ArtSake

ArtSake recently caught up with the painter Rick Berry to ask him about his work.

What artists’ work do you admire most but paint nothing like? Heres the problem. Any artist Ive ever admired, known or anonymous, has affected my work, my choices. Its impossible for me to not do things because of this. Heres an example: One could look at the paintings and say, Well thats nothing like Jackson Pollock, and not know about how often I sling turp and paint directly at the formative surface searching for lyric geometries; the painting may wind up sharply figurative but all that movement? Just go back to its initial musical chaos, and youll find a painter that I paint nothing like.

What is the most surprising response to your art you have ever received? Tears.

How do you know when your work is done? Sadly, I often dont and overshoot the mark. Theres a saying around the studio, just because you can, doesnt mean you should. Boy, is that true. A baroque display of skills doesnt make a painting. Ill see, be snake-fascinated by, something thats happening in the surface and begin to auger in. Im quite sure that Ive got chops that are going to make this area even better but the better I make it, the more it recedes in freshness and the marks lose their initial force and authority. Simply kills me.

The only recourse is to wreck the painting creatively; sling and scrape. Strangely, this often works but its painful to get there.

What do you listen to while you paint? Tons of rocknroll but hardly exclusively. I get on classical jags, folk and country, techno weirdness auto-hypnosis, you name it.

Lately, and I never thought Id say this, Ive been salting the mix with opera. This is in part because of being in embedded with OperaBoston but I was already knocked out by some things Id heard this direction. All this certainly can kick you into action. Quick incomplete list: Chris Whitley, The Pearl Fishers, Duke Ellington, Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Gorillas, Shostokovich, Billie Holiday, Red House Painters, Gary Numan You see how it is.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled: The Civilizing of Big Pink.

What are you currently reading? Bill Gibsons Pattern Recognition, McKibbons Enough, Gaimans Coraline

Do you have any pets? You know, there is something that deigns to live here. Doesnt come when you call and carries a full set of knives concealed within tempting pet-able fluff. We dont know why we like it but we do. The house imp, that knows all the secret places.

Seeing in the Dark: Pattern Recognition/Discovery in the Marks, The Figurative Works of Rick Berry opens today at the Sharon Arts Exhibition Gallery. The show runs through August 30th.

Image credit: Photos of paintings courtesy of Rick Berry.

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If you’re interested in writing flash fiction – and by that I mean very short (like, under 1000 words short) stories – well then cut the frabbajabba and grab some readin’ matter, because a group of intrepid flash fictioneers have roamed the wilds of short shortness to develop the new Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. The book, which features exercises, story examples, and essays on the form from such writers as Steve Almond (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction ’08), Stace Budzko, and Jayne Anne Phillips, is the centerpiece of an event on June 11 at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Mass., with appearances by Steve and other contributors, as well as the book’s editor Tara L. Masih.

Tara, a freelance editor and writer (and past finalist for an MCC Artist Fellowship in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction), also wrote the Field Guide’s introduction, the first comprehensive examination of the short short story and its origins.

She kindly agreed to a flash Q&A with us, weighing in on the magic of pen-on-paper, autobiographical writing (or lack thereof), and of course, flash fiction.

What’s the most embarrassing sentence/line of poetry you’ve ever written?

“Crystal rings true, but cut glass gives a dull thud.” Forgive me, it was high school. But sadly, I remember this bad line better than some of my more recent poetry.

Computer, longhand, or typewriter?

Longhand first. Like Hemingway, I still like to feel and hear the scratch of the pen (not pencil) across the pad of paper. For me, it is writing, not typing, that frees the creative juices. Mark Helprin, in a short story, has a wonderful paragraph about the pen taking on the role of a runaway horse, and the writer becoming the farmer being dragged through the fields unharmed. That is the magic that comes only from the process of handwriting. But after one or two drafts, I do move to the necessary evil of typing on the computer. I must say, however, that as my typing skills have improved from the two-finger method, and I’ve learned MS Word, it is a great way to re-think and re-edit. It’s as if the pen and pad are the foundation, and the typed drafts the actual building that begins to house the story and the characters. Moving from one different type of material to the next frees up another part of the creative brain that allows for different sentence structuring and details. In my case, anyway.

Do you ever revise your work on the spot during live readings?

Gosh, never! It’s hard enough to do a reading well with what I have in front of me. And by the time I get to the reading stage, the work’s been edited so many times, I don’t want to change a word or a piece of punctuation. Including this answer.

What’s the best day job you’ve ever had?

The best day job I ever had was working for Bedford Books in Boston. It’s where I learned all the skills that helped me branch out as a freelancer and then develop and edit this Field Guide.

What’s the most surprising reader response you’ve ever received?

“I love that story about your father.” When I told the woman it was fiction, that the character was not my father, she burst out, “Don’t tell me that! It was better when I thought it was real.” People seem to have a pathological need to have writing be autobiographical. Maybe they don’t trust that there can be truth in fiction. Or they can’t be swept away by it as much if they don’t think the events really happened. BTW, I got that same response to the same story several times. I’ve stopped correcting folks, unless a character or situation is an extreme one I for sure don’t want myself or my family to be associated with. And I apologize often to my poor, embarrassed parents…

Any advice for writers interested in foraying into flash fiction?

Reading is fundamental. Look for the Sudden Fiction and Flash Fiction anthologies. All the collected stories went through a rigorous screening process to be included. It’ll give you an idea of the range of creativity flash offers and an idea of what to strive for. Also, check out the online flash magazines such as Vestal Review, Ghoti, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Night Train. Take a workshop. Local colleges, conferences, and writing associations now offer courses and seminars in flash fiction. Finally, of course, read The Field Guide. It’ll teach you about the history of the genre, and present tips and advice from many of the best writers, teachers, and editors of flash in our country – and beyond (one contributor lives in the UK). But most of all, have fun with it. Some writers use flash as a sort of escape from the constraints of writing longer prose.

Tara joins Steve Almond, Stace Budzko, Pam Painter, Jen Pieroni (Quick Fiction editor), and Rose Metal Press publisher Abby Beckel for an event at Brookline Booksmith on Thursday, June 11, 7 PM.

Tara L. Masih has taught at Emerson College and was an in-house editor for Little, Brown’s college division and Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press. She now freelances for companies such as Ballantine Books and Harvard University Press. Her writing has won awards, and two flash fiction chapbooks (Fragile Skins and Tall Grasses) were published by The Feral Press in 2006. She was a regular contributor to The Indian-American and Masala magazines, in which her essays on the topic of race and culture were often featured.

Interested in having a work of flash fiction published on Tara’s website? Learn how.

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Ilana Manolson (MCC Painting Fellow ’08) took a few moments to talk with ArtSake about her work and life.

What artists work do you admire most but paint nothing like? I really like Joan Snyder’s work because I feel like it is deeply personal, rich, and extremely brave work. And in my studio I have written on the wall, simplify, focus, and be brave. Her work, although I feel like it is nothing like mine, does that in a very personal way.

What is the most surprising response to your art you have ever received? The response wasn’t to my artwork, but to the way I identify what I do. Recently I went to a doctor because I was concerned I was having an allergic reaction to a tick repellent I use when I am out in the woods and swamps preparing for painting. When I explained to the doctor that I was working outdoors because I am a landscape painter, she asked, with complete seriousness, What color do you paint the landscape? It reminded me of the gardeners in Alice in Wonderland painting the roses for the queen.

How do you know when your work is done? Great question, and one I ask myself every day. It varies with each piece, which is why I spend as much time subtracting as adding. I often have to let a piece rest, and be what might feel initially a bit underdone, so that it doesn’t suffer from being taken to the point where one more mark turns the whole thing over fussy. I haven’t always managed that – my studio storage area is full of work that has been overdone.

What do you listen to while you paint? I’ve been working very hard preparing for a show in New York and so I’ve needed a lot of music which keeps me dancing. Recently I’ve been listening most to Jane Goldman’s The Jane Gang.

What films have influenced you as an artist? Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was fascinating because it gave such a strong sense of the vision of a paralyzed man, and for me, it is very meaningful to be able to step into someone else’s vision in some way.

If forced to choose, would you be a magic marker, a crayon, or a #2 pencil? I would be all of the above, and more, because my work is about different mark making and it’s sort of a dance, as I let each mark become its own expression and interweave with the others.

What are you currently reading? I have a mountain of reading growing next to my bed, and one of my current favorites from that stack is Swamp Walker’s Journal by David M. Carroll. And I’m looking forward to reading Tracy Winn’s (MCC Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08) stories in Mrs. Somebody Somebody.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled: Finding the Fixed in the Fluid

Do you live with any animals? Three birds, two teenagers, and a whole lot of squirrels who think they would make better use of my studio than I do.

What has the MCC Painting Artist Fellowship meant to you? I’m sure I’ve spent the money more than once it’s encouraged me to choose art materials more freely, to explore more. And it’s connected me with other artists, across disciplines, through events and lectures that I wouldn’t otherwise have been invited to participate in.

Ilana has her first New York solo exhibition upcoming at the Jason McCoy Gallery on June 1 through July 24. For more on Ilana’s work, you can also view her website.

Photo Credit: All images courtesy Ilana Manolson.

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We caught up with Diane Arvanites & Tommy Neblett, the co-artistic directors of Prometheus Dance (MCC choreography fellows) to find out what’s doing with this dynamic artistic duo.

What are you excited about these days?
Tommy – Learning to horseback ride.
Diane – School’s out, our garden and gyrokinesis.

What artist do you most admire but work nothing like?
Tommy – Pina Bausch
Diane – Wim Vandekeybus

Have you ever revised your work on the spot, during a performance (intentionally, I mean)?
Diane – It depends on the evolution of the piece.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:
Tommy – He Did It His Way

What’s next?
Tommy – Studying to become a Certified Dog Trainer.
Diane – Learning to fence.

Tomorrow and Saturday nights Prometheus Dance has a world premiere of WARP at the ICA (music composed by John Kusiak and music by Arvo Part). They will also be performing Tabula Rasa. Run to the ICA to see their work. Get to the performance early, and you will have an added bonus of a pre-performance talk by dance critic Debra Cash. Tickets available at the ICA and ArtsBoston.

In the meantime, see an excerpt from Devil’s Wedding by Prometheus Dance.

Photo Credit: Image courtesey of Prometheus Dance.

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The nationally acclaimed artist Paul Goodnight is having an exhibition of his drawings and paintings at Wheelock College and the Towne Art Gallery. We recently caught up with Paul to ask him a few questions.

What artists’ work do you admire most but paint nothing like?

My daughter. There are several others: John Biggers, Romare Beardon, John Wilson, Leonardo Da Vinci, Caravaggio, and William Tolliver.

If forced to choose, would you be a magic marker, a crayon, or a #2 pencil?

I always love my pencil.

What is the most surprising response to your art you have ever received?

Silence.

The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:

Rated PG. As in Paul Goodnight.

Do you live with any animals?

Myself.

How do you know when your work is done?

When all the numbers are filled in.

Like what does your work MEAN?

It means I have a job.

The exhibition runs from March 17April 17. Gallery Hours: noon-5pm, Tuesday-Saturday. Artist Reception: Saturday, April 11, 2-4pm.

Artwork Credits: All painting and drawings by Paul Goodnight. French Horn, 25×32, pastel on paper; Trumpet to the 2nd Power, 23×27, pastel on paper; Dancer, 45×54, oil on canvas.

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Remix, a solo exhibition of works by Reese Inman (Drawing Fellow ’08) opened yesterday at Gallery NAGA in Boston.

The show features paintings and drawings Reese created through a fascinating process: 1. Design computer software to produce patterns of dots, 2. Select the most intriguing patterns, 3. Then painstakingly render the patterns by hand. What with her emphasis on minute details, we thought Reese would be the perfect candidate for a similarly minute nano-interview.

MCC: What are you working on these days?

Reese: I’m in the programming phase of developing a group of new drawing algorithms, and am also developing a new body of paintings mixing algorithmic output (represented as paint droplets) and digitally blurred photographic imagery. Some of the paintings and a selection of burn drawings are on view at Gallery NAGA, Boston through March 28.

MCC: What’s the most surprising response to your art you’ve ever received?

Reese: During an open studio event a couple of years ago, a scientist introduced himself and told me that one of my paintings looked very much like a DNA microarray image. At the time, I didn’t know what a DNA microarray was, and had never seen an image of one. The next day, he emailed me a couple of images, and he was right – that particular painting actually did resemble a DNA microarray image!

MCC: Like, what does your work MEAN?

Reese: My work explores and reflects on everyday human interaction with computers. There’s a dialogue between me and the computer in which I write an algorithm, the computer runs it with a good deal of freedom (via random number generation), and then I render the output by hand. Computer process typically has the effect of concealing the programmer, but the hand rendering reinserts visual evidence of human involvement, while staying true to the composition created by the computer.

The opening reception for Remix is tonight (Friday, March 6), 6-8 PM, at Gallery NAGA in Boston. Remix runs through March 28. Along with showing at Gallery NAGA, Reese is part of the group show Blogpix at Denise Bibro Fine Art in New York, March 5-28. Read more Fellows Notes.

Images: Reese Inman, DIVERGENCE II (2008), acrylic on panel 30 x 30 in; Reese Inman, REMIX IV (2009), acrylic on panel, 40 x 80 in. See more images at reeseinman.com.

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This is one in a series of two-minute interviews with participants in the…

The last scheduled reading in the series is this Wednesday, February 25, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton. So it’s with a sigh and a fond click of the “Publish” button that I post this last reading series-related nano-interview.

We bound across the finish line with D M Gordon, a versatile and inventive writer who, prior to receiving a Fiction/Creative Nonfiction fellowship, has been a finalist for the Artist Fellowships in both poetry and prose.

MCC: How many revisions does your work typically go through?

DM: Recently, I’ve been measuring my growth as a writer by a willingness to write new drafts. My last two stories have run to more than fifteen saved drafts; some were simple slicings and dicings, some involved changes in point of view, but at least three versions, maybe four, were shifts in plot or structure. Maybe this is laying too bare how much I struggle, maybe some of the drafts go backwards rather than forwards, but I learn something every time I have the courage to make a major change.

MCC: Computer, longhand, or typewriter?

DM: Adherents of longhand talk about the act of words coming through the body, the arm, into the hand, and the pace slowing them to wiser choices. But I love the computer. The delete key is my best friend, and what a gift, this facility to move the order of ideas around the page. A great dictionary is a click away. My computer, when I can stand it, will read back to me what I’ve just written in its nerdy voice, which never spares the flaws– always illuminating. I wonder too, about the connection to the brain–if longhand comes through the writer’s dominant hand, and the typewriter or computer requires both, does this enhance use of the elusive other side of the mind?

MCC: Do you ever revise your work on the spot during live readings?

DM: My husband wishes for me that they made edible shoes– I have a well practiced habit of putting both feet in my mouth at the same time. The anticipation of extemporizing in front of a live audience would keep me awake nights.

MCC: What writer do you most admire but write nothing like?

DM: MOST admire and write nothing like (alas)? That would be Shakespeare. After that, it’s too difficult a question, and the list gets long quickly. Right this moment, on the spot, someone I’m least like, and admire? Kurt Vonnegut comes to mind, his early work, for his humor, world building, imagination, and pressing significance. But to say this, I’d have to leave out Mark Twain, Ursula le Guin, Evelyn Waugh, John Donne, Tobias Wolf, Sherman Alexie, Isak Dinesen…I’m forcing myself to stop, and when I come back in an hour, I’ll be horrified at who I left out and want to change everything. (Rereading this an hour later.) Wait. Most admire and write nothing like? Gabriel Garcia Marquez, T.S. Eliot, Michael Ondaatje, Chaucer, Toni Morrison, Henry James. See? I can’t do this.

D M Gordon joins Elizabeth Hughey, Bill Peters, and Michael Teig for an event on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton. Event co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

D M Gordon’s prizewinning poems and short stories have appeared widely in literary journals, including Nimrod, Northwest Review and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Diana’s been the founder of a number of literary programs for Forbes Library, and is the senior poetry editor of The Patchwork Journal. Phi Beta Kappa, Master in Music from Boston University, she owes her literary education to the auditor’s program, and generosity of professors, at Smith College. She’s had two Pushcart nominations, and recently the Massachusetts Review has accepted her MCC submission story, Escape Velocity (read an excerpt). She is currently at work on a novel.

Read all of the nano-interviews.

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This is one in a series of thumbnail interviews with participants in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Elizabeth Hughey (left) reads on Wednesday, February 25, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton.

Liz is an Alabama native, a maker of vital, luminous poems, and, if this blog post is any indication, a very witty answerer of questions, nano- or otherwise.

MCC: What are you working on these days?

Liz: I am working on two chapbooks, “Oaxaca” and “Etiquettes.” “Oaxaca” grew out of some confusion with how to find a place I had no idea how to spell. The poems in “Etiquettes” sort of reside and float around in the landscapes of the different editions of Emily Post’s “Etiquette.”

MCC: What’s the most embarrassing sentence/line of poetry you’ve ever written?

Liz: “Utter the word sandwich a couple of times: sandwich, sandwich becomes which sand, which sand.”

MCC: Please revise the following sentence:
Though every muscle in his body urged him not to, Sanderson crept toward the tinted windows of the gray-green Caprice.

Liz:
Through Sanderson
crept the muscle
(tinted, gray-green)
of Caprice. Windows
urged his body
toward the every
“not to” in him.

MCC: Whats the best/worst day job youve ever had?

Liz: Best: Traveling to International Book Fairs (Frankfurt, London) to sell the rights to translate books into different languages. Worst: Administrative assistant to a team of four young, male investment bankers during the dot com boom in San Francisco. I just wasn’t very good at it. I flew one guy to the wrong city in Texas for a meeting.

MCC: The unauthorized biography of your life is titled:

Liz: Pure Sugar.

Liz joins DM Gordon, Bill Peters, and Michael Teig for an event on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 7 PM, at Forbes Library in Northampton. Event co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Elizabeth Hughey is the author of Sunday Houses the Sunday House, which won the 2006 Iowa Poetry Prize. Her new work is published or forthcoming in Zoland Poetry, Lungfull, Left Facing Bird and Caffeine Destiny. Born and raised in Alabama, she now lives in Montague, Massachusetts with her husband, Chip Brantley, and their son, Angus.

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This is one in a series of demurely brief interviews with participants in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Lisa Olstein read in the series two years ago, after receiving a 2006 Poetry Fellowship. But along with being a past fellow (and current wonderful poet), she’s also the associate director of Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts & Action, one of the co-sponsors of this year’s series.

She took time from her duties at Juniper Initiative, the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and the wild and infinitely variant universe of poem-making, to nano-interview with us.

MCC: What’s new and exciting at Juniper Initiative these days?

Lisa: We’re gearing up for this year’s annual literary festival (April 24 & 25) which will celebrate the Massachusetts Review’s 50th anniversary with two days of readings, performances, and a journal and book fair. Readers will include Yusef Komunyakaa, Marilyn Hacker, Christian Hawkey, Lucy Corin, Thomas Glave, and others. And, we’re happily processing applications for this June’s Juniper Summer Writing Institute, a weeklong program (one for adults, one for high school aged writers) of poetry, fiction, and memoir workshops, along with readings and craft sessions. Faculty and writers in residence include Mark Doty, James Tate, Lydia Davis, Dara Wier, Charles D’Ambrosio, Paul Lisicky, and other amazing writers.

MCC: How do you balance your duties at Juniper and the MFA Program with your writing career?

Lisa: Ideally: carefully, and with joy. Realistically: like an amateur circus performer juggling flaming hoops in a tiny car. . .

MCC: What are you working on these days, writing-wise?

Lisa: Poems that, hopefully, will make up my third collection. My second book of poems, Lost Alphabet, will be out this June.

MCC: What writer do you most admire but write nothing like?

Lisa: Li Po (she says with conviction).

MCC: Computer, longhand, or typewriter?

Lisa: Longhand on random slips and scraps to jot down passing phrases, then computer for the real deal, such as it is.

MCC: Do you secretly dream of being a) a pop icon, b) an algebra teacher, and/or c) a crime-solver/writer a la Jessica Fletcher?

Lisa: d) dolphin trainer, of happy, cage-free, entirely fulfilled human- and trick-loving dolphins.

MCC: How many revisions does your work typically go through?

Lisa: Anywhere from none (a rare and delightful occurrence) to dozens.

MCC: Do you ever revise your work on the spot during live readings?

Lisa: I really try not to, but occasionally a word here or there.

MCC: Please revise the following sentence:
Though every muscle in his body urged him not to, Sanderson crept toward the tinted windows of the gray-green Caprice.

Lisa:
Sanderson crept.
Every muscle, urge him
toward caprice. Urge him
forward toward windows
tinted grey-green in the body.
Urge him not to.

The next event in the series takes place Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 7 PM at Forbes Library in Northampton, featuring DM Gordon, Liz Hughey, Bill Peters, and Michael Teig. Event co-sponsored by Mass Humanities. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Lisa Olstein is the author of Radio Crackling, Radio Gone (Copper Canyon Press, 2006), which won the Hayden Carruth Award, and of Lost Alphabet (2009). A recipient of a Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships from both the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Centrum Foundation, Olstein has been widely published. She presently serves as associate director of the MFA program at the University of Massachusetts and is a cofounder of the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts & Action.

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This is one in a series of “less is more”-style interviews with participants in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

The fourth Commonwealth Reading Series event takes place on Tuesday, February 17, 8 PM, at Amherst Books. The reading is co-sponsored with the Juniper Initiative and the literary journal jubilat – whose managing editor, Jessica Fjeld, generously agreed to hit pause on her editing and writing work just long enough to nano-answer a few questions.

MCC: What’s new and exciting at jubilat these days?

Jessica: Our fifteenth issue came out last month, and we’re hard at work on sixteen, which will feature a forum on experimental African-American poetry that everyone here is really excited about. Since issue 14, we’ve been working with guest editors Cathy Park Hong and Evie Shockley, both of whom I admire as poets, and I appreciate what they’ve brought to the magazine’s editorial vision. jubilat is in many ways a collaborative project–that’s the way Rob Casper, the publisher, wants it to be, the product of a conversation rather than an autocrat–and it’s fascinating to watch the magazine quietly shape-shift, issue to issue.

The other thing we’re working on is planning our tenth anniversary year, which will be 2010. There will be a bunch of great events and other exciting (if top-secret at present) stuff.

MCC: What’s the main thing a writer submitting to jubilat needs to keep in mind?

Jessica: It gets said over and over, but please read our magazine before you submit. A sample copy costs less than most sandwiches. You can order it online and I will mail it to your house for free. If you’re engaged by what you find, and feel some commonality with the work we’ve published before, then odds are your work is a good fit for us.

MCC: Who wins the poets vs. prose writers paintball war?
Follow-up: and how would editors fair*?

Jessica: [* as an editor, I have to say: you mean "fare"!] This is a tough one. Prose writers are definitely capable of the long slog, really putting in the hours, but then the poets by contrast would be light on their feet, maybe more adaptive. But the organizational skills that make someone a good editor–following up on all the little details while keeping a bigger picture in mind–probably bode well for paintball too. I think a tight guerilla team of editors could take everyone out.

MCC: How do you balance your duties at jubilat with your writing?

Jessica: Maybe it’s because I read O’Hara’s Lunch Poems at too young an age (if such a thing is possible) but to my mind, the ideal time to write a poem is a lunch break. I like the defined window of time, and also the opportunity to take my brain out of operating at one gear and let it shift thoroughly into another. I also get to read a lot at work, both poems for our magazine, and books and magazines that are sent to the office–it’s part of my job to keep up with independent publishing. So in many ways, being in the office and attending to the magazine’s well-being complements my writing life well. Other days, though, I’m glad I work half-time and that I have long hours to myself at home, at my own desk.

Jessica and jubilat, along with the Juniper Initiative, are co-sponsors of a reading at Amherst Books in Amherst, MA on Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 8 PM, featuring Noy Holland, Caroline Klocksiem, Elizabeth Porto, and Susie Patlove. Read about all of the events in the Commonwealth Reading Series.

Jessica Fjeld is the managing editor of jubilat. Her chapbook, On Animate Life, was selected by Lyn Hejinian to be published by the Poetry Society of America in 2006. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Read all of the nano-interviews.

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