's BTS - https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/745073679 Listen to me on The Moth - https://themoth.org/storytellers/phill-branch Find me at @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com /  Email: phillbranch@gmail.com Agent (Book) - Faith Childs Literary Agency - (212) 995-9600. Isolation Be Like... is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast was supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He taught the only college course on Janet Jackson in the nation, because Janet Jackson is life. Subscribe and share!  

The Authors and Artists Holiday Gift sale returned to the Bel Air Armory on November 5th and showcased some of Harford County's own talent. 37 local vendors selling unique and original art, books, photographs, laser woodwork, ornaments, jewelry, leather items and more, all gathered together for what felt like the largest and coolest, locals-only ‘Scholastic Book Fair'-styled shopping expo of its kind.  Admission was free and the event was sponsored by the Town of Bel Air Cultural Arts Commission and the Bel Air Arts & Entertainment District through the Maryland State Arts Council.I've been lucky enough to participate over the years and this time got the chance to briefly speak with: Sam Polakoff, Vonnie Winslow Crist, Kelly A. Harmon & Lindsey Pope.  Here's the recap!You can find all of their books at Caprichos Books @ caprichosbooks.com

Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!Edgar Kunz is the author of the poetry collections Tap Out (Mariner, 2019), a NYT New & Noteworthy pick, and Fixer, forthcoming from Ecco/HarperCollins in August 2023.His writing has been supported by fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, Vanderbilt University, where he earned his MFA, and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow.His poems appear widely, including in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. He lives in Baltimore and teaches at Goucher College.From https://www.edgarkunz.com. For more information about Edgar Kunz:“Piano”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/07/pianoTap Out: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781328518125“Conversations with Contributors: Edgar Kunz”: https://theadroitjournal.org/2020/04/20/conversations-with-contributors-edgar-kunz/

Brief summary of episode:Zoë Charlton (Baltimore, MD) creates figure drawings, collages, installations, and animations that depict her subject's relationship to culturally loaded objects and landscapes.  Charlton received her MFA degree from the University of Texas at Austin and participated in residencies at Artpace (TX), McColl Center for Art + Innovation (NC), Ucross Foundation (WY), the Skowhegan School of Painting (ME), and the Patterson Residency at the Creative Alliance (MD). Her work has been included in national and international exhibitions including The Delaware Contemporary (DE), the Harvey B. Gantt Center (NC), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (AR), Studio Museum of Harlem (NY), Contemporary Art Museum (TX), the Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Poland), and Haas & Fischer Gallery (Switzerland). She is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner grant (2012) and a Rubys grant (2014). Museum collections include The Phillips Collection (DC), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (AR), Birmingham Museum of Art (AL), and Studio Museum in Harlem (NY). Charlton co-founded ‘sindikit, a collaborative art initiative, with artist Tim Doud to engage their respective research in gender, sexuality, and race. Charlton is a Professor of Art at American University in Washington, D.C., holds a seat on the Maryland State Arts Council, a board member at the Washington Project for the Arts (DC), and a national board member at Threewalls (IL).Her work is included in “A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration”, a traveling group exhibition co-curated by Chief Curator Ryan Dennis of the Mississippi Museum of Art, and Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art Jessica Bell Brown of the Baltimore Museum of Art.  Charlton was an artist in-residence at The Brodsky Center at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in spring 2022 and participated in the Crosstown Arts residency in Nashville, TN in summer 2022.  Charlton is serving on an 8-member steering committee at the Baltimore Museum of Art to reimagine equitable and accountable structures and functions of cultural institutions within diverse local and regional communities.As ‘sindikit, Zoë Charlton and Tim Doud co-edited Out of Place: Artists, Pedagogy, and Purpose available through Punctum Books.  Broad in scope, Out of Place: Artists, Pedagogy, and Purpose presents an overview of the different paths taken by artists and artist collectives as they navigate their way from formative experiences into pedagogy. **photo Credit Grace Roselli, Pandora's BoxX ProjectThe Truth In This ArtThe Truth In This Art is a podcast interview series supporting vibrancy and development of Baltimore & beyond's arts and culture. Mentioned in this episode:Zoë Charlton To find more amazing stories from the artist and entrepreneurial scenes in & around Baltimore, check out my episode directory. Stay in TouchNewsletter sign-upSupport my podcastShareable link to episode ★ Support this podcast ★

Celebrate the finalists in the 2022 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review! The three finalists, Maryland's Poet Laureate, and LPR's head editor read. Caitlin Wilson, the winner of the 2022 Poetry Contest, is a Maryland poet. She holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her writing has appeared in ENTROPY, filling Station, Iron Horse Literary Review, McNeese Review, RHINO, Rogue Agent, and Wildness. She was a 2021 Sewanee Writer's Conference contributor and recipient of VCU's 2021 and 2020 Graduate Poetry Awards, a 2019 AWP Intro Journals Project award, the 2018 Henrietta Spiegel Creative Writing Award, and a Jiménez-Porter Literary Prize for Poetry. She previously served as managing editor of Blackbird. Alicia Potee, a 2022 Poetry Contest finalist, is a Maryland native and 2002 graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis. Her poems have appeared in The Comstock Review, Hawaii-Pacific Review, and The Baltimore Review, among other places. She lives in Towson with her two kids and a rescued mutt named Romeo. Robert Schreur, a 2022 Poetry Contest finalist, is a psychotherapist and clinical supervisor in community psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. A volume of his selected poems, That Said, was published in 2018. He has lived in Baltimore for 37 years. Grace Cavalieri is Maryland's tenth Poet Laureate. Her new books are Grace Art: Poems & Paintings and The Secret Letters of Madame de Stael (both 2021). She founded and produces The Poet and the Poem for public radio, now from the Library of Congress, celebrating 45 years on-air. This series of several hundred poets will be shot to the moon in the Lunar Codex in 2022 as the first podcast series on the moon. Grace's forthcoming book is The Long Game: Selected and New Poems (2022). She has a poem in LPR's summer 2022 issue. Chelsea Lemon Fetzer, a contest judge, holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and earned her MFA in Fiction at Syracuse University in 2008. She is a 2019 Rubys recipient for the Literary Arts and a recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's 2022 Independent Artist Award. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, Tin House, Mississippi Review, and Minnesota Review. Her essay “Speck” appears in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century. Fetzer teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Baltimore, serves as vice chair on the board of CityLit Project, and is lead editor of the Little Patuxent Review. Pictured: (top row) Alicia Potee, Caitlin Wilson, Robert Schreur, (bottom row) Grace Cavalieri, Chelsea Lemon Fetzer. Recorded On: Tuesday, August 16, 2022

About the guestPaige Hernandez is a multidisciplinary artist who is critically acclaimed as a performer, director, choreographer and playwright.  As an AEA equity actress, Paige has performed on many stages throughout the country. She has collaborated with the Lincoln Center and has been commissioned by several companies including the National New Play Network, the Smithsonian, The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Playhouse and the Glimmerglass Festival. She is the recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council as well as four Helen Hayes nominations for choreography, directing and performance.  Paige has also been named a “classroom hero” by The Huffington Post, a “Citizen Artist Fellow” with the Kennedy Center, “40 under 40” by the Washington Post and one of “Six Theatre Workers You Should Know” by American Theatre Magazine. She is elated to be the Associate Artistic Director of Everyman Theatre in her hometown of Baltimore, MD. With her company B-FLY ENTERTAINMENT, Paige continues to develop and tour original work internationally.ses. The Truth In This ArtThe Truth In This Art is a podcast interview series supporting vibrancy and development of Baltimore & beyond's arts and culture.Mentioned in this episode:B-FLY ENTERTAINMENTTo find more amazing stories from the artist and entrepreneurial scenes in & around Baltimore, check out my episode directory.★ Support this podcast ★

Evan Balkan teaches creative writing at the Community College of Baltimore County. His fiction and nonfiction, mostly in the areas of travel and outdoor recreation, have been published throughout the United States as well as in Canada, England, and Australia.A graduate of Towson, George Mason, and Johns Hopkins Universities, he is also the author of 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Baltimore; Vanished! Explorers Forever Lost; and Shipwrecked! Deadly Adventures and Disasters at Sea (Menasha Ridge Press), as well as Walking Baltimore (Wilderness Press) and Lope de Aguirre: Revolutionary of the Americas (University of New Mexico Press). Evan's newest book, Root That Mountain Down was the recipient of the Individual Artist Award for Fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council.Evan lives in Towson, Maryland.Pat Daily is an engineer and former Air Force test pilot who worked at NASA's Johnson Space Center on both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs.When not writing or trying to bring new airplane designs to life, Pat can be found gaming online. He is a fan of role-playing games – particularly open worlds with engaging storylines where actions have consequences.Pat and his wife spent twenty years in Houston before moving to central Washington.http://feraldaughters.wordpress.comThe Douglas Coleman Show now offers audio and video promotional packages for music artists as well as video promotional packages for authors. Please see our website for complete details. http://douglascolemanshow.comIf you have a comment about this episode or any other, please click the link below.https://ratethispodcast.com/douglascolemanshow

As an early curator at the Academy Art Museum, Henry Coe's artistic roots in Talbot County go back quite a ways.  Tim and Marie talked with Henry about his history as an artist and the evolutions of plein air art becoming a competition.   "I received a BA in English from Roanoke College and an MFA in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art. I began painting seriously on the eastern shore of Maryland while working as curator in Easton at The Academy of Arts and teaching at Chesapeake College. I was drawn to the low horizon and the big sky: a Dutch landscape quality of light reflected off of the water and back into the clouds. I spent seven months painting in China through a Maryland "sister state" relation with Anhui Province and accompanied a Maryland State Arts Council exhibit which included my work to Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. I have done three artist's residencies in France and made many other painting visits there. Since 2016 I have participated in numerous plein air events, several times in Plein Air Easton. Over the years I have shown regularly in galleries in Chicago, Houston and Baltimore. I work in oils on a large and small scale and prefer to work en plein air as much as possible. I like to paint the lengthening shadows and lowering light that occur toward the end of day or the softer light of early morning. Ideally, I want my work to have a sense of light traveling through air in space. Having a palpable sense of air in a painting is important to me. The light and shadow define the mundane objects of a landscape I see as disappearing:  family farms or the "rural industrial" look that was once representative of many small towns. I have worked primarily in the Mid-Atlantic region, coastal Maine, Texas and western France."   Follow Henry Coe: Official Site Facebook Instagram   Follow Plein Air Easton: Official SiteFacebookInstagramYouTube   To inquire about being a guest or sponsoring the Plein Air Easton Podcast, send us an email at info@pleinaireaston.com.   This episode is sponsored by JFM Enterprises, providing distinctive ready-made and custom frames & mouldings to the trade since 1974.   Music in this episode was generously provided by Blue Dot Sessions.

EP 163: Aaron recorded a live show with Photographer E. Brady Robinson at the Hotel Indigo discussing her new Photo Exhibit SK8R GRLS. We discuss her inspiration behind the project, her love for roller skating, how she chose the Women for this and what is the soundtrack to this Exhibition.  IG:@ebradyrobinson   IG: MarylandArtPlace IG: Acutevisions  SK8R GRLS is a photo series by E. Brady Robinson celebrating the freedom and joy of roller skating. The  exhibition is on view at Hotel Indigo Baltimore, located at 24 West Franklin St. from Jan 25th - March 18th. A  public reception will take place on March 8th from 5 to 7 pm in celebration of International Women's Day.     In spring of 2021, Robinson took up skating as a way to stay active and reconnect with friends outdoors  during COVID-19. During these skate dates, she photographed friends and eventually, a wider network of  Baltimore-based female-identifying skaters. This work combines her love of athleticism, fitness, and fashion  photography. These images, made at a moment where it felt like the world was reopening after over a year  of closure and isolation during the pandemic, evoke a feeling of release and freedom.      Robinson completed her BFA in photography at MICA and MFA in photography at the Cranbrook Academy of  Art. Her background is in documentary photography and portraiture. The nine archival metal prints on  display at the Hotel Indigo depict strong women amidst a backdrop of Baltimore monuments and sites.  Locations such as Lake Montebello, Patterson Park, the Druid Hill Tennis Courts, and the Ravens parking lot,  signal the public landscape of Baltimore for those that know it well, in contrast to photographs made in the  artist's Maryland Art Place studio which utilize strobe and gel lighting to simulate the vibes of the 80's  roller skating rinks reminiscent of Robinson's childhood.      The skaters photographed include artists, musicians, and female entrepreneurs; women in the creative scene  in Baltimore, including Amy Cavanaugh, Caitlin Gill, Jade Davis, Tina Thompson, Brittany Wight, Les Gray,  Hayley Furman, Jessica Lauryn, Sophie Kluckhuhn, and Wildège François.   Brady Robinson is a photographer based in Baltimore and a current resident artist at Maryland Art Place.  She divides her time between personal art projects and commissioned work. Her documentary Art Desks was  published by Daylight Books with an essay by Andy Grundberg and distributed by ARTBOOK D.A.P. Her  photographs have been featured in The Washington Post, Channel One Russia TV, The Bund Shanghai,  Hyperallergic, BmoreArt, Featureshoot, Slate among others. Robinson leads photography workshops  throughout the United States. Select exhibitions include Lishui Photography Festival China, Orlando Museum  of Art, Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Katzen Art Center at American University, AIPAD NYC, and Art Miami. Select  collections include American University, Orlando Museum of Art and Spanish Cultural Center, Santo Domingo,  DR.      Robinson is a University Instructor of Photography at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, and faculty at  ICP in New York. She received her BFA in photography from The Maryland Institute, College of Art, and MFA  in photography from Cranbrook Art Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Robinson is represented by  Addison/Ripley Fine Art in Washington, DC.    Maryland Art Place (MAP) inspires, supports, and encourages artistic expression through innovative programming, exhibitions,  and educational opportunities while recognizing the powerful impact art can have on our community. MAP creates a dynamic  environment for artists of our time to engage the public by nurturing and promoting new ideas. MAP has served as a critical resource  for contemporary art in the Mid-Atlantic since 1981. mdartplace.org. MAP is supported by the Maryland State Arts Council and The  Citizens of Baltimore County.   Thank you to my sponsors:                 Zeke's Coffee        www.zekescoffee.com                           Maggies Farm  www.maggiesfarm.com                                 FoundStudio Shop  www.foundstudioshop.com                                 Charm Craft City Mafia  www.charmcitycraftmafia.com               Siena Leigh https://www.sienaleigh.com                     Open Works https://www.openworksbmore.org Baltimore Fiscal https://www.baltimorefiscal.com

Episode 100 Notes and Links to Susan Muaddi Darraj's Work        On Episode 100 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Susan Muaddi Darraj, and the two talk about their shared love for S.E. Hinton and public libraries, in addition to Susan's history with language and words. They also discuss, among other topics, Susan's versatile writing and knack for getting inside the heads of her characters and her reading public, her experience with Palestinan-American representation in literature, as well as her award-winning work for adults and middle-graders.        Susan Muaddi Darraj's short story collection, A Curious Land: Stories from Home, was named the winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, judged by Jaime Manrique.   It also won the 2016 Arab American Book Award, a 2016 American Book Award, and was shortlisted for a Palestine Book Award. Her previous short story collection, The Inheritance of Exile, was published in 2007 by University of Notre Dame Press. In 2018, she was named a Ford Fellow by USA Artists. Susan also is a two-time recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. She has also been awarded a Ruby's Artist Grant from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. In 2019, she launched the viral #TweetYourThobe social media campaign to promote Palestinian culture. Later that year, she was named winner of the Rose Nader Award, by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), an award given by the Nader family to a person who “demonstrates an unwavering dedication and commitment to values of equality and justice.” In January 2020, Capstone Books launched her debut children's chapter book series, Farah Rocks, about a smart, brave Palestinian American girl named Farah Hajjar.   Buy Susan Muaddi Darraj's Work   "Memory, home and belonging in 'A Curious Land' "   Susan Muaddi Darraj's Articles for Middle East Eye   Necessary Fiction's Review of A Curious Land: Stories from Home At about 3:00, Pete asks Susan about her childhood relationship with language and reading   At about 8:45, Susan lists and describes some memorable books that have informed her work and that she loved as a kid    At about 10:20, Susan discusses representation and how she felt or didn't feel represented as an adolescent and beyond; she also describes her groundbreaking series, Farah Rocks   At about 11:55, Susan discusses how “demoralizing” it was in not seeing her experience in what she read as a kid, and the implications of a pertinent quote from Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop   At about 13:20, Susan describes in late high school and college how Naomi Shihab Nye's Habibi was shocking and transformative for her   At about 14:30, Pete references the Episode 94 kudos and appreciation for Naomi Shihab Nye   At about 15:45, Pete wonders about lack of representation or negative representation for Arab-Americans/Palestinians, and Susan details the negative stereotypes that often lead to/come from Aladdin   At about 18:55, Susan responds to Pete's question about inspirations and “ “Eureka' moments” that catapulted her writing career, and she cites writers like Sylvia Plath, bell hooks, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, Isabel Allende, and more   At about 22:50, Pete inquires about Susan's relationship with Richard Wright's work   At about 23:55, Susan details her college experience and her parents' view of her studies; she references common career expectations in Arab-American/immigrant communities and how she began to write as she taught literature    At about 28:30, Susan references #5amwritersclub and Maya Angelou's philosophy about early morning writing   At about 29:35, Pete asks Susan about who she's reading now; she shouts out S.K. Ali, Aisha Saeed, Hena Khan, and Saadia Faruqi   At about 31:00, Susan describes the excellence of poetry that draws her back, including T.S. Elliott's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”   At about 31:35, Pete wonders how being a successful published writer has affected the way she reads    At about 33:30, Susan talks about being “energized” by movies and TV and their structure and characterization   At about 35:10, Susan talks about the biographies for young readers she wrote for Chelsea House Publishing, as well as the phenomenon of “reluctant readers for preteen boys”   At about 37:50, Pete wonders about how Susan gets her work to the correct level for young readers   At about 38:40, Pete and Susan use S.E. Hinton's work as an example of an impeccable sense of what young readers are drawn to; Pete talks about the chills that came with the cyclical nature of the book, and Susan is reminded of the iconic Theme for English B by Langston Hughes   At about 40:50, Pete recommends That Was Then, This is Now   At about 41:15, Susan gives some background on the title character's name and significance for the Farah Rocks… Series, as well talking about her choices in translation   At about 45:00, Susan and Pete talk about ableism and “the new girl” as theme, as well as some subtle    At about 48:00, Susan talks about two upcoming projects   At about 48:40, Pete asks about the seeds for the book and the title of A Curious Land: Stories from Home, and Susan discusses the connection between the collection and her first book, The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly   At about 51:00, Susan discusses research done for A Curious Land: Stories from Home   At about 53:10, Pete wonders about any pressures Susan might feel in writing from the point-of-view of a member of the Palestianian diaspora, and in talking about her changing attitude regarding this, Susan quotes Jacqueline Woodson   At about 55:00, Pete asks Susan who else is “doing the work” in writing varied stories of the Palestinian community, including Eta Frum and Susan Abulhawa   At about 56:00, Susan gives background on the epigraphs for A Curious Land…   At about 58:00, Pete and Susan highlight the beginning of the collection in setting the scene for the thematically-linked collection and talk about themes of agency and women's role in society, and sacrifice   At about 1:00:45, Pete asks Susan about her goal/rationale for using the town of the collection as a “character,” almost like Faulkner's Yoknaptawpha County, including the effects of the Occupation   At about 1:03:00, Susan talks about the diversity of The Middle East and the ironies of people assuming that she needs to be taught about Christianity; she references an article on these misconceptions by Ryan al-Natour   At about 1:07:00, Susan describes a “family-tree effect” that she instituted for her collection   At about 1:08:30, Pete reads from a review of the collection   At about 1:10:00, Susan goes in-depth about upcoming projects   At about 1:13:25, Susan gives her contact info and social media info         You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.  This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com. Please tune in for the next episode, Episode 101 with Mia St. John, former five time world champion boxer and dedicated advocate for improved mental health facilities and care. She is the author of the recently-published Fighting For My Life: A Memoir about a Mother's Loss and Grief. The episode will air on January 25.   

We had the great opportunity to sit down with Stephen Towns in August. We talked about his artistic practice, his residency at Falling Water, and his upcoming show at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art curated by Kilolo Luckett. Tune in!! - Stephen Towns was born in 1980 in Lincolnville, South Carolina and lives and works in Baltimore. He trained as a painter with a BFA in studio art from the University of South Carolina, and has also developed a rigorous, self-taught quilting practice. In 2018, The Baltimore Museum of Art presented his first museum exhibition, Stephen Towns: Rumination and a Reckoning. His work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Artforum, The Washington Post, Hyperallergic, Cultured, AFROPUNK, HYPEBEAST and American Craft. Towns was honored as the inaugural recipient of the 2016 Municipal Art Society of Baltimore Travel Prize, and in 2021, Towns was awarded a Maryland State Arts Council's Individual Artist Award. Towns' work is in the collections of The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Art + Practice, Artist Mark Bradford's nonprofit based in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, The Petrucci Family Foundation, The Baltimore Museum of Art, the City of Charleston, South Carolina, The Nelson Atkins Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, and is held in private collections nationally and abroad. . More about Stephen Towns: @ The Westmoreland Museum of American Art https://thewestmoreland.org/exhibitions/declaration-and-resistance/ https://thewestmoreland.org/blog/baltimore-artist-stephen-towns-on-declaration-resistance-and-fallingwater-residency/ https://www.debuckgallery.com/the-westmoreland-museum-acquires-work-by-tina-williams-brewer-and-stephen-towns/ https://triblive.com/local/westmoreland/westmoreland-museum-gets-grant-for-2022-exhibit/ @ Fallingwater: https://www.golaurelhighlands.com/articles/post/artist-stephen-towns-in-residency-at-fallingwaters-high-meadow-for-june-2021/ https://fallingwater.org/webinars/live-from-fallingwater-stephen-towns-and-kilolo-luckett-in-conversation/ A fantastic video: https://youtu.be/iokg6uTJSpE His website (under re-construction) http://stephentowns.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otherborderwall/message

I was just minding my business, buying chicken and then... ### Also, my first ever solo storytelling show is happening October 8th, 9th and 10th 2021 at Baltimore Theatre Project. The show is called "Juneteenth Tilapia Rainbows."  If you're in the Baltimore area, come through and check out the show. Or... If you're a fan of the podcast and can't make to the theater - here's a special link just for you and few select friends and family to watch the show virtually on October 9th at 8pm ET:  https://phillgoodstories.ticketspice.com/juneteenth-tilapia-rainbows   Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Professor of Practice at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com /  isolationbelike.com / Email: phillbranch@gmail.com Subscribe and share! Thanks for listening.  

I faced a challenging test this week. Take a listen. Also, my first ever solo storytelling show is happening October 8th, 9th and 10th 2021 at Baltimore Theatre Project. The show is called "Juneteenth Tilapia Rainbows."  If you're in the Baltimore area, come through and check out the show. Or... If you're a fan of the podcast and can't make to the theater - here's a special link just for you and few select friends and family to watch the show virtually on October 9th at 8pm ET:  https://phillgoodstories.ticketspice.com/juneteenth-tilapia-rainbows   Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Professor of Practice at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com /  isolationbelike.com / Email: phillbranch@gmail.com Subscribe and share! Thanks for listening.  

Ariel has a robust background working to support arts organizations that uplift cultural expression across diverse communities.  She is the Senior Manager of Impact Communications at The Save the Music Foundation, where she supports the organization in producing content that showcases the impact of the organization's 25-year body of work. When she is not with STM, Ariel volunteers her time supporting The HBCU Jazz Education Initiative as a founding member and Consulting Director. Additionally, she is the co-founder and a current board member of The Arts Administrators of Color Network, an organization she helped establish in 2016. There, she has stewarded programs that provide professional development and networking opportunities for arts leaders. She has served as the Founding Board Chair of the organization and continues to be an active member as Vice-Chair of the Board. Previously, Ariel has supported the establishment of The Lewis Prize for Music, an organization that provides financial support for Creative Youth Development music leaders and organizations across the country, where she led their communications efforts. She also served as Program Manager for the Social Impact department at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she helped manage large-scale projects and events geared towards amplifying the work of artists throughout the performing arts sector on local and national levels. As a consultant for the Los Angeles Fellowship Program with the Inner City Youth Orchestra of LA, she helped to gather insights and cultivate the project alongside the LA Chamber Orchestra, and the USC Thornton School of Music. This work was funded by the Mellon Foundation. Past professional experiences also include work with National Arts Strategies, The String Queens, The MusicianShip, The Washington Women in Jazz Festival, and Washington Performing Arts. Ariel has served as a guest speaker for organizations including Georgetown University and Chamber Music America and has contributed as a grants panelist for the Department of Education, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Maryland State Arts Council, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, and the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. Her written work is set to be included in the 2021 publication of A Grassroots Leadership & Arts for Social Change Primer for Educators, Organizers, Activists & Rabble-Rousers.   The volume “highlights authors from around the globe, who have contributed to the ongoing effort to expand the field of leadership from a bottom-up, collective, collaborative, and horizontally-based perspective,” and will be published by the International Leadership Association in October 2021. Ariel's passion for the arts began onstage, as a French Horn player. She has had the opportunity to perform with ensembles across the world, from the Grammy's stage with Lizzo to an international festival in Guadeloupe celebrating the work of composer Chevalier de Saint George. She takes as many opportunities to visit her hometown of Detroit, Michigan as she can, and is a graduate of Howard University, where she obtained her degree in Music Business. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aeryelle https://www.instagram.com/aeryelle Aeryelle.com Contact AAMA: Website: https://www.aa-ma.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/african-american-marketing-association/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aamahouston Merchandise: https://marketing-for-the-culture.creator-spring.com/

Celebrate the finalists in the 2021 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review! The three finalists, another contributor to the summer issue, and LPR's head editor read. Steven Hollies, the winner of the 2021 Poetry Contest, is a Rockville native living mostly inside his head, a 2019 graduate of Howard Community College, and a drop-out from many other times and places. He enjoys playing volleyball, guitar, hooky, jokes, games, with words, around, along, it cool, hard to get, with fire, and the fool. Read "Body/language," the poem that won the 2021 Poetry Contest. Virginia Crawford, a 2021 Poetry Contest finalist, is a long-time teaching artist with the Maryland State Arts Council. She has co-edited two anthologies: Poetry Baltimore, poems about a city and Voices Fly, An Anthology of Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Program from CityLit Press. She earned degrees in Creative Writing from Emerson College, Boston, and The University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Her book Touch appeared in 2013 from Finishing Line Press. Apprentice House Press published questions for water in April 2021. She writes and lives in Baltimore. Learn more at virginiacrawford.com. Rosemary Hutzler, a 2021 Poetry Contest finalist, teaches, writes, and mothers in northwest Baltimore. Growing up on an island near Seattle, she was imprinted by natural beauty, quirky houses, and iconoclastic personalities. She also lived in Maine, Connecticut, France, and Brooklyn before settling into Baltimore and its Jewish community. Her teachers have included John Hollander, Michael Collier, Mark Strand, and Gerald Stern. Her work has appeared in the Texas Observer, the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore City Paper, the Forward, Nimrod, and elsewhere. Read her translation of R.M. Rilke's "Grown Woman" and her review of a republication of Ellen La Motte's Backwash of War. .chisaraokwu. (she/her), a contributor to LPR's summer 2021 issue, is an Igbo American actor, poet, and healthcare futurist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in many journals, including Berkeley Poetry Review, Cutthroat, Obsidian, and Tinderbox Poetry. Named a Cave Canem Fellow in 2020, she looks forward to post-pandemic travel. Read her poem "The Suicide Bomber Climbs A Mountain & Leaves A Note." Chelsea Lemon Fetzer, a contest judge, holds an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, Tin House, Mississippi Review, and Minnesota Review. Her essay “Speck” appears in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about being Mixed Race in the 21st Century. She is a 2019 Rubys recipient for the Literary Arts. Fetzer currently teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Baltimore. She serves on the board of CityLit Project and as head editor of Little Patuxent Review, a literary and arts journal that publishes creative work from the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond. Read her poem "flare." Pictured: (top row) Virginia Crawford, Steven Hollies, Rosemary Hutzler, (bottom row) .chisaraokwu., Chelsea Lemon Fetzer. Recorded On: Wednesday, July 21, 2021

Join us for a virtual reading by Virginia Crawford, E. Doyle-Gillespie, Meg Eden, Brian Gilmore, Joseph Harrison, Christine Higgins, and Michael Salcman, seven local poets with recent books. Virginia Crawford, author of questions for water (Apprentice House Press, 2021), is a long-time teaching artist with the Maryland State Arts Council. She has co-edited two anthologies: Poetry Baltimore, poems about a city and Voices Fly, An Anthology of Exercises and Poems from the Maryland State Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Program. She earned degrees in Creative Writing from Emerson College, Boston, and The University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Her book Touch appeared in 2013 from Finishing Line Press. She writes and lives in Baltimore with her family. E. Doyle-Gillespie is a Baltimore City Police officer. A 15-year veteran of the force, he has worked in patrol, operations, and education among other specializations. His books of poetry include Masala Tea and Oranges, On the Later Addition of Sancho Panza, Socorro Prophecy, and Aerial Act. His most recent title is Gentrifying the Plague House, an exploration of our world of social upheaval and pandemic. He is a former teacher who holds a BA in History from George Washington University, and a Master of Liberal Arts from Johns Hopkins University. Meg Eden is a 2020 Pitch Wars mentee and teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She is the author of five poetry chapbooks, the novel Post-High School Reality Quest (2017), and the poetry collection Drowning in the Floating World (2020). She runs the Magfest MAGES Library blog, which posts accessible academic articles about video games. Find her online at www.megedenbooks.com or on Twitter at @ConfusedNarwhal. Brian Gilmore, Washington, D.C., poet and longtime public-interest lawyer, is the author of four collections of poetry: elvis presley is alive and well and living in harlem, Jungle Nights and Soda Fountain Rags, We Didn't Know Any Gangsters, and come see about me, marvin, which received a 2020 Michigan Notable Book Award. He is a Cave Canem Fellow and Kimbilio Fellow and twice recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award. He currently teaches social justice law at Michigan State University. Joseph Harrison is the author of six books of poems, including Someone Else's Name, Identity Theft, Shakespeare's Horse, and, most recently, Sometimes I Dream That I Am Not Walt Whitman. His poetry has been published in numerous journals (such as The New York Review of Books, Parnassus, Raritan, and The Yale Review) and several anthologies (including Best American Poetry, the Library of America's American Religious Poems, and Norton's Leadership: Essential Writings of Our Greatest Thinkers). He is Senior American Editor for the Waywiser Press. Christine Higgins is the author of Hallow, a full-length collection of poetry published in spring 2020 (Cherry Grove). She was the second-place winner in the Poetry Box competition for her chapbook, Hello, Darling, in 2019. She is the co-author of In the Margins, A Conversation in Poetry. She has been the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Award for both poetry and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in America, Poetry East, Naugatuck River Review, and Windhover. Learn more at www.christinehigginswriter.com. Michael Salcman, poet, physician and art critic, served as chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Maryland and president of the Contemporary Museum and CityLit. Poems appear in Arts & Letters, Café Review, Hudson Review, New Letters, and Raritan. Books include The Clock Made of Confetti; The Enemy of Good Is Better; his popular anthology, Poetry in Medicine; A Prague Spring, Before & After, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize; and Shades & Graces: New Poems (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020), inaugural winner of The Daniel Hoffman Legacy Book Prize. Listen to “Thoughts on Making Soup and War” by Virginia Crawford. Read "Oasis Bridesmaids" by E. Doyle-Gillespie. Read “Rikuzentakata” by Meg Eden. Read "detroit sketch #1 (for m.l.)" by Brian Gilmore. Read “Mark Strand” by Joseph Harrison. Read “The Boy” by Christine Higgins. Listen to “In-Painting” and “The Cult of Beauty” by Michael Salcman. Pictured: (top row) Virginia Crawford, E. Doyle-Gillespie, (middle row) Meg Eden, Brian Gilmore, Joseph Harrison, (bottom row) Christine Higgins, Michael Salcman. Recorded On: Wednesday, June 16, 2021

It was Fathers' Day (I choose plural possessive), I had a couple sips and then hit record. Enter at your own risk. Getting back to the grind is going to be difficult. Folks already standing too close and trying to breathe in your face. Work, and other things, don't feel quite the same and I'm not so sure what's next.  Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council's Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Professor of Practice at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com /  isolationbelike.com / Email: phill@phillbranch.com Music by BaadChuck Subscribe and share! Thanks for listening.  

Over a year into the apocalypse, I'm growing my own food with the help of vegetable robot. It's keeping me sane as the end of semester madness begins.   Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Professor of Practice at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Music by BaadChuck Subscribe and share! Thanks for listening.

Have you ever imagined being shipwrecked on a lonely island? What if the air was full of whispering voices? Suddenly a mysterious fairy appears, who can control the wind and the waves, while flying from one palm tree to the next! Prince George’s Shakespeare in the Parks presents The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. Let your imagination soar as you listen to this audio drama, with magical music and exciting sound effects, and a love story between two young people who meet on the shores of the sparkling sea.This audio drama is produced by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Prince George’s County Department of Parks and Recreation, Arts and Cultural Heritage Division, with support from the Maryland State Arts Council.CASTCraig Wallace – ProsperoEd Gero – CalibanRenea Brown – MirandaMelissa Flaim – ArielJack Schmitt – FerdinandKim Schraf – Alonsa Chris Williams – SebastianChristian Gibbs – AntonioManolo Santalla – GonzaloBrad Smith – StephanoTori Boutin – Trinculo, MusicianMaddy Belknap – MusicianLauren Farnell – Vocalist, MusicianCREWAlan Ernstein – Montpelier Arts Center Technical DirectorBriana Manente – Production Stage Manager, Assistant Director, and Dialect CoachChristel Stevens – Executive ProducerChristopher Dwyer – Artistic Director and DirectorKirk Walterick – Recording EngineerKristina Manente – Audio Producer, Editor, and Podcast ConsultantMackubin Owens – Sound DesignerTori Boutin – Music Director and ComposerSPECIAL THANKSBeth Crisman – Managing Director: Montpelier Arts CenterMaryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission Arts and Cultural Heritage Division

Join us for readings and discussion inspired by the Washington Writers' Publishing House's new anthology, This Is What America Looks Like: Poetry and Fiction from DC, Maryland, and Virginia, 111 works by 100 writers. Editor Kathleen Wheaton describes this anthology as "a picture of our time, our shared losses, our shared life."The event features a panel of writers representing the anthology.Poet Sarah Browning’s books are Killing Summer and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden. She co-founded and for 10 years directed Split This Rock. Her fellowships include ones from the Lillian E. Smith Center, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Yaddo, Mesa Refuge, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Adirondack Center for Writing.Hayes Davis is the author of Let Our Eyes Linger (Poetry Mutual Press, 2016). His work appears in many journals and anthologies. He was a member of Cave Canem’s first cohort of fellows. A high-school English teacher, he lives in Silver Spring with his wife, poet Teri Ellen Cross Davis.Caron Garcia Martinez is a writer, teacher, and former diplomat who grew up in Los Angeles. A graduate of Williams College, the London School of Economics and Political Science (MS, Psychology), and George Mason University (MFA), Caron has taught at American University since 2008. Caron's published work is in short fiction and essays, and her current writing project is a novel set in Mexico in 1910, built on family stories recalled by her abuela, Celia.Adam Schwartz’s debut collection of stories, The Rest of the World, won the Washington Writers' Publishing House 2020 prize for fiction. His stories have won prizes sponsored by Poets & Writers, Philadelphia Stories, and Baltimore City Paper and appeared in numerous literary journals. He has stories forthcoming in Raritan and Gargoyle. He has an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. For 23 years, he has taught high school in Baltimore.Panel moderator Kathleen Wheaton grew up in California, studied at Stanford University, and worked for 20 years as a journalist in Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Bethesda, Maryland. Her fiction has appeared in many journals and three anthologies, and she is a five-time recipient of Maryland State Arts Council grants. Her collection, Aliens and Other Stories, won the 2013 Washington Writers' Publishing House Fiction Prize. Since 2014, she has served as president and managing editor of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House.The anthology's poetry editor, Jona Colson, and fiction editor, Caroline Bock, will also feature in this event.Learn more about This Is What America Looks Like.Recorded On: Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Processing how art about Black life is often, both, too much and not enough - at the same. Join me as I discuss Amazon's new series "Them." I did my best to make it spoiler free, but feel free to circle back to this discussion AFTER you watch, if you don't want to know anything about the show. That said, the discussion is a general one about nuance and responsibility as creators. Please chime in to the discussion in the comments...even if you watch the recording later. I'll respond. Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Professor of Practice at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Subscribe and share! Thanks for listening.

Beyond the massive protests over last year's police killing of George Floyd, a remarkable reckoning on America's troubled racial history — especially the unresolved legacy of slavery — has been very much in evidence in our area over the past many months. Case in point: William Walters and his son Henry Walters, the namesakes of the Walters Art Museumhere in Baltimore. Henry Walters’ gift to the City of Baltimore in the 1930s of the priceless collection of art that he and his father had amassed was a generous act of philanthropy, and the collection has been enjoyed and revered by millions of art lovers and scholars over the years. Last week, the Walters announced that it has revised the written history that is published on their website to reflect the fact that William Walters supported the Confederacy, and that his son, Henry supported activities that honored the Confederacy well into the 20th century. This disclosure comes in the context of at least two other area institutions, Johns Hopkins University and Hood College, where information has surfaced about their namesakes' links to slavery. Today on Midday, a conversation about ways to acknowledge and act on the symbols and stories that represent America’s long history of racism and racial inequality. Later in the program, Tom is joined on Zoom by two racial justice activists who'll share their perspectives on what should and can be done with such information. A. Adar Ayirais the principal consultant with Ayira Core Concepts, a consulting firm that provides Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression /Equity education. She’s also a co-founding member of Baltimore Racial Justice Action, and a member of Associated Black Charities. Also joining Tom is David Fakunle, chair of theMaryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He's also an associate faculty member at the Johns HopkinsBloomberg School of Public Health, and the CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME, an organization that provides enrichment through the African oral tradition. In addition, Dr. Fakunle is the director of Wombworks here in Baltimore, and a member of the Maryland State Arts Council. But first, Tom speaks with Dr. Julia Marciari-Alexander, an art historian and the director of the Walters Art Museum here in Baltimore since 2013. She joins us on Zoom… See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been a year since the world turned upside down. I take some time to look back at how it all began - pandemic grocery shopping, lots of bleach and...fear. Isolation Be Like is produced and hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie).  He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Professor of Practice at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. He currently teaches On Janet Jackson: Race, Class and Wardrobe Malfunctions. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / janetclass.com isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Baadchuck  

In this episode, Eric Brotman is joined by Eliot Pfanstiehl (LM), who represents all things leadership—having served as program facilitator for Leadership Maryland, Leadership Montgomery, Leadership Southern Maryland, Leadership Washington County, and Leadership Allegany since their inception. Throughout the episode, Eric and Eliot walk listeners through the Leadership Maryland experience—highlighting the intimacy and state-wide networking opportunities created during the program, as well as the vast perspectives, ideas, and issues that participants encounter. Eliot breaks down what it really means to be a leader and how to use leadership tools to create positive change for others, as well as his next steps since officially retiring. How to use the Leadership Maryland network and the transformational leadership experiences that occur throughout the program and after graduation The formula for getting people from different backgrounds, beliefs, and ways of life to open up and collaborate with one another The importance of studying models of other leaders and mobilizing resources Breaking down what leadership is versus what it is not—the why vs. the how How to use your leadership skills to benefit and create value for others The impact of 2020 on the arts, reinventing social learning, and the rebirth of community organizations Meet Eliot Pfanstiehl (LM): Mr. Pfanstiehl (LM) is Founding CEO Emeritus of the Strathmore Hall Arts Center in Bethesda, MD. Born in Washington, D.C. and a life-long resident of Montgomery County, he is a graduate of George Washington University, where he majored in psychology. After college, he worked for the Maryland State Department of Education and went on to be the arts coordinator for Montgomery County Government in Montgomery County, Maryland. During his time there, he opened the original Round House Theatre. In 1983, he was hired as the first Executive Director of the Strathmore Hall Foundation. Inc. and went on to build the world class Music Center at Strathmore and Pike and Rose AMP Strathmore. He conceived and launched the Strathmore East County Initiative and the innovative Partnership with MCPS and Strathmore called Think Big Café. He’s served as the chairman of the Maryland State Arts Council, the Maryland Citizens for the Arts, and the Montgomery County Conference and Visitors Bureau. Mr. Pfanstiehl founded and served as president of the Montgomery County Arts Council, the League of Washington Theatres, the MetroArt I and II Consortiums, and Maryland Leadership Workshops, Inc. He has facilitated over 400 non-profit retreats, leadership training workshops, and educational conferences. He has served as program facilitator for Maryland’s leadership programs and was a member of the inaugural class of Leadership Greater Washington, a member of the National State Leadership Directors, and currently serves as a founding board member of the National Give a Note Foundation. Within the cultural industry, Mr. Pfanstiehl has served on the boards of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington; Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre Foundation of Maryland; Community and Friends Board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Round House Theatre; Maryland College of Art and Design; Black Rock Center for the Arts; Conference and Visitors Bureau of Montgomery County, and the Maryland Association of Non-Profit Organizations. Mr. Pfanstiehl was named 2001 Washingtonian of the Year for his leadership in a new 2,000 seat Concert Hall and Arts Education Center at Strathmore scheduled to open in 2005. He and his anthropologist spouse, Cynthia, are proud parents of their four grown children in Silver Spring, Maryland where they are adapting to retirement by being busier than ever. For show notes & more: https://www.leadershipmd.org/engaging_leaders.html

To twerk, or not to twerk (at dinner)? That is the question. Links: Dallas True Kitchen owner tells ‘twerking’ women to ‘get the f–k’ out Video of Dallas Restaurant Owner’s Anti-Twerking Rant Goes Viral   Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Music by Kris Johnson - follow him on YouTube and IG - @krisjohnsonmusic  

Step back in time to Victorian London for a magical tale of ghosts, a change of heart, and the true meaning of the holidays in Charles Dicken’s – A Christmas Carol. This timeless classic has been adapted by Christopher Dwyer into an audio drama. Listen in and be charmed by a much-loved holiday story vividly brought to life. Our FREE, family-friendly presentation, filled with music, captures the joy and delight of the season. Narrated by Lilian Oben, this performance includes appearances by award-winning actors Edward Gero as Jacob Marley and Matthew Aldwin McGee as Scrooge. Join us on a thoughtful journey, with well-known characters, in what is sure to be a comforting and safe holiday tradition. This audio drama is produced by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Prince George’s County Department of Parks and Recreation, Arts and Cultural Heritage Division, with support from the Maryland State Arts Council.CASTBriana Manente – Ghost of Christmas Past, Martha, DriverCarol Spring – Mrs. Cratchit, Businessman, MusicianChristopher Dwyer – Bosun, Fat Man, BoyChristopher Williams – Box Collector, Businessman, Fezziwig, Great Grandfather, Old JoeEdward Gero – Jacob MarleyEmmanuel West – Fred, PeterJack Schmitt – Bob CratchitLillian Oben – NarratorMadeline Belknap – Tiny Tim, Fan, Niece, MusicianMatthew Aldwin McGee – Ebenezer ScroogeTimothe Bittle – Ghost of Christmas Present, Topper, ButcherTori Boutin – Young Woman, Ms. Dilber, Lily, MusicianCREWAlan Ernstein – Montpelier Arts Center Technical Director and Booth MasterBriana Manente – Production Stage Manager, Assistant Director, and Dialect CoachChristel Stevens – Executive ProducerChristopher Dwyer – Artistic Director and DirectorKirk Walterick – Recording EngineerKristina Manente – Audio Producer, Editor, and Podcast ConsultantMackubin Owens – Sound DesignerTori Boutin – Music Director and ComposerSPECIAL THANKSBeth Crisman – Managing Director: Montpelier Arts CenterMaryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission Arts and Cultural Heritage Division

Had a conversation with a friend that made me think about how much (and how seemingly well) I suppress emotions. I'm just talking through the work many of us do, to be "okay."   Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

I didn't even wait to get into my studio/car. I just captured the moment.    Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

Spent some time thinking about how I've gotten in my own way and how I had to learn to let myself be great (and be average sometimes, and nervous, and uncertain...but still moving).   Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

1. Allison Loggins-Hull - Hammershttps://youtu.be/ANZrjcAiqPU2. Valerie Coleman - Shotgun Houseshttps://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ThyYRZwAsJrYeqtEan5eXTomeka Reid - Present Awareness, Mvt. III. Radical Hopehttps://youtu.be/4b4CkxraLXkPanelists:Alisha Patterson is the co-founder and Managing Director of Afro House. Since the organization’s founding in 2011, Patterson has been at the forefront of producing live experiences that are in alignment with its ambitious mission. They include, Cloud Nebula, an Afrofuturistic sci-fi opera-ballet, the Afro House Concert Series, which celebrates Baltimore’s extraordinary maker scene, and the 100 Year Symposium, a conversation about what a community might be like in 100 years.As one of Afro House’s chief architects, Alisha has successfully secured funding from foundations such as the T. Rowe Price and Robert W. Deutsch Foundations. In addition, she has played an instrumental role in the commissions Afro House has received from both local and regional theaters and the highly acclaimed choreographer Camille A. Brown. She also worked closely with Afro House’s Artistic Director on creating his award-winning Baker Artist Portfolio.In 2016 Alisha was tapped by Kaisha Johnson, the Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts to manage the organization’s flagship program. Under Alisha’s stewardship, the Leadership Through Mentorship program has become a highly sought-after career and community building opportunity for entry level, mid-career and seasoned arts administrators of color. Kibibi Ajanku, the GBCA's Equity and Inclusion Director, appointed Alisha to the Urban Arts Leadership Council in 2019. Alisha has an MA in Organizational Management from The George Washington University, a BA in English Literature and Certificate of Concentration in Women’s Studies from the University of Cincinnati.Scott Patterson is a pianist, composer and librettist of incomparable talent, whose work has been described by the Pittsburgh Review-Tribune as “a masterly blend of virtuosity, singing style and beautiful voicing.” His blend of classical, soul and rock music is futuristic, emotive and luxuriant. Since 2012 Patterson has toured with Camille A. Brown & Dancers. He is contributing composer of the Bessie Award winning Mr. TOL E. RAncE and Brown’s critically acclaimed work, BLACK GIRL: Linguistic Play and ink. His compositions for these have been performed for audiences at venues such as Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Belfast Festival at Queen’s, White Bird, and more.Patterson is co-founder and Artistic Director of Afro House, a Baltimore-based art house committed to creating disruptive, music culture. Through Afro House, Patterson leads the Astronaut Symphony, a contemporary ensemble that creates symphonic performance art pieces. His compositions for the ensemble include the Afrofuturistic opera-ballet, Cloud Nebula and the sci-fi tone poem Ebon Kojo: The Last Tribe. He also serves as Music Director and Composer for the Afro House Concert Series. Patterson is a 2020 Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund Fellow and a recipient of the 2020 Regional Independent Artist Award for Performing Arts from the Maryland State Arts Council. He is a 2019 Baker Artist Award, Mary Sawyers Imboden Awardee, and is a recipient of a Creative Baltimore Fund Grant and Artist/District Grant. He studied under Richard Fields at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music and Phillip Kawin at the Manhattan School of Music.

Between the pandemic and all the insta-wokeness, it's hard to stay sane and find joy...but not impossible.    Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

Wilson’s guest on Delmarva Today is author Barbara Lockhart. They will discuss her historical novel Elizabeth’s Field . Lockhart’s novel recounts the struggles of the black population, free and slave, living on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the 1850s. In the face of oppression, cruelty, and fear, it is the story of a people with astounding resilience and endurance whose only hope at that time was flight. Lockhart’s novel was recognized with a silver medal from the Independent Book Publishers Award. She has also received two Individual Artist Awards in Fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council for her short stories and for her novel Requiem for a Summer Cottage . Lockhart lives on a nature reserve on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

I went INSIDE of a market for the first time in months. It went as expected. Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

The Tragedy of Macbeth is presented as an hour-long audio drama set in the gangs of New York of the 1860's. This turbulent time finds us in the midst of the American Civil War and domestic unrest in the streets of New York City. The classic story stays the same: our tragic hero Macbeth stumbles upon the witches in the sewers, who fill his head with the prophecy of being the" king hereafter." Murder, mayhem, and a grab for power consume the Macbeths as they rise and fall during their short reign. This audio drama is produced by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, Prince George’s County Department of Parks and Recreation, Arts and Cultural Heritage Division, with support from the Maryland State Arts Council.CASTBen Fisher – Porter, Lennox, First MurdererBess Kaye – MacduffCarol Spring – Witch 3, Lady Macduff, Gentlewoman, MusicianChristopher Dwyer – RossJack Schmitt – Malcolm, Second MurdererJames Finley – MacbethJared Michael Swain – Duncan, DoctorMadeline Belknap – Witch 2, Son, MusicianRachel Manu – Fleance, Donalbain, EnsembleRyan Sellers – BanquoStephanie Wilson – Lady MacbethTori Boutin – First Witch, MusicianCREWAlan Ernstein – Montpelier Arts Center Technical Director and Booth MasterBriana Manente – Production Stage ManagerChristel Stevens – ProducerChristopher Dwyer – Artistic DirectorKirk Walterick – Recording EngineerMac Owens – Sound Designer and Audio EngineerTori Boutin – Composer and Music DirectorSPECIAL THANKSBeth Crisman – Managing Director: Montpelier Arts CenterBradley Foster SmithKristina ManenteMaryland National Capitol Parks and Planning Commission Arts and Cultural Heritage Division

Folks are out of their minds if they think students are going to read intricate reopening plans, filled with new rules and regulations. We can't even get them to read the syllabus. My thoughts on school reopenings. Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

17 weeks into being at home and it's looking like it's just the beginning. It's starting to catch up with me.   Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

Reflecting on having pride, while not feeling a connection to PRIDE. A follow-up to a piece I wrote in the Baltimore Sun in 2019, "Finding my place in PRIDE." "Pride month and all of its colorful and now corporate celebrations often cause me to examine my place within the multiple communities in which I identify. To be clear, I respect the symbolism of the celebration, but I have no idea of what to do with “Happy Pride” well-wishes. I grew up in and around Newark, N.J. Whatever messaging that was making it to some communities about Pride had not made its way to my neighborhood. The closest contact to Pride I had as a young person were the local news clips of drag queens and men dressed like The Village People. Even squinting, I did not see myself anywhere within that frame." Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

Theaters, concert halls and live performance venues were the first to close when the pandemic arrived, and many will be among the last to re-open. Tom talks with jazz impresario Todd Barkan Co-owner of Baltimore jazz club Keystone Korner and Audrey Fix Schaefer communications director of the National Independent Venue Association on what’s needed to keep independent music venues alive. Then Ken Skrzesz, executive director of the Maryland State Arts Council, joins Tom to discuss how Maryland artists and arts organizations are coping with COVID 19.

Juneteenth is having the best week ever...and I have some thoughts. P.S. I recorded this the day before I was given Juneteenth off, as a holiday. So, if my wonderful administrators are listening, this is not a response to your Juneteenth sentiments...it's more of a premonition of a cultural wave. I swear.  Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

Two poems by Baltimore poet Shirley Brewer, from her book A Little Breast Music, published by Passager Books in 2008. This audio-cast was made possible in part by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council.Support the show

I got to thinking about how it's not extremists whose racism I bump up against in my daily life. My everyday racism comes from liberal colleagues, acquaintances and (former) friends. Racism from these spaces, generally, gets dismissed when addressed and/or buried in a puddle of tears. Many of my Black friends have been approached by white friends since the uprisings began, for advice on how to be an ally. Here's what I think is a good start. Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

On this episode, I discuss the outrage over Biden deciding who is Black and I also touch on voting even when it doesn't feel so good. Isolation Be Like is Created, Produced and Hosted by Phill Branch (aka Phill Boogie) This podcast is supported by a 2019 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. Phill Branch is a storyteller working in film, creative nonfiction and theater. He is the 2019 recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council’s Solo Performance Artist Award. He is also a GrandSlam Champion of The Moth in DC. An alumnus of the American Film Institute, Branch recently directed Searching for Shaniqua; his documentary about the impact names have on people's lives.The film won the HBO Best Documentary award at the 2016 Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival. Branch has served as a professor at his alma mater Hampton University and recently at Howard University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Goucher College in Communication and Media Studies, focusing on race and ethnicity in film and media. Find us at @isolationbelike and @phillbranch on Twitter and IG / phillbranch.com / isolationbelike.com Edited by Ronald Young Jr. - follow him on Twitter and IG - @ohitsBigRon    Music by Darryl Thomas - follow him on Twitter and IG - @theartistDT

An interview with M:BRACE Series facilitator Dana Parsons, Director of Grants & Professional Development at the Maryland State Arts Council. Dana is leading a healing- and wellness-based professional development opportunity called "Restorative Movement" about ways to create physical relaxation and vulnerability to facilitation emotional vulnerability and personal expression from 10am-10:45am on Thursday, April 23, 2020. The M:BRACE Podcast is a chance to learn more about the AEMS-MSDE M:BRACE facilitators as humans, as artists, as fellow individuals living in and through the COVID-19 pandemic and to learn how the arts help us all survive.During the podcast, Dana mentioned a powerful devised theatre project she helped create through the Governor's Taskforce on the Opioid Epidemic. You can find a video of a performance of the work here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-shyNXDBx4

Paulette Beete's poems, short stories, and personal essays have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Always Crashing, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, among other journals. Her chapbooks include Blues for a Pretty Girl and Voice Lessons. Her work also appears in the anthologies Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC and Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (with Danna Ephland). Her work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She also blogs (occasionally) at thehomebeete.com and her manuscript "Falling Still" is currently in circulation. Find her on Twitter as @mouthflowers.Kathleen Hellen is the author of The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin (2018), the award-winning collection Umberto's Night, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, and featured on Poetry Daily, her poems have been awarded the Thomas Merton poetry prize and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review. She has won grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts. Hellen's poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Barrow Street, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, North American Review, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, The Seattle Review, the The Sewanee Review, Southern Poetry Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Witness, and elsewhere. For more on Kathleen visit https://www.kathleenhellen.comStephen Zerance is the author of Safe Danger (Indolent Books, 2018), which was nominated for Best Literature of the Year by POZ Magazine. His poems have appeared in West Branch, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, and Poet Lore, among other journals. He has also been featured on the websites of Lambda Literary and Split This Rock. Zerance received his MFA from American University, where he received the Myra Sklarew Award. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Find him on Twitter @stephnz. Instagram: stephenzeranceRead "Freddie Gray Breaks Free" and "Please Excuse This Poem" by Paulette Beete.Read "The Girl They Hired from Snow Country" by Kathleen Hellen.Read "Anne Sexton's Last Drink" and "Lindsay Lohan" by Stephen Zerance.Recorded On: Thursday, February 7, 2019

Paulette Beete's poems, short stories, and personal essays have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Always Crashing, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, among other journals. Her chapbooks include Blues for a Pretty Girl and Voice Lessons. Her work also appears in the anthologies Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC and Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (with Danna Ephland). Her work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She also blogs (occasionally) at thehomebeete.com and her manuscript "Falling Still" is currently in circulation. Find her on Twitter as @mouthflowers.Kathleen Hellen is the author of The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin (2018), the award-winning collection Umberto's Night, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, and featured on Poetry Daily, her poems have been awarded the Thomas Merton poetry prize and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review. She has won grants from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts. Hellen's poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Barrow Street, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, North American Review, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, Salamander, The Seattle Review, the The Sewanee Review, Southern Poetry Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Witness, and elsewhere. For more on Kathleen visit https://www.kathleenhellen.comStephen Zerance is the author of Safe Danger (Indolent Books, 2018), which was nominated for Best Literature of the Year by POZ Magazine. His poems have appeared in West Branch, Prairie Schooner, Quarterly West, and Poet Lore, among other journals. He has also been featured on the websites of Lambda Literary and Split This Rock. Zerance received his MFA from American University, where he received the Myra Sklarew Award. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Find him on Twitter @stephnz. Instagram: stephenzeranceRead "Freddie Gray Breaks Free" and "Please Excuse This Poem" by Paulette Beete.Read "The Girl They Hired from Snow Country" by Kathleen Hellen.Read "Anne Sexton's Last Drink" and "Lindsay Lohan" by Stephen Zerance.

Joelle Biele's newest book is Tramp (LSU Press, 2018);  she is also the author of White Summer and Broom and the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence. A Fulbright professor in Germany and Poland, she has received awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Poetry Society of America. Her essays and fiction appear in American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, and New England Review. She has taught American literature and creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Goucher College, the University of Oldenburg, Germany, and Jagiellonian University, Poland. She served as the 2017-2018 Howard County Poetry and Literature Society Writer-in-Residence.Ann Bracken is an activist with a pen. She has started over more times than she can count and believes that she possesses a strong gene for reinvention driving her desire for change. Ann’s changed her job and her mind, but never wavers from her commitment to family, friends, writing, and social justice. She’s authored two poetry collections — The Altar of Innocence and No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom. Ann currently serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and runs poetry and writing workshops in libraries, community centers, and prisons. Her poetry and interviews have been published in numerous anthologies and journals. Please visit annbrackenauthor.com.Ann Quinn’s poetry was selected by Stanley Plumly as first-place winner in the 2015 Bethesda Literary Arts Festival poetry contest, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work is published in Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Beechwood Review, Haibun Today, and Snapdragon, and is included in the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women. Ann lives in Maryland with her family where she teaches music and plays clarinet with the Columbia Orchestra. Her degrees are in music performance;  she fell in love with poetry in midlife. Her chapbook, Final Deployment, is published by Finishing Line Press. Please visit online at www.annquinn.net.Read "When You Were at Children's I Wanted to Go Back to When" by Joelle Biele.Read "Walking by the School Yard" by Ann Bracken.Read "Ma" by Ann Quinn.

Joelle Biele's newest book is Tramp (LSU Press, 2018);  she is also the author of White Summer and Broom and the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence. A Fulbright professor in Germany and Poland, she has received awards from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Poetry Society of America. Her essays and fiction appear in American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, Black Warrior Review, Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, and New England Review. She has taught American literature and creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Goucher College, the University of Oldenburg, Germany, and Jagiellonian University, Poland. She served as the 2017-2018 Howard County Poetry and Literature Society Writer-in-Residence.Ann Bracken is an activist with a pen. She has started over more times than she can count and believes that she possesses a strong gene for reinvention driving her desire for change. Ann’s changed her job and her mind, but never wavers from her commitment to family, friends, writing, and social justice. She’s authored two poetry collections — The Altar of Innocence and No Barking in the Hallways: Poems from the Classroom. Ann currently serves as a contributing editor for Little Patuxent Review and runs poetry and writing workshops in libraries, community centers, and prisons. Her poetry and interviews have been published in numerous anthologies and journals. Please visit annbrackenauthor.com.Ann Quinn’s poetry was selected by Stanley Plumly as first-place winner in the 2015 Bethesda Literary Arts Festival poetry contest, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work is published in Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, Beechwood Review, Haibun Today, and Snapdragon, and is included in the anthology Red Sky: Poetry on the Global Epidemic of Violence Against Women. Ann lives in Maryland with her family where she teaches music and plays clarinet with the Columbia Orchestra. Her degrees are in music performance;  she fell in love with poetry in midlife. Her chapbook, Final Deployment, is published by Finishing Line Press. Please visit online at www.annquinn.net.Read "When You Were at Children's I Wanted to Go Back to When" by Joelle Biele.Read "Walking by the School Yard" by Ann Bracken.Read "Ma" by Ann Quinn.Recorded On: Thursday, November 1, 2018

Listen to Uncle Devin's interview with Quynn Johnson, a multi-award winning performing artist, who has been described as having a “deliciously buoyant movement quality and a natural organic rhythm.”  In 2014, she won the Individual Artist Award for Dance Choreography from the Maryland State Arts Council. Quynn’s newest production, SOLE Defined (co-created with Ryan Johnson) is a show with incredible fusion of tap dance and body percussion. SOLE Defined has been presented at the Italy World Children’s Festival, Jacobs Pillow, The John F. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, and Dance Encore Festival in Quebec, Canada. Co-hosted by Jessica "Culture Queen" Hebron!

In 1844, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, encountered nitrous oxide, or laughing gas -- then an entertainment for performers in carnival-like theatrical acts -- and began administering the gas as the first true anesthetic. His discovery would change the world, reshaping medicine and humanity's relationship with pain. But that discovery would also thrust Wells into scandals that threatened his reputation, his family, and his sanity -- hardships and triumphs that resonate in today's struggles with what hurts us and what we take to stop the hurt. In The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist: A Novel, Michael Downs mines the gaps in the historical record and imagines the motivations and mysteries behind Wells's morbid fascination with pain, as well as the price he and his wife, Elizabeth, paid -- first through his obsession, then his addiction.Michael Downs is the author of The Greatest Show: Stories (2012) and House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City (2007), which won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. His debut novel, The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist (Acre Books, 2018) tells the story of the 19th-century man widely credited with discovering painless surgery. Downs is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. A former newspaper reporter, Downs is an associate professor of English at Towson University.It is January 2017 and Bill has hit rock bottom. Yesterday, he was William M. Katzenelenbogen, successful science reporter at The Washington Post. But things have taken a turn. Fired from his job, aimless, with exactly $1,219.37 in his checking account, he learns that his college roommate, a plastic surgeon known far and wide as the “Butt God of Miami Beach,” has fallen to his death under salacious circumstances. With nothing to lose, Bill boards a flight for Florida’s Gold Coast, ready to begin his own investigation -- a last ditch attempt to revive his career. There’s just one catch: Bill’s father, Melsor.Melsor Yakovlevich Katzenelenbogen -- poet, literary scholar, political dissident, small-time-crook -- is angling for control of the condo board at the Château Sedan Neuve, a crumbling high-rise in Hollywood, Florida, populated mostly by Russian Jewish immigrants. Melsor will use any means necessary to win the board election. And who better to help him than his estranged son? Featuring a colorful cast of characters, The Chateau injects the crime novel genre with surprising idiosyncrasy, subverting it with dark comic farce in a setting that becomes a microcosm of Trump’s America.Paul Goldberg’s debut novel The Yid was published in 2016 to widespread acclaim and named a finalist for both the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Jewish Book Award’s Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction. As a reporter, Goldberg has written two books about the Soviet human rights movement, and has co-authored (with Otis Brawley) the book How We Do Harm, an expose of the U.S. healthcare system. He is the editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, a publication focused on the business and politics of cancer. He lives in Washington, D.C.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.

In 1844, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, encountered nitrous oxide, or laughing gas -- then an entertainment for performers in carnival-like theatrical acts -- and began administering the gas as the first true anesthetic. His discovery would change the world, reshaping medicine and humanity's relationship with pain. But that discovery would also thrust Wells into scandals that threatened his reputation, his family, and his sanity -- hardships and triumphs that resonate in today's struggles with what hurts us and what we take to stop the hurt. In The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist: A Novel, Michael Downs mines the gaps in the historical record and imagines the motivations and mysteries behind Wells's morbid fascination with pain, as well as the price he and his wife, Elizabeth, paid -- first through his obsession, then his addiction.Michael Downs is the author of The Greatest Show: Stories (2012) and House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City (2007), which won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize. His debut novel, The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist (Acre Books, 2018) tells the story of the 19th-century man widely credited with discovering painless surgery. Downs is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. A former newspaper reporter, Downs is an associate professor of English at Towson University.It is January 2017 and Bill has hit rock bottom. Yesterday, he was William M. Katzenelenbogen, successful science reporter at The Washington Post. But things have taken a turn. Fired from his job, aimless, with exactly $1,219.37 in his checking account, he learns that his college roommate, a plastic surgeon known far and wide as the “Butt God of Miami Beach,” has fallen to his death under salacious circumstances. With nothing to lose, Bill boards a flight for Florida’s Gold Coast, ready to begin his own investigation -- a last ditch attempt to revive his career. There’s just one catch: Bill’s father, Melsor.Melsor Yakovlevich Katzenelenbogen -- poet, literary scholar, political dissident, small-time-crook -- is angling for control of the condo board at the Château Sedan Neuve, a crumbling high-rise in Hollywood, Florida, populated mostly by Russian Jewish immigrants. Melsor will use any means necessary to win the board election. And who better to help him than his estranged son? Featuring a colorful cast of characters, The Chateau injects the crime novel genre with surprising idiosyncrasy, subverting it with dark comic farce in a setting that becomes a microcosm of Trump’s America.Paul Goldberg’s debut novel The Yid was published in 2016 to widespread acclaim and named a finalist for both the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Jewish Book Award’s Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction. As a reporter, Goldberg has written two books about the Soviet human rights movement, and has co-authored (with Otis Brawley) the book How We Do Harm, an expose of the U.S. healthcare system. He is the editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, a publication focused on the business and politics of cancer. He lives in Washington, D.C.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.Recorded On: Thursday, September 13, 2018

Brad Listi talks with T. Greenwood, author of the novel RUST & STARDUST (St. Martin's Press). Greenwood has published twelve novels and has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Maryland State Arts Council. She has won three San Diego Book Awards. Five of her novels have been BookSense76/IndieBound picks. BODIES OF WATER was finalist for a Lambda Foundation award. She lives in San Diego and Vermont. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Maryland State Arts Council is sponsoring seven regional institutes for artists, arts organizations, arts leaders, and arts supporters to gather for collaborative discussion and professional development. Entitled, “Creative Conversations,” these sessions are being conducted in partnership with the Maryland Citizens for the Arts, Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, Maryland Nonprofits and Maryland State Department of Education.Dana Parson talked to us about this program.

The 2018 Enoch Pratt Free Library / Little Patuxent Review Poetry Contest winner shares the stage with a contest runner-up, two contest judges, and a Little Patuxent Review contributor.Born in India and raised in Dubai, Poetry Contest winner Kanak (pronounced Kuh-nuck) Gupta is currently trying her luck in Baltimore, as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University. She likes reading, writing, and living stories (and poetry).Runner-up Rachel E. Hicks’s poetry has appeared in Saint Katherine Review, Welter, Off the Coast, Gulf Stream Magazine, and other journals. She also writes essays and fiction, and works as a freelance copy editor. An associate editor at Del Sol Press, she also served as the 2018 Poetry Out Loud Regional Coordinator for the Maryland State Arts Council. After living in eight countries -- most recently China -- she now resides in Baltimore. Her career has included teaching (high school English and homeschool) and volunteering with an international relief and development agency. Find her online at rachelehicks.com.Steven Leyva, Little Patuxent Review editor, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Fledgling Rag, The Light Ekphrastic, Cobalt Review, and Prairie Schooner. He is a Cave Canem fellow, the winner of the 2012 Cobalt Review Poetry Prize, and author of the chapbook Low Parish. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Design.Chelsea Lemon Fetzer, a Little Patuxent Review Poetry Reader, holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University.  Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, Tin House, Mississippi Review, and The Minnesota Review.  A selection of her poetry received the honor of finalist for the 2015 Venture Award and her debut pamphlet (chapbook) is in the works.  Her nonfiction essay “Speck” was published in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives About Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century, an anthology published by 2Leaf Press in 2017. Committed to bringing the literary arts to communities of all means, Fetzer has led writing workshops through The Create Collective, PEN American Center's "Readers & Writers" Program, the Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College, the New York Writers Coalition, The University of Baltimore, and independently.  Fetzer currently lives in Baltimore where she is mothering, working on her first novel, and serving on the board of CityLit Project. Wallace Lane, a Little Patuxent Review contributor, is a poet and author from Baltimore, Maryland. He received his MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore in May 2017. His poetry has appeared in Skelter, The Avenue, Welter, and Rise Up and is forthcoming in several other literary journals. Wallace also works as a teacher with Baltimore City Public Schools.Runner-up Nancy Kang will not be able to attend this event, but you can learn more about her here.Watch a video of Kanak Gupta reading her winning poem, "Death in Dubai."Read "Chengdu Pastoral" by Rachel E. Hicks.Read "'I know you're never gonna wake up'" and "Supremacy" by Steven Leyva.Read "flare" by Chelsea Lemon Fetzer.Watch a video of Wallace Lane reading from Jordan Year.Read "Yellow Woman" by Nancy Kang.Recorded On: Tuesday, August 21, 2018

The 2018 Enoch Pratt Free Library / Little Patuxent Review Poetry Contest winner shares the stage with a contest runner-up, two contest judges, and a Little Patuxent Review contributor.Born in India and raised in Dubai, Poetry Contest winner Kanak (pronounced Kuh-nuck) Gupta is currently trying her luck in Baltimore, as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University. She likes reading, writing, and living stories (and poetry).Runner-up Rachel E. Hicks’s poetry has appeared in Saint Katherine Review, Welter, Off the Coast, Gulf Stream Magazine, and other journals. She also writes essays and fiction, and works as a freelance copy editor. An associate editor at Del Sol Press, she also served as the 2018 Poetry Out Loud Regional Coordinator for the Maryland State Arts Council. After living in eight countries -- most recently China -- she now resides in Baltimore. Her career has included teaching (high school English and homeschool) and volunteering with an international relief and development agency. Find her online at rachelehicks.com.Steven Leyva, Little Patuxent Review editor, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 2 Bridges Review, Fledgling Rag, The Light Ekphrastic, Cobalt Review, and Prairie Schooner. He is a Cave Canem fellow, the winner of the 2012 Cobalt Review Poetry Prize, and author of the chapbook Low Parish. Steven holds an MFA from the University of Baltimore, where he is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Design.Chelsea Lemon Fetzer, a Little Patuxent Review Poetry Reader, holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University.  Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as Callaloo, Tin House, Mississippi Review, and The Minnesota Review.  A selection of her poetry received the honor of finalist for the 2015 Venture Award and her debut pamphlet (chapbook) is in the works.  Her nonfiction essay “Speck” was published in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives About Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century, an anthology published by 2Leaf Press in 2017. Committed to bringing the literary arts to communities of all means, Fetzer has led writing workshops through The Create Collective, PEN American Center's "Readers & Writers" Program, the Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College, the New York Writers Coalition, The University of Baltimore, and independently.  Fetzer currently lives in Baltimore where she is mothering, working on her first novel, and serving on the board of CityLit Project. Wallace Lane, a Little Patuxent Review contributor, is a poet and author from Baltimore, Maryland. He received his MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts from the University of Baltimore in May 2017. His poetry has appeared in Skelter, The Avenue, Welter, and Rise Up and is forthcoming in several other literary journals. Wallace also works as a teacher with Baltimore City Public Schools.Runner-up Nancy Kang will not be able to attend this event, but you can learn more about her here.Watch a video of Kanak Gupta reading her winning poem, "Death in Dubai."Read "Chengdu Pastoral" by Rachel E. Hicks.Read "'I know you're never gonna wake up'" and "Supremacy" by Steven Leyva.Read "flare" by Chelsea Lemon Fetzer.Watch a video of Wallace Lane reading from Jordan Year.Read "Yellow Woman" by Nancy Kang.

Are you interested in the publishing world? Do you want tips and tricks on how to become a published author or how to self-publish? Have you considered marketing strategies and business plans? Then join us for a panel discussion and Q&A featuring local authors and editors.Panelists include:Sarah Pinsker, winner of the 2016 Nebula Award for her novelette Our Lady of the Open RoadKenneth Rogers, Jr., author of seven books, including Thoughts in Italics and Raped Black MaleBen Anderson, self-published author of The McGunnegal ChroniclesChristine Stewart, Editor-in-Chief of Del Sol Press, recipient of an Individual Artist Award in fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, and writing teacher in the Johns Hopkins Odyssey programGregg Wilhelm, the co-founder of Woodholme Publishers, founder of the non-profit literary arts organization CityLit Project, and publisher of the CityLit Press imprint.Recorded On: Saturday, November 18, 2017

Are you interested in the publishing world? Do you want tips and tricks on how to become a published author or how to self-publish? Have you considered marketing strategies and business plans? Then join us for a panel discussion and Q&A featuring local authors and editors.Panelists include:Sarah Pinsker, winner of the 2016 Nebula Award for her novelette Our Lady of the Open RoadKenneth Rogers, Jr., author of seven books, including Thoughts in Italics and Raped Black MaleBen Anderson, self-published author of The McGunnegal ChroniclesChristine Stewart, Editor-in-Chief of Del Sol Press, recipient of an Individual Artist Award in fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, and writing teacher in the Johns Hopkins Odyssey programGregg Wilhelm, the co-founder of Woodholme Publishers, founder of the non-profit literary arts organization CityLit Project, and publisher of the CityLit Press imprint.

Intro   Hi everyone! Welcome to Episode 21 of Books Between - a podcast for teachers, parents, librarians, and anyone who loves middle grade books!  I am Corrina Allen - a teacher, a mom, and a big podcast fan.  And I’ll tell you - I have been absolutely sucked into the new STown podcast for the past week! And have probably spend too much time and stayed up far too late looking at pictures of hedge mazes, sundials, and antique clocks. So, I know you like podcasts - definitely go listen to STown.   Since April is National Poetry month, our show today is all about celebrating the power of poetry! I’ll share with you a couple poetry resources to help you enjoy poetry more with your students and kids, and then chat about some fabulous books - from picture books to poetry anthologies to novels in verse.     Main Topic - Celebrating the Power of Poetry   I will straight up tell you that I was slow to appreciate poetry in the way it really deserves. I was always a voracious reader even as a kid, but I rarely ever picked up any poetry when left to my own devices.  I guess I always thought of it as a complicated puzzle or containing some secret message that I was just too obtuse to figure out.  I even had this ridiculous idea that all poetry was romantic.  Yeah - I know - WRONG!   So, I have been on a mission lately to shed my own misconceptions and make SURE that I am not passing those along to my own children or my own students. It is still very much a work in progress for me, but I thought today I’d share with you a few ideas about how to include more poetry in the lives of your kids - not only during National Poetry Month, but all year long.   Rethinking Poetry First off, I think that rethinking reading poetry is the biggest step. Helping kids understand that poetry can be about ANYTHING (not just love) is a major step. The best way to to do this? Start by reading lots of varieties of poetry with them. I know we are all pressed for time, but reading a short poem every day (or even start with every week!) would take less than a minute and can often be done in those “gap times” like waiting in the hallway or waiting for the bus to arrive. (And later on, I’ll share with you some places to get those poems.)  Also, I used to think that as a teacher, I would have to hammer the heck out of a poem and make sure my students had yanked that thing apart and knew the theme, the rhyme pattern, the symbols, the point of view of the author and on and on and on until… well, it just wasn’t enjoyable anymore. For me or my students!   The event that recently cemented for me the fact that teaching poetry doesn’t have to be like that was Laura Shovan’s live Facebook Event hosted by The Nerdy Book Club. It was called “It’s National Poetry Month: Let’s Teach Poetry!” and you can find an archive of that event through their facebook page and I’ll also include a direct link to it in our show transcript. So anyway - Laura Shovan is a poet-in-the-schools for the Maryland State Arts Council’s Artist-in-Education program and the author of the novel in verse The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary. In this video, she walks through how to teach the poem “Weather” by Eve Merriam. The whole thing is worth checking out, but I just wanted to share with you a few highlights: Read the poem aloud and ask students what THEY notice, what stands out to them, what got them thinking or feeling. And every time I have done this over the past week, my students will catch aspects of the poem I would never have considered.  I love the advice of having students take the conversational lead. Reinforce the vocabulary of poetry naturally through the conversation around the poems, rather than a separate stand alone lesson. Incorporating terms like “couplet” and “stanza” into the discussion can save time and solidify their meaning for kids. The idea of poetry as layers - layers of sound, of story, of point of view. And how reading a poem several times allows you (and your kids!) to discover more within those multiple readings.   And Laura Shovan makes this wonderful analogy of a poem as a waterfall - some students are going to want to jump into the water and experience it with all their senses, some are science minded and might want to take samples to examine and pick apart under a microscope, and some students want to stand back admire the beauty of that waterfall with awe and wonder.  And all of those responses are are just fine. And we don’t have to do every single one of them every time we read a poem together. If you want to learn more, check out Laura’s website at www.LauraShovan.com -   Another fantastic resource that links reading and writing poetry is Kwame Alexander’s Page-to-Stage Writing Workshop. And I highly recommend this if you want to harness the power of poetry to boost the level of writing excitement with your kids. This is a teacher’s guide that will get your kids writing, publishing, and presenting their poetry - and the best part is that it’s not JUST another book on teaching poetry. It includes videos of Kwame Alexander - both for teachers and for your students to watch. And if you’ve ever had the chance to hear  him speak, you know the energy he brings.  It’s like having a Newbery-Award winning author right in your classroom giving you a mini-lesson on poetry. Actually it’s not LIKE that, it actually IS that!  Absolutely check that out!   I’ll close by quoting a bit from Kylene Beers’ forward of Page-to-Stage, “Poetry - what I’ll call the neglected genre - draws us into ourselves as it simultaneously lets us give back to the world a fresh understanding , a new vision, a re-vision of one moment. Kwame puts it better when he explains that poetry lets us ‘write our own journeys, find our own voices.’”     So I’m excited and inspired to include more poetry in my classroom and get kids writing more.  As always, I would love to hear what you are doing to foster a love of poetry  with your students and kids.  You can tag me on Twitter, Instagram, and now Facebook - our handle is @books_between or email me at booksbetween@gmail.com and I’d love to hear and share your ideas.   Book Talk - Fabulous Poetry Books & Novels in Verse   In this part of the show, I chat about books centered around a theme and of course this week is all about fantastic poetry books, anthologies, and novels in verse for middle grade readers. And - since National Poem in Your Pocket Day is Thursday, April 27th - this will give you some awesome options for you and your students to tuck in those pockets.   Poetry Books Bravo! Poems About Amazing Hispanics by author Margarita Engle with illustrations by Rafael Lopez. I really love this book - the drawings are fantastic and bold and each poem is from the point of view of the person being featured so it really feels personal.   One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance the latest by Nikki Grimes which is a collection of her original poetry interspersed with classic poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. Grimes is amazing - just go ahead and get all the Nikki Grimes - you can’t go wrong with her work! Speaking of can’t go wrong poets, Kwame Alexander has two new poetry picture book collections out.  The first is called Animal Ark: Celebrating our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures and features photographs of endangered species. This one good for young readers as well as older kids. Then he’s also collaborated with some other poets  (Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth along with artist Ekua Holmes to put together a beautiful collection of poems celebrating poets called Out of Wonder.   Another poet to look for is  Lee Bennett Hopkins - his work is simply outstanding. I love his general collections but his themed books are really cool. Check out My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States - a collection of fifty poems celebrating various regions in the country. Or Marvelous Math - a collection of math themed poems, or Spectacular Science - a book full of poems on all sorts of science topics. What is cool about these books is that if you have them on hand, you can easily flip and find a poem that relates to a subject you are studying in class. A poetry break during Math or Science?  Yes, please!   And if you are looking for something clever and funny, take a look at Keep a Pocket in Your Poem by J. Patrick Lewis. They take classic poems and pair them with a parody poem. So for example, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is paired with “Stopping by Fridge on a Hungry Evening” . It’s cute, funny, and may even inspire some of your kids to give a parody poem a try!   And if you want to enjoy some excellent poetry with a jazzy, hip hop flair - please, please go snag a copy of Hip Hop Speaks to Children: a celebration of poetry with a beat. It’s edited by Nikki Giovanni and includes a CD with many of the authors reading their poems - including Eloise Greenfield, Gary Soto, Langston Hughes, James Berry - and so, so many more. A couple things I really loved - one, they make the explicit connection between music, lyrics, and poetry and include lots of poems that we might originally view simply as songs.  Like “Rapper’s Delight”! And Queen Latifah’s “Ladies First”! It’s so, so good! And secondly, some of the tracks include the authors introducing their poem and giving you a little background. For instance, before Pedro Pietri reads “Love Poem for My People”, I was really stuck by how he mentioned that he wrote it many years ago and is STILL working on it.  Powerful, powerful messages for kids - you definitely want this one on hand! Novels in Verse:   Well, you can’t talk about novels in verse without mentioning the amazing Sharon Creech. There are of course Love That Dog  and Hate That Cat - perennial classics in any classroom or library. But, I want to give a plug for her latest novel, called Moo. It’s the story of twelve -year-old Reena and her seven-year-old brother, Luke who are suddenly uprooted from their life in New York City and wind up moving to very rural Maine, and reluctantly trying to bond with a super ornery cow. There were certain aspects that reminded me a bit of Home of the Brave. I think those two would make a great novel-in-verse pairing.   And of course, I would be remiss If I didn’t mention Kwame Alexander’s two novels in verse - The Crossover and Booked. I feel like I have gushed so much about those two books on this podcast and how much students love them that I am almost risking overdoing it. So, you already know they are amazing, right?   Also previously mentioned on the podcast, but definitely need to be included on this list are Ellie Terry’s Forget Me Not, which is a novel that is half verse / half prose from two points of view.  If you want to know more about that novel, I went into more depth in the last show which was Episode 20.  And in Episode #8, I featuring Laura Shovan’s The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, which is fantastic not only for the story but because it has dozens of poetry prompts right in the back. LOVE it!   Another author that writes poetry for kids across a wide range of ages is Nikki Grimes. I already mentioned her picture book work, but her novels Words With Wings and Garvey’s Choice are phenomenal. And accessible to kids who might find the brief poems and open space of each page really appealing. They are quick but powerful reads. A short poem, a short story, can pack a lot of punch.   And of course, Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming and her earlier book Locomotion and so many others are written with such passion and love that they stay with you, long, long after you’ve set aside those books.   A couple novels in verse that I haven’t read yet but have been bubbling up are The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. I keep bumping into rave reviews and reflections on these two books - argh - I think I just need to take a reading sabbatical and work through my To Be Read pile. Wouldn’t that be nice?     Well - I could go on and on - and I know I’ve missed a lot on this list, but I do need to cut myself off at some point. But, that leaves the door open for YOU!  What poetry books or novels in verse are your favorites and why do you love them? I’ll open some threads on our various social media sites and let’s continue the conversation there!   Closing   Okay  - that wraps up our show this week.  If you have topic or a book you think we should cover, please let us know. You can email me at booksbetween@gmail.com or message me on Twitter/Instagram at the handle @Books_Between.   Thanks again for joining me this week. You can get a full transcript of this show and all of our previous episodes at AlltheWonders.com including links to every book and every resource I talked about today. And, if you’re enjoying the show and finding some value in what you hear, please help others find us too by telling a friend, sharing on social media, or leaving a rating on iTunes or Stitcher. Thanks again and see you in two weeks!  Bye!     https://www.facebook.com/nerdybookclub/videos/1501455839895985/?pnref=story   http://laurashovan.com/2017/04/its-national-poetry-month-lets-teach-poetry/   https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/books/kwame-alexanders-page-to-stage-writing-workshop-9781338026818.html  

Out of Our Minds is a 45 year old radio show hosted on KKUP Cupertino by Rachelle Escamilla. It airs every Wednesday night from 8-9pm pst and streams live on kkup.org. This week's guest was: Jehanne Dubrow is the author of five poetry collections, including most recently The Arranged Marriage (University of New Mexico Press, 2015), Red Army Red (Northwestern University Press, 2012) and Stateside (Northwestern University Press, 2010). She co-edited The Book of Scented Things: 100 Contemporary Poems about Perfume (Literary House Press, 2014) and the forthcoming Still Life with Poem: Contemporary Natures Mortes in Verse (2016). Dots & Dashes, her sixth book of poems, won the 2016 Crab Orchard Review Series in Poetry Open Competition Awards and will be published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2017. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and book reviews have appeared in Southern Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Hudson Review, The New England Review, as well as on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. She earned a B.A. in the “Great Books” from St. John’s College, an MFA from the University of Maryland, and a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has been a recipient of the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, the Towson University Prize for Literature, an Individual Artist’s Award from the Maryland State Arts Council, fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and a Sosland Foundation Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. The daughter of American diplomats, Jehanne was born in Italy and grew up in Yugoslavia, Zaire, Poland, Belgium, Austria, and the United States. In autumn 2016, she will join the Department of English at the University of North Texas as an Associate Professor of creative writing.

Experts at this free grants workshop discuss grant programs and application procedures for arts, humanities and heritage preservation organizations.Invited presenters include the Maryland Humanities Council, Maryland State Arts Council, Maryland Historical Trust, Maryland Heritage Areas, Preservation Maryland and the Baltimore National Heritage Area.This event was sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council. Recorded On: Thursday, January 21, 2016

Experts at this free grants workshop discuss grant programs and application procedures for arts, humanities and heritage preservation organizations.Invited presenters include the Maryland Humanities Council, Maryland State Arts Council, Maryland Historical Trust, Maryland Heritage Areas, Preservation Maryland and the Baltimore National Heritage Area.This event was sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council. 

Sandra Beasley is author of three poetry collections: Count the Waves; I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; and Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize. Honors for her work include a 2015 NEA Literature Fellowship, the Center for Book Arts Chapbook Prize, and two DCCAH Artist Fellowships. She is also the author of the memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. She lives in Washington, D.C., and is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA program at the University of Tampa.Leslie Harrison is the author of Displacement, published by Mariner Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in 2009. She holds graduate degrees from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Irvine. Her poems have appeared in journals including Poetry, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, FIELD, Subtropics, Pleiades, and Orion. Harrison has held a scholarship and fellowship at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and a fellowship at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In 2011 she was awarded a fellowship in literature from The National Endowment for the Arts. She was the 2010 Philip Roth resident in poetry at Bucknell University, and then a visiting assistant professor in poetry and creative nonfiction at Washington College. In the fall of 2012 she joined the full-time faculty at Towson University. In 2014 The Maryland State Arts Council awarded her an Individual Artist Award in poetry.Read "Grief Puppet" and "Parable" by Sandra Beasley.Read "[That]" and "Autobiography--As a Vase" by Leslie Harrison.Recorded On: Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Sandra Beasley is author of three poetry collections: Count the Waves; I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; and Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize. Honors for her work include a 2015 NEA Literature Fellowship, the Center for Book Arts Chapbook Prize, and two DCCAH Artist Fellowships. She is also the author of the memoir Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life. She lives in Washington, D.C., and is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA program at the University of Tampa.Leslie Harrison is the author of Displacement, published by Mariner Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in 2009. She holds graduate degrees from the Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Irvine. Her poems have appeared in journals including Poetry, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, FIELD, Subtropics, Pleiades, and Orion. Harrison has held a scholarship and fellowship at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and a fellowship at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In 2011 she was awarded a fellowship in literature from The National Endowment for the Arts. She was the 2010 Philip Roth resident in poetry at Bucknell University, and then a visiting assistant professor in poetry and creative nonfiction at Washington College. In the fall of 2012 she joined the full-time faculty at Towson University. In 2014 The Maryland State Arts Council awarded her an Individual Artist Award in poetry.Read "Grief Puppet" and "Parable" by Sandra Beasley.Read "[That]" and "Autobiography--As a Vase" by Leslie Harrison.

Ailish Hopper is the author of Dark~Sky Society, selected by David St. John as runner-up for the New Issues prize, and the chapbook, Bird in the Head, selected by Jean Valentine for the Center for Book Arts prize. Individual poems have appeared in journals including Agni, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Tidal Basin Review, among other places. Hopper has received support from the Baltimore Commission for the Arts and Humanities, the Maryland State Arts Council, the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. She teaches at Goucher College.Melanie Henderson was born and raised in Washington, D.C. She is an alumnus of Howard and Trinity Universities. Prior to earning an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, she studied poetry at the Voices Summer Writing Workshops (VONA) in San Francisco, CA. Her debut collection of poems, Elegies for New York Avenue, won the 2011 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Drumvoices Revue, jubilat, Reverie, Torch, Tuesday; An Art Project, and The Washington Informer among numerous others. She participated in Huong's Peace Mural Exhibition in Washington, D.C. (2008-2009), was selected as a feature reader for the 2009 Joaquin Miller Cabin Poetry Series and as a recipient of the 2009 Larry Neal Writers Award (D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities). She received a 2013 Pushcart Prize nomination from Iris G. Press. She is the Managing Editor of Tidal Basin Review.Read "Circle in the Grass" and "Dark-sky Society" by Ailish Hopper.Read four poems from Elegies for New York Avenue by Melanie Henderson.Recorded On: Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Elizabeth Spires is the author of six poetry collections: Globe, Swan’s Island, Annonciade, Worldling, Now the Green Blade Rises, and The Wave-Maker.  She has also written six books for children, including The Mouse of Amherst and I Heard God Talking to Me: William Edmondson and His Stone Carvings. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and other magazines and anthologies. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and is a professor of English at Goucher College where she codirects the Kratz Center for Creative Writing.Joelle Biele is the author of White Summer and the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence. A Fulbright scholar in Germany and Poland, she has received awards from the Poetry Society of America and the Maryland State Arts Council. Her essays, fiction, and reviews appear in such places as Black Warrior Review, Harvard Review, and Kenyon Review, and her play, These Fine Mornings, was first read at the University of Chicago with the support of the Poetry Foundation. A new volume of poems, Broom, will be published next year.Read poems by Elizabeth Spires.Read poems by Joelle Biele. Recorded On: Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Hailey Leithauser's book, Swoop (Graywolf, 2013), was the winner of the Poetry Foundation's 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award and was named one of the top ten poetry titles of fall 2013 by Publishers Weekly, which describes it as "a frantic argument in favor of obvious beauty, of ornament, and of elaborate jokes, as barriers against something like despair." Leithauser's work appears widely in journals and anthologies, including the The Antioch Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry, the Southwest Review, and The Best American Poetry. She lives in Takoma Park, MD.Poetry in The Branches Coordinator and Information Technology Director for Poets House in New York City, Reginald Harris won the 2012 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for Autogeography. A Pushcart Prize Nominee, recipient of Individual Artist Awards for both poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, and Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the ForeWord Book of the Year for 10 Tongues: Poems (2002), his work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and other publications. An Associate Editor for Lambda Literary Foundation’s Lambda Literary Review, he lives in Brooklyn, where he pretends to work on another manuscript.Read poems by Hailey Leithauser here.Read poems by Reginald Harris here, here, and here.  Recorded On: Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Carolyn Malachi is a performing artist. Born in 1984 in Washington, DC, Malachi is the great-granddaughter of jazz pianist John Malachi who played for Sarah Vaughn, Pearl Bailey, Billy Eckstine. Carolyn Malachi mixes jazz with other genres. Her music is heavily influenced by jazz and Motswako, a style of South African music popularized by Hip Hop Pantsula. Malachi's releases include Revenge of the Smart Chicks (2008), Revenge of the Smart Chicks II: Ambitious Gods (2009), and the Lions, Fires & Squares EP (2010). Carolyn Malachi founded the Smart Chicks Network in 2009. The organization is composed of women in the arts and meets monthly to share industry and general professional resources. In 2009, Malachi became a resident artist at BloomBars, a community arts space in Washington, DC. The Maryland State Arts Council and Mid-Atlantic Arts Council awarded Malachi with a 2010 Individual Artist Award and Mid-Atlantic Arts Fellowship. TheRoot.com named Carolyn Malachi a Top 25 Gen Y Artist / Entrepreneur in 2010.

 Afaa Michael Weaver is the author of eleven previous poetry collections, including Timber and Prayer: The Indian Pond Poems,My Father’s Geography, and The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005. He is Alumnae Professor of English at Simmons College in Boston. Weaver is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, a Pew fellowship, and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship. He has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and a Fulbright scholar appointment, among other honors. The Government of Nature is the second volume of a trilogy (the first was The Plum Flower Dance) in which Weaver analyzes his life, striving to become the ideal poet. Reginald Harris, Poetry in The Branches Coordinator and Information Technology Director for Poets House in New York City, won the 2012 Cave Canem / Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for Autogeography. A Pushcart Prize Nominee, recipient of Individual Artist Awards for both poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, and Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the ForeWord Book of the Year for 10 Tongues: Poems (2002), his work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and other publications. An Associate Editor for Lambda Literary Foundation’s Lambda Literary Review, he is currently pretending to work on another manuscript.Introduced by Marc Steiner, "The Marc Steiner Show," WEAA.CityLit Festival was made possible in part by the generous support of the following: Recorded On: Saturday, April 13, 2013