Book Marks :: Conversations on Reading & Poetic Craft

2125 2nd Avenue,Seattle WA 98121

10 August, 2022

Description

Through the month of August, Book Marks will bring local poets together in conversation about reading as a writer. In part 1 of the series, poets Jane Wong and Ching-In Chen sit down for a chat in CAM's storefront. An adage of poetry workshops is that in order to write, you must read. What does that look like for different writers? To what extent does critical reading play a role in their own writing or how they consider the craft? This series is a playful and casual exploration of craft with & for Seattle's writer community. doors open at 6:30 | bring masks, be vaxxed snacks & drinks provided! ......About the poets :: Jane Wong is the author of How to Not Be Afraid of Everything from Alice James Books (2021) and Overpour from Action Books (2016). Her debut memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, is forthcoming from Tin House in 2023. ...... Descended from ocean dwellers, Ching-In Chen is a genderqueer Chinese American writer, community organizer and teacher. They are author of The Heart's Traffic: a novel in poems (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press, 2009) and recombinant (Kelsey Street Press, 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry winner) as well as chapbooks to make black paper sing (speCt! Books) and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, Leslie Scalapino Finalist). Chen is co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press, 1st edition; AK Press, 2nd edition) and Here Is a Pen: an Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets (Achiote Press). They have received fellowships from Kundiman, Lambda, Watering Hole, Can Serrat, Imagining America, Jack Straw Cultural Center and the Intercultural Leadership Institute as well as the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers. A community organizer, they have worked in Asian American communities in San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside, Boston, Milwaukee, Houston and Seattle and are currently a core member of the Massage Parlor Outreach Project. They currently teach at University of Washington Bothell in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences and the MFA program in Creative Writing and Poetics. www.chinginchen.com ......This series is expanding on "want to hear poem? reading the sealey challenge," a month-long durational performance project where Whitney Bashaw reads a book of poems cover-to-cover out-loud in CAM’s storefront several days a week through August. Meant as a way to reimagine the experience of reading and to provide a low barrier of entry for people to encounter poetry in surprising ways. Held every august, The Sealey Challenge is a community activity in which participants read a book of poetry each day.