BROOKLYN READING WORKS

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

January 19, 2012: The Truth and the Ghost: Giving Voice

 

ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2012 AT 8PM, BRW is thrilled to present The Truth and the Ghost: Giving Voice, a panel discussion on ghost writing curated by John Guidry, with authors James Braly, Alison Bowman and Keith Eliot Greenberg. 

John Guidry  writes  the blog, The Truth and Rocket Science. He also curated The Truth and Money and The Truth and Oral History at Brooklyn Reading Works. 

WHEN: Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 8PM

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

718-768-3195

WHAT ELSE: $5 suggested donation includes refreshments

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

December 8, 2011: A Taste of Salt, a reading with novelist Martha Southgate and others

January 19, 2012: The Truth and the Ghost Writer 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

 

Next Reading is November 17, 2011: Make Mine a Double

 

Brooklyn Reading Works is proud to present Make Mine a Double, a boisterous group reading by the authors represented in a brand new anthology about women and drinking edited by Gina Barreca, on Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 8PM at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. The hilarious Gina Barreca will MC the event. You won't want to miss this. Trust me. 

Bottoms up! This landmark celebration of women and drink chips away at traditional images of gender, one ice-cube at a time.

Look who's reading at this event:

Gina Barreca

Louise Crawford

Sarah Deming

Dawn Lundy Martin

Laurie Fendrich

Niamh Cunningham
Nicole Callihan

Stephanie Hopkins

Susan Campbell

Pam Katz 

Kristin Dombek

Sophia Romero

Catherine Conant

 Make Mine a Double pours together a collection of witty, intelligent, and provocative pieces about women and their beverages of choice. Edited by humorist and academic mahatma Gina Barreca, the twenty-eight original essays here come from a diverse community of voices from ages twenty-one to seventy-nine, including such luminaries as Fay Weldon, Wendy Liebman, Amy Bloom, Liza Donnelly, Nicole Hollander, Beth Jones, Dawn Lundy Martin, and many others.

Equal parts paean to spirits, an open discussion of drinking (or not drinking), and a call to feminists everywhere to say “salut,” Make Mine a Double shimmers with thoughtfulness, humor, and self-examination. These tales of women’s complex relationships with alcohol are the story of every woman’s effort to find her independence and sense of belonging, be it at a college party, a high-powered cocktail party, or on a stool at the neighborhood watering hole.

Barreca and the writers have agreed that all their profits from the book will be donated to Windham Hospital’s “Gina’s Friends” fund, which aids women in need.

Here's an excerpt from the Library Journal review of Make Mine a Double: 

You don’t have to drink to enjoy this fine collection of short stories, poems, and essays edited by Barreca (English & feminist theory, Univ. of Connecticut; It’s Not That I’m Bitter…, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World); the complex web of social, cultural, and political factors around women and alcohol will envelop both partakers and teetotalers. The selections run the gamut: Greta Scheibel recalls challenging norms by imbibing publicly in Tanzania; Sarah Rasher discusses negotiating the mores of drinking (and sexual preference) in Japan; Sarah Deming cleverly decries snobbishness and asks for a bartender who will simply make what’s ordered; Susan Campbell narrates her search for the perfect drink, which ultimately led her to soda; and Louise Crawford considers the volatile social cocktail of moms and booze. This reviewer swallowed the collection in a single, greedy gulp, but other readers may prefer to savor slowly the nearly 30 works by an impressive list of contributors (e.g., Amy Bloom, Jill Eisenstadt, and Wendy Liebman). 

VERDICT: ..this laugh-out-loud funny, touching, thought-provoking collection is highly recommended.—Courtney Greene, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington

Next Reading October 6, 2012: Transformations on the Tongue (Texts in Performance)

Sharon Mesmer will perform on October 6th.

Transformations on the Tongue: Texts in Performance

Brooklyn Reading Works, now in its 6th year, presents monthly thematic readings by illustrious and emerging authors at The Old Stone House in Park Slope Brooklyn, a reconstructed 1699 Dutch farmhouse that was central to the Battle of Brooklyn and is a now museum and arts center.  

On Thursday, October 6, 2011, poet Patrick Smith curates Transformation on the Tongue with a group of great writers whose work transcends the page when spoken aloud. 

Great writers are not always enjoyable performers of their own work, but the writers in this event invite the listener in, and open up the space for the unexpected resonances that become available when voices make the words sing. 

Featuring poet Sharon Mesmer (The Virgin Formica, Annoying Diabetic Bitch), novelist Tom Rayfiel (Colony Girl, Eve in the City, Parallel Play), songwriter and recording artist Debbie Deane, author and essayist Ame Gilbert (Divorce and the Kitchen), and poet/playwright Pat Smith (Driving Around the House, Not in the News Today).

Thought provoking, illuminating and always entertaining, Brooklyn Reading Works is a great night out (glass of wine included). 

When: Thursday, October 6, 2011

Where: The Old Stone House in Park Slope on 3rd Street between 5th and 4th Avenues. Note: due to construction in the park enter from west side of the house.

What else: $5 suggested donation includes wine and refreshments. Books for sale.

For more information about the authors and the event please contact Louise Crawford at 718-288-4290 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com

 BROOKLYN READING WORKS 2011-21012 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

December 8, 2011: A Taste of Salt, a reading with novelist Martha Southgate and others

January 19, 2001: The Truth and the Ghost Writer 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

 

June 16 at 8PM: Coming to America with Writers from Nigeria, Trinidad & the Virgin Islands

Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House in Park Slope PRESENTS “Coming to America” on June 16 at 8PM. This exciting reading curated by novelist Martha Southgate brings together three new and acclaimed authors, Teju Cole, Tiphanie Yanique, and Victoria Brown, who came to America from Nigeria, the Virgin Islands and Trinidad respectively. There should be an interesting Q&A after the readings.

When: June 16 at 8PM

Where: The Old Stone House in Park Slope on 3rd Street between 5th and 4th Avenues. Note: due to construction in park enter from west side of the house.

What else: $5 suggested donation includes wine and refreshments.

About Teju Cole:

“An indelible novel. Does precisely what literature should do: it brings together thoughts and beliefs, and blurs borders…A compassionate and masterly work.”

—The New York Times

“Beautiful, subtle, and finally, original…What moves the prose forward is the prose—the desire to write, to defeat solitude by writing. Cole has made his novel as close to a diary as a novel can get, with room for reflection, autobiography, stasis, and repetition. This is extremely difficult, and many accomplished novelists would botch it, since a sure hand is needed to make the writer’s careful stitching look like a thread merely being followed for its own sake. Mysteriously, wonderfully, Cole does not botch it.”

—James Wood, The New Yorker

About Tiphanie Yanique:

“The effects of colonialism throb in Yanique’s vivid debut collection. . . Yanique penetrates the perils and pleasures of lives lived outside resort walls.”
—Publisher’s Weekly

About Victoria Brown:

‘Nanny lit’ may have turned heads years ago in the publishing world, but there’s a new voice – and a new book – getting people excited about the genre. Trinidadian immigrant Victoria Brown worked as a nanny on the Upper East Side, and she talks with us about her new book, Minding Ben, as well as her own path to motherhood. -The Takeaway

Teju Cole is the author of Open City (just out from Random House). He was born to Nigerian parents and grew up in Lagos. He writes: “My mother taught French. My father was a business executive who exported chocolate. The first book I read (I was six) was an abridgment of Tom Sawyer. At fifteen I published cartoons regularly in Prime People, Nigeria’s version of Vanity Fair. Two years later I moved to the United States. Since then, I’ve spent most of my time studying art history, except for an unhappy year in medical school. I currently live in Brooklyn.” Teju is also a terrific photographer. He took the photo above. You can see more of his work here.

Tiphanie Yanique is the author of How to Escape from a Leper Colony. A fiction writer, poet and essayist, she is the winner of a Pushcart Prize, the Kore Press Fiction Prize, The Academy of American Poets Prize, a Fulbright Scholarship in writing and the Boston Review Fiction Prize. She is the winner of the 2010 Rona Jaffe Prize in Fiction.

Her fiction, poetry or essays can be found in the Best African American Fiction, Transition Magazine, American Short Fiction, The London Magazine, Prism International, Callaloo, and other journals and anthologies. She has had residencies with Bread Loaf, Callaloo, Squaw Valley and the Cropper Foundation for Caribbean Writers.

Tiphanie is a professor of Creative Writing and Caribbean Literature at Drew University. She is from the Virgin Islands and lives most of the year in Brooklyn, New York.

Victoria Brown was born in Trinidad and at sixteen came alone to New York, where she worked as a full-time nanny for several years. She majored in English at Vassar College before attending the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. Eventually, she returned to New York, where she taught English at LaGuardia Community College. She is now completing her MFA at Hunter College. Victoria lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two young children. She has a part-time babysitter in her employ.

May 19, 2011: Edgy Mother's Day at the Old Stone House in Park Slope

This is not your mother’s Mother’s Day, it's Edgy Mother's Day, an annual reading of writing about motherhood and mothers by writers with sharp pens and sharp wits (presented by Brooklyn Reading Works).

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 a...nd 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 with their dad, yell at her mother and curse her sister on the phone. They’ve watched her cry. 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 NEVER to miss Edgy Mother’s Day because it’s a blast and the wine is free.

Come see this stellar line-up of writers, including Paola Corso, Jennifer Hayden, Judy Antell, Nancy McDermott, Sophia Romero, Yona McDonough and special guests who will rock you and shock you, make you laugh, cry, cheer and look at motherhood in a whole mother way.

Looking forward to seeing you on Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 8PM @ The Old Stone House Third Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope’s Washington Park Note: due to construction in the park enter on the Fourth Avenue side of the house Curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero $5 donation includes free wine and snacks.

Next Reading on April 14: Voices From the East

 

A reading celebration of Asian and Asian-American writers.

Thursday April 14, 8:00 pm The Old Stone House, Park Slope 336 3rd Street (5th Avenue) Brooklyn, NY 11215 718.768.3195 Curated by Sophia Romero, author of Always Hiding and blogger www.shiksafrommanila.blogspot.com

Featuring:
Ronica Dhar
Bino A. Realuyo
Thad Rutkowski
Joanna Sit
Diana Son

$5 suggested donation includes refreshments and wine. Q&A will follow the readings. For more information go to www.brooklynreadingworks.com or www.theoldstonehouse.org

January 20: The Truth and Oral History (or the double life of the interview)

We’ve got a great Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House coming up on January 20th at 8PM. Curated by John Guidry, who writes the blog, Truth and Rocket Science and it's called The Truth and Oral History (or the Double Life of the Interview). Like The Truth and Money, the wonderful event Guidry curated in 2009,  this should be an interesting exploration of a fascinating topic with Q&A and discussion (audience participation encouraged).

As Guidry explains: “Stories do not tell themselves. Even once they are told and recorded, stories need some help to be heard and live in the world. January’s Brooklyn Reading Works will look at the processes by which people collect stories and use them to tell stories. The conversation will explore the work it takes to make stories interesting and give them legs to stand on. Panelists will represent and explore several different genres and styles of the oral historian’s craft, from traditional first-person historical storytelling to the mediations of photography, marketing, multimedia, and social advocacy—as well as how collecting stories ultimately affects the lives of oral historians as authors and curators of the human experience.” Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments and wine. Q&A will follow the readings.

Location: The Old Stone House

Third Street and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope

336 3rd Street
New York, NY 11215
(718) 768-3195

Brooklyn Reading Works Winter/Spring Schedule 2011

January 20, 2011: The Truth and Oral History (the double life of the interview) Curated by John Guidry

February 17, 2011: Memoirathon
Curated by Branka Ruzak

March 17, 2011: Blarneypalooza
Curated by Michele Madigan Somerville

April 14, 2011: In the Year of the Rabbit: Voices from the East
Curated by Sophia Romero

May 19, 2011: Edgy Mother's Day
Curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero

June 16, 2011: Fiction in a Blender
Curated by Martha Southgate

Next Reading on December 16 at 8PM: Feast Curated by Michele Madigan Somerville

Are you hungry for some stir fried fiction, fresh baked poetry and deep dish prose? On Thursday, December 16 at 8PM come feast on a succulent bounty from writers who use food as metaphor, motif and mnemonics of meaning. Bring an appetite for good writing and real snacks by Chef Ame Gilbert, who will be preparing tasty treats for you to enjoy.

This event is a benefit for the food pantry at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in Park Slope. You are invited to donate what you wish. Suggested donation is $5, which includes snacks by Ame Gilbert and wine. Feel free to give more for those in need.

The writers on the literary menu include: Greg Fuchs, Jim Behrle, Louise Crawford, Michele Madigan Somerville, Peter Catapano, Sophia Romero, Amy Gilbert and Jake Siegel.

The Old Stone House is located at Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope. For more information go to theoldstonehouse.org or brooklynreadingworks.com