Posts From Author: Erin Cox
Poetry to the People: Eloisa Amezcua
Eloisa Amezcua earned a BA in English from the University of San Diego, where she was the recipient of the Lindsey J. Cropper Award for Creative Writing in Poetry selected by Ilya Kaminsky. In 2014, she completed the MFA program at Emerson College in Boston, MA. She’s received fellowships & scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Workshop, the Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, & the NY State Summer Writers Institute. Amezcua’s debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón, (Shelterbelt Press, 2018). She is the author of three chapbooks: On Not Screaming (Horse Less Press, 2016), Symptoms of Teething, winner of the 2016 Vella Chapbook Award (Paper Nautilus Press, 2017), & Mexicamericana (Porkbelly Press, 2017). The founding editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry, Associate Poetry Editor at Honeysuckle Press, & founder of Costura Creative. On June 16, she will participate in an event at Two Dollar Radio Bookstore in Columbus, Ohio as part of our Poetry to the People book truck tour with Narrative 4. This 10-day, 10-city, 1800-mile journey from New York to New Orleans, will feature stops along […]
Read MorePoetry to the People: Raquel Salas Rivera
Raquel Salas Rivera is the 2018-19 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize, for their book x/ex/exis, and the Laureate Fellowship, both from the Academy of American Poets. From 2016-2018, they edited The Wanderer and Puerto Rico en mi corazón, a collection of bilingual broadsides of contemporary Puerto Rican poets. They are also the author of six chapbooks and five full-length poetry books. Their fourth book, lo terciario/the tertiary, was on the 2018 National Book Award Longlist, was selected by Remezcla, Entropy, Literary Hub, mitú, Book Riot, and Publishers Weekly as one of the best poetry books of 2018, and is a Finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry. Their fifth book, while they sleep (under the bed is another country), was published by Birds, LLC in 2019. On June 14, they will participate in an event at The Free Library of Philadelphia as part of our Poetry to the People book truck tour with Narrative 4. This 10-day, 10-city, 1800-mile journey from New York to New Orleans, will feature stops along the way to give away free books, highlight and celebrate local writers, and promote literacy and literary organizations. To support the trip, please visit our fundraising page here. 1) Please tell us about […]
Read MoreSeriously Questioning…Michael Bronski
Michael Bronski is an independent scholar, journalist, and writer who has been involved in social justice movements since the 1960s. He has been active in gay liberation as a political organizer, writer, editor, publisher and theorist since 1969. He is the author of numerous books including the recently published A Queer History of the United States for Young People. He is Professor of the Practice in Activism and Media in the Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University. On June 18, he will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, The Song Sings Itself, alongside Trish Hall, John Burnham Schwartz, and Darcey Steinke. We spoke to Michael ahead of the show. What are you currently working on? I am now working on The World Turned Upside Down: The Queerness of Children’s Literature which is not about gay characters in books but an investigation into the tension between children’s limitless, anarchic imagination and the social mandate to turn them into responsible adults. It is wide ranging – from nursery rhymes to Victorian children’s novels to Harry Potter – and looks at children’s relationships to sex, death, and psychic survival. Obviously I never got over my “Freud period” in college. I […]
Read MoreSeriously Questioning…Boris Fishman
Boris Fishman was born in Minsk, Belarus. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Travel + Leisure, the London Review of Books, New York magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian, among other publications. He is the author of the novels A Replacement Life, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal, and Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo, which was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and his newest book Savage Feast: Three Generations, Two Continents, and Dinner Table (A Memoir with Recipes). On May 21, he will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, The Root of it All, alongside Damian Barr, Eve Ensler, and Kevin Young. We spoke to Boris ahead of the show. What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? A small bedroom in Minsk, Belarus, in 1980-something. Writing desk, fold-out bed, Persian carpet on the wall, Persian carpet on the floor. On all fours over the latter, yours truly mesmerized by the sports pages of Nedelya (The […]
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Seriously Questioning…Andri Snær Magnason
Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer of novels, poetry, plays, short stories, essays and films. His novel LoveStar got a Philip K. Dick Special Citation, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in France, and “Novel of the year” in Iceland. The Story of the Blue Planet was the first children’s book to receive the Icelandic Literary Award and has been published or performed in 35 countries. He co-directed “Dreamland,” a feature-length documentary film based on his book, Dreamland: A Self Help Manual for a Frightened Nation. His most recent book, The Casket of Time, has now been published in about 10 languages. On April 16, he will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, The Strength of Ignorance, alongside Max Boot, Ross Gay, and Vicky Ward. We spoke to Andri ahead of the show. What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? My very first reading memory is reading dinosaur books, as a child in New Hampshire. What is your favorite line from your current work? I can pick a slogan from the TimeBox firm in The Casket of Time. “No More Februaries!” What is your favorite first line of a novel? The only I can remember is Kafka: “As […]
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