BROOKLYN READING WORKS

Feb 28, 2013: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights 2013

Join us on the last day of February for the last word on the new and the bold in Brooklyn's theatrical hemisphere. 

On February 28, 2013 at 8PM, BRW is thrilled to present this annual compendium of staged readings of new plays by Brooklyn Playwrights curated by Rosemary Moore. 

Here's your chance to see vital and provocative new work as its being develped. Always an entertaining and compelling evening, the playwrights will do a Q&A following the performances.

This year, plays by Scott Adkins and others. More info to come...

January 17, 2013: The Truth and Publishing

Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents The Truth and Publishing a panel discussion about the future of books, publishers, authors, agents and readers curated by the truth seeking and erudite John Guidry. 

We often think of writing as a lone pursuit, a lone artist or dedicated journalist pursuing the craft with every ounce of dedication they can muster. If we think in the plural, it's usually in pairs. Yet behind the work of writers is a larger cast of professionals every bit as dedicated to the written word and concerned about its future. They include editors, agents, publishers, critics, and others whose work helps make the printed word possible. On this panel, we will meet editors, publishers and agents who will share their perspective on the process behind the written word and what lies in store for those in the publishing industry. 

With Rob Spillman of Tin House, Tamson Weston an editor of children's books, agents Jonathan Lyons and Renee Zuckerbrot and Josh Rolnick author and editor of Shma. 

The panel will be moderated by John Guidry who publishes the blog The Truth and Rocket Science. This is his fourth event at Brooklyn Reading Works. Previous events have included The Truth and Money, The Truth and Oral History, the Truth and Ghost Writers and now The Truth and Publishing. 

Date: January 17, 2013 at 8PM at 8PM

Location: The Old Stone House 336 Third Street between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope. F train to Fourth Avenue. R train to Union Street. 

Other: A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine

More info: Louise Crawford 718-288-4290 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Dec 6 at 8PM: Writers on Food, a benefit for a local food pantry

Brooklyn Reading Works is proud to present FEAST, Writers on Food curated by Ame Gilbert. 

Feast features writing about food as subject matter; as metaphor; as memory; as fiction; as

Molly O’Neill, renowned writer, teacher and founder of 

the online Cook ‘n Scribble community

Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, renowned author, blogger and editor of The Kitchn. She is also a poet at heart.

Aarela Martinez, renowned cultural emissary and restauranteur.

Sarah Safford, renowned lyricist and ukulele mama

Ame Gilbert, who is somehow renowned and pleasantly round!
The ‘Tails:

Feast: Writers on Food @ The Old Stone House
336 Third Street between Fifth and Fourth Avenues in Park Slope, Bklyn 11215
718-768-9135 or 718-288-4290
http://www.brooklynreadingworks.com
$5 donation includes refreshments
December 6th, 2012 @ 8:00 PM

 

Nov 15, 2012 at 8PM: Writing War: Vets Who Write Fiction, Memoir or Poetry

Brooklyn Reading Works presents:
Writing War curated by Peter Catapano

In honor of Veterans Day, a fascinating and talented group of established and emerging writers who are also veterans will read and discuss their work. Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead and a new memoir Hotels, Hospitals and Jails will be on hand as well as Maurice Decaul, Matt Gallagher, Philip Klay, Mariette Kalinowski and Roy Scranton 

When: Thursday, November 15 at 8PM 

Where: The Old Stone House (336 Third Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215 between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, 718-768-9135 or 718-288-4290) site of the very bloody Battle of Brooklyn, the first and largest  conflict of the Revolutionary War. 

THE BIOS

Maurice Decaul is a former Marine who served in Iraq in 2003. He is a poet, essayist and librettist whose work has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek.com and Sierra Magazine, and has poems forthcoming in Barely South Review. He recently appeared as a poet and performer in the multimedia show “Holding It Down,” which premiered at Harlem Stage in September.

 

Matt Gallagher is Senior Fellow at the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. A former Army cavalry captain, he is the author of the Iraq war memoir “Kaboom” and co-editor of the forthcoming Fire and Forget. 

 

Mariette Kalinowski served in the U.S. Marine Corps between 2002 and 2010, deploying twice in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her short story “The Train” will appear in “Fire and Forget.” She currently studies fiction in the Hunter College Master of Fine Arts program.

 

Phil Klay is a Marine Corps veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a graduate of the MFA program at Hunter College. His work has been published by The New York Times, The New York Daily News, Granta and elsewhere. Forthcoming, he has a story in “Fire and Forget” and a short story collection to be published by Penguin Press in 2013.

 

Roy Scranton is an Iraq War veteran whose poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in LIT, The Massachusetts Review, New Letters, the New York Times, Theory & Event, and elsewhere. He is a co-editor of “Fire and Forget.”

 

Anthony Swofford, a veteran of the first Gulf War, is the author of the memoirs "Jarhead" and "Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails" and the novel "Exit A." He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

Peter Catapano, the curator of the event, is an editor in the opinion section of The New York Times, where he develops and edits series fo the Times website, including Home Fires, which features the writing of United States military veterans. His writing has appeared in several publications in the past 15 years, including Salon, The New York Times, ARTNews, Killing the Buddha and elsewhere.

 

 

BROOKLYN READING WORKS 2012-2013 SCHEDULE

Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House

A monthly thematic reading series curated by Louise Crawford

Location: 336 Third Street between 4th and 5th Avenues in Park Slope

718-768-9135 or 718-288-4290 (for information and interviews)

A suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments

2012-2013 (All evenings begin at 8PM except for Young Writers)

September 20, 2012 at 7PM: Young Writers Night (poetry, fiction and song) curated by Hannah Frishberg

October 18, 2012: Poetry: A Cure for the Common curated by poet Patrick Smith with Sharon Mesmer and others...

November 15, 2012:  Writing War: Fiction and Memoir by Vets curated by the New York Times' Peter Capatano with Antony Swoffard, author of Jarhead and other writers. 

December 6, 2012: Banquet: Writers on Food curated by Ame Gilbert and Louise Crawford. An annual charity for a local food pantry

January 17, 2013: The Truth and Publishing curated by  John Guidry. A panel discussion about the future of writers, agents, editors and publishing with novelist Joshua Henkin and others. 

February 28, 2013: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights curated by playwright Rosemary Moore

March 14, 2013: Voices from the East: In the Year of the Snake curated by novelist Sophia Romero with Susan Choi and others

April 18, 2013: Funny Pages curated by Marian Fontana.

May 9, 2013: Edgy Moms curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero

Sept 20, 2012 at 7PM: Young Writers Night (A Brooklyn Book Fest Bookend)

Brooklyn Reading Works is pleased to present YOUNG WRITERS NIGHT at the Old Stone House (a Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event).

Come one and all to this celebration of fiction, poetry and song by teenage writers curated by Hannah Frishberg (a senior at Bard High School Early College). The event will be introduced by Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang. An editor from One Teen Story will be on hand to distribute FREE copies of the first issue of One Teen Story

The Brooklyn Book Festival (on Sunday, September 23rd outside at Brooklyn Borough Hall) is the largest free literary event in New York City, presenting an array of national and international literary stars and emerging authors, readings and a lively literary marketplace.

YOUNG WRITERS NIGHT:  Thursday, September 20th at 7PM at The Old Stone House, 336 Third Street in Park Slope ( between 4th and 5th Avenues).

For information: 718-288-4290 or 718-768-9135 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com 

6th Annual Edgy Moms is May 10, 2012 at Two Moon Art House & Cafe

May 10, 2012 at 8PM:Brooklyn Reading Workspresents the 6th Annual Edgy Moms, an annual reading of writing about motherhood and mothers by writers with sharp pens and razor fine wits, sponsored by Babeland. 
 

FREE GIFT BAGS FROM BABELAND PLUS FREE WINE AND REFRESHMENTS!

This year’s line up includes Elizabeth Laura Nelson, Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, Nicole Callihan, Karen Ritter, Jezra Kaye and special guests!

So what is an Edgy Mom?

She’s feisty and fun and a little bit zany. She whines to her friends and can be a bit of a martyr. She fantasizes about taking long trips without her children. She lets her kids have dessert before dinner and reheated pizza for breakfast. And she NEVER remembers to bring Cheeros or tissues to the playground. Except when she does and then she feels victorious.

Her kids have seen her fight, yell at her mother, and curse her sister on the phone. They’ve watched her cry. More than once. She’s been know to throw away her children’s old toys and art supplies when they’re not around. And then pretend she doesn’t know where they are when they ask.

And she knows not to miss Edgy Moms on May 10th because it’s gonna be a blast and the wine is free.

Jezra Kaye is the author of the novel, The Tattooed Heart, Rebel Heart, a Civil War romance novella and Kicking: Love Poems. She runs Speech for Success and has been a Fortune 500 speechwriter. Before that, she was a jazz singer and bandleader (she is a proud graduate of New England Conservatory of Music), and supported her jazz habit by working as a secretary,  a house cleaner, an accounts receivable clerk at J.C. Penney’s, a singing waitress, and an  overnight typist at the Brooklyn Supreme Court. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, and is the mother of an adult daughter.

Elizabeth Laura Nelson writes for xoJane. She lives in Brooklyn with two daughters and no dog, in spite of the fact that she promised her girls they’d get one. She writes, bakes, runs half-marathons, and spends many hours underground, getting herself and her children all the places they need to be. She is doing the best she can at any given moment. She’s getting that dog just as soon as she can.

Karen Ritter has spent decades in the advertising trenches, crafting copy for Dunkin’ Donuts and Weight Watchers. Faced with the task of persuading some people to gain weight and others to lose it eventually created a psychic split. Seeking refuge in fiction, Karen has completed one novel, Living With Men, and embarked on a second, The Other Ingrid Bergman. A mother of one, Karen is still traumatized by the autobiographical novel her own mother self-published nearly 35 years ago.

Nicole Callihan writes poems, stories and essays. Her work has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Salt Hill, New York Quarterly, North American Review and cream city review and has been translated into German and Spanish. A finalist for the Iowa Review’s Award for Literary Nonfiction, she was named as Notable Reading for Best American Non-required Reading and awarded Best of the Net 2010 for fiction.

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer is a surfer, a runner, a writer and married to a nice Jewish boy named Seth. They are raising three kids in a big old beach house in Rockaway Beach, New York around the corner from Mildred and Irvin, her darling in-laws. Sounds like a sitcom, doesn’t it? She also runs the Queens Arts Council and is a grantmaker by profession, a writer by confession.

EXPERIENCE Brooklyn Reading Works, the reading series that has been called “The best place to chase fiction with a bit of history” by Conde Nast Traveler.  ”Once a month you can hear writers discuss themes ranging from “Make Mine a Double” – on women and  drinking –  to books by war veterans.”

BRW is a great night out for anyone who wants to be entertained and enlightened by acclaimed and emerging authors, and meet others who enjoy the same.

A $5 donation includes refreshments and wine.
Two Moons Art House & Cafe

315 Fourth Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11215

718-499-0460
For information and interviews louise_crawford@yahoo.com or 718-288-4290.

 

April 19, 2012: Funny Pages: An Evening of Humor Curated by Marian Fontana

Brooklyn Reading Works presents Funny Pages: An  Evening of Humor curated by Marian Fontana on Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 8PM at The Old Stone House of Park Slope. A $5 donation includes wine and refreshments.

Author Marian Fontana knows funny and she is bringing together a great group of comic writers for this night of hilarity with Don Cummings, Ellen Ferguson, Gianna Messina, Billy Frolick, Blair Fell and Marian Fontana.  

Bios of the performers:

DON CUMMINGS' critically acclaimed plays have been produced on both coasts: His play, The Fat of the Land was a semifinalist for the Kaufman & Hart Award for new American comedy. A Good Smoke was a semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill theater conference. It had a reading at The Public Theater in New York starring Meryl Streep and Debra Monk and has been optioned for Broadway. Piss Play is about Minorities so it’s Really Important was produced in the Summer Cringe Festival of 2009 where it received the Golden Pineapple award for best play. His latest play, Live Work Space, opens soon in Los Angeles. His collection of nonfiction essays are loosely held together in his yet-to-be-published memoir, Open Trench, named after his blog. He has acted in a lot of plays and been on a lot of sitcoms and writes movies and TV shows. Mr. Cummings is a graduate of Tufts University, The Neighborhood Playhouse and a member of The Dramatists Guild and the Ensemble Studio Theater Writer’s Unit. www.doncummings.net

BLAIR FELL has written for the television series Queer As Folk, andthe emmy-award winning Public Television show California Connected.His plays Naked Will, The Tragic and Horrible Life of the Singing Nun,From The Hip, Bargains and Blood, The Ballad of Little Girl Jesus etal have been performed around the world and have received numerousawards.  He has written charity and award show speeches for hundredsof celebrities, as well as the GLAAD Awards, Vimeo Awards and TheTrevor Project.  Along with writing for a number of pop culturewebsites, he writes a fiction blog called subwaysaints.com and the webseries Burninghabits.com.  His work can also be seen on blairfell.com.

ELLEN FERGUSON writes the "Diversity in the News" column for McSweeney's, and her nonfiction has also been published in Diversity Prep, Publisher's Weekly, and SPY.  Her McSweeney's column has been widely reprinted online.  Her poetry can be found online on identitytheory and the Brooklyn Reading Works, and in print in Long Island Quarterly.  Before she started teaching English, Satire and Nonfiction in New Jersey and New Hampshire, she worked at The New Yorker Magazine and SPY.

MARIAN FONTANA has been a writer and performer for over 20 years. Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and most recently in the Guardian and on Salon.com. Her memoir, A Widows Walk published in 2005 by Simon and Schuster, was chosen as the Top Ten Great Reads of 2005 by People magazine and the Washington Post’s Book Raves of 2005. She most recently completedher second memoir, The Middle of the Bed.   Her essays have appeared in the anthologies Money Changes Everything and The Time of My Life for Random House. She is currently collaborating on a musical.

BILLY FROLICK’S screenwriting credits include DreamWorks Animation's MADAGASCAR.  He has written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and Salon.com, and is the author of four book-length parodies, including The Ditches of Edison County, a national bestseller.

GIANNA MESSINA is a writer, producer and comedian who got her start as a baby model. Her work has appeared in  Dossier and Atlanta Style & Design magazine. She has performed stand-up at the Punchline in Atlanta and at the Metropolitan Room in New York and co-hosted the No Rules radio show with comedian Stu Levine. She is a graduate of Syracuse University Crouse College of Art and the High School for the Performing Arts where she majored in Drama. Gianna lives with her cat Clementine in Brooklyn in order to be closer to good bread and cannoli. She is gluten-free intolerant, enjoys the 3rdperson format of biographies and blogging on giannamessina.com.

In the cozy upstairs room at the Old Stone House, experience the reading series that Conde Nast Traveler called: "The Best Place to Chase Fiction with a Bit of History.

"Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House: Reconstructed from a 1699 Dutch farmhouse that played a key role in the Revolutionary War. Once a month you can hear up-and-coming Brooklyn writers discuss themes ranging from “Make Mine a Double”—on women and drinking—to books by war veterans (336 Third St.; 718-768-3195)."

It's great night out for anyone who wants to be entertained and enlightened by acclaimed and emerging artists, and meet others who enjoy the same.

The Old Stone House

336 Third Street

718-768-3195 or 718-288-4290 for information and interviews

Between Fifth and Fourth Avenues

Due to construction in the park, enter from the Fourth Avenue side of the house.

 

 

March 15 at 8 p.m.: In The Year of the Dragon

 

On March 16, 2012 at 8 PM:

Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents 

IN THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON: 

ASIAN AND ASIAN-AMERICAN WRITERS

Curated by author Sophia Romero, IN THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON includes a Brooklyn Poet Laureate, a playwright, and three novelist, all of whom will read excerpts from their latest work. A Q&A will follow the reading. 

You won't want to miss Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang, Novelists Susan Choi, Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer and Sabina Meyer and playwright Linda Faigao-Hall.

A $5 donation includes light refreshments and wine. 

The Old Stone House

336 Third Street

Between Fifth and Fourth Avenues

Due to construction in the park, enter from the Fourth Avenue side of the house. 

For information and interviews louise_crawford@yahoo.com or 718-288-4290. No reservations necessary. 

2011-2012 SEASON

September 15, 2011: Italian Americans: History, Politics and the Everyday curated by Joanna Clapps Herman

October 6, 2011: Tranformations on the Tongue curated by Pat Smith

November 17, 2011: Make Mine a Double (Why Women Like Us Like to Drink) curated by Gina Barreca

January 19, 2012: The Truth and the Ghostwriter curated by John Guidry

February 16, 2012: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights curated by Rosemary Moore

March 15, 2012: The Year of the Dragon: Voices from the East curated by Sophia Romero

April 19, 2012: Funny Pages: An Evening of  Humor curated by Marian Fontana

May 10, 2012: Edgy Mother's Day curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero

 

Feb 16, 2012 at 8 p.m.: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights

FIVE PLAYWRIGHTS AT THE OLD STONE HOUSE!

On Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 8 p.m., Brooklyn Reading Works presents the 2012 edition of New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights, an annual event curated by playwright Rosemary Moore. New Plays by ooklyn Playwrights brings together five accomplished playwrights presenting their latest works-in-progress. Here's your chance to look behind the curtain of the creative process and find out what these artists are up to.

Another year, another great selection of staged readings of new plays (and a musical) by Trish Harnetiaux, Marian Fontana & Leah Gray Mitchell, Karen Hartman, and Joseph Goodrich. Introduced by Rosemary Moore.

Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments. For information or interviews call Louise Crawford 718-288-4290 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Marian Fontana is a playwright and performer whose plays and one-woman shows have been performed at Playwrights Horizons,the Vineyard Theater, Variety Arts and more. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Her memoir "A Widows Walk" was published by Simon and Schuster in 2005 and was chosen as People Magazines "Top Ten Reads" for that year. She recently finished her second memoir, Middle of the Bed.

Joseph Goodrich is an Edgar award-winning playwright and the editor of Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950 (Perfect Crime Books). His plays have been produced across the United States and in Austrialia, and are published by Samuel French, Playscripts, Inc., The Padua Hills Press and others.

Trish Harnetiaux is a Brooklyn based playwright. Her most recent full-length plays include Your Pretty Little World, adapted from Shirley Jackson's novel, The Bird's Nest, Welcome to the White Room, and Mr. Bungle and the Incident on Lambdamoo. She has been a two-time fellow at both the MacDowell Colony and The Corporation of Yaddo. Harnetiaux received her MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program at Brooklyn College and currently, she is a member of the 2011/2012 Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab where she is writing her new play, an unconventional love story, titled The Convention.

Karen Hartman's Goldie, Max, and Milk premiered last season at Florida Stage and the Phoenix Theater, and was nominated for the Steinberg and Carbonell Awards. Wild Kate opened at ACT in San Francisco ,and will be published by Playscripts this month. An alumna of New Dramatists, Karen has taught playwriting extensively, including at the Yale School of Drama, and currently leads popular writing workshops in New York. Her prose has been published in the New York Times. Leah Gray Mitchell graduated from the NYC High School of Performing Arts as a music major and received her BFA in dance from SUNY Purchase. She has performed in numerous films and theatre projects, as well as composing and performing original music.

Rosemary Moore's Side Street, Slight Kidnapping, The Bar Play, Aunt Pieces, Pain of Pink Evenings and Pineapple have been read or staged at the Cherry Lane Alternative, The New Group, New York Theater Workshop, New Georges, Manhattan Theater Source, The Old Stone House, Barbes and Here. Her play The Pain of Pink Evenings was published in The Best American Short Plays of 2001 by Applause Books. During the day she teaches writing at Rutgers University. Rosemary holds an MFA from the Dramatic Writing Program of Tisch School of the Arts at New York University where she studied with Maria Irene Fornes and Tony Kushner

2011-2012 SEASON September 15, 2011: Italian Americans: History, Politics and the Everyday curated by Joanna Clapps Herman

October 6, 2011: Tranformations on the Tongue curated by Pat Smith

November 17, 2011: Make Mine a Double (Why Women Like Us Like to Drink) curated by Gina Barreca

January 19, 2012: The Truth and the Ghostwriter curated by John Guidry

February 16, 2012: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights curated by Rosemary Moore

March 15, 2012: The Year of the Dragon: Voices from the East curated by Sophia Romero

April 19, 2012: An event curated by Marian Fontana May 10, 2012: Edgy Mother's Day curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero