Hosted each year by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, the Watershed Poetry Festival brings together famous and amateur poets and poetry enthusiasts for an afternoon of readings, panels, and presentations about environmental stewardship. [Read more…] about Watershed Poetry Festival and pre-festival walk, tomorrow in Berkeley Center
Blog
University of Le Havre symposium deconstructs legacy of Woodstock
For two days, 20 speakers are gathering at this scholarly symposium in France to “recontextualize” the historic and wild counter-cultural event that was Woodstock!
The English translation at the conference website reads:
In August 1969, Max Yasgur organized a festival of music and peace on his farm near the small town of Woodstock in upstate New York. His “Woodstock Music and Art Fair” was a great moment in popular music but also – and perhaps more importantly – Woodstock became a symbol of a whole generation of young people who face an America that was reactionary and warlike, adopted a particular way of being and living, culture, freedom of thought and political vision of the United States and the world.
As part of this conference, author Destiny Kinal is presentating a paper on the Diggers [Read more…] about University of Le Havre symposium deconstructs legacy of Woodstock
Big Beautiful Sexy Banned Books
Sexual, blasphemous, atheist, magical, anti-racist and feminist, or just too rooted in scientific reality — which books, From the ridiculously licentious Fanny Hill to the sublimely path-breaking Origin of Species — have raised the ire of a school board or other authority? The ALA (American Library Association) has lists of books people have tried to get ousted from libraries and schools and they might surprise you. [Read more…] about Big Beautiful Sexy Banned Books
En route to the Frankfurt Book Fair: Day 1
Destiny Kinal, the first author to be published by Sitio Tiempo Press, blogs en route to the Frankfurt Book Fair, where over 300,000 writers, publishers, booksellers and agents from across the world will gather again for the most important books event on our planet. http://www.buchmesse.de/en/fbf/
In the month that I am here in Europe, between three countries–Holland, France and Germany–half is dedicated to research and to writing on my second novel in the Textile Trilogy, Linen Shroud. I follow Carole Maso’s dictum that form should follow function, therefore silk is by definition sensuous and heady: in our country, a novel of ideas only rarely includes the erotic, but it’s no surprise that my favorite writers combine intellect and sensuality: Durrell, Duras, Nin, Miller, Maso, Kundera.
Linen Shroud, by comparison with Burning Silk and their respective textiles, is tough, difficult to produce, flexible and enduring. The theme of Linen Shroud– war–presents me with a particular challenge, as I am a lifelong antiwar protestor even while I acknowledge that WWII was necessary for the continuation of our western way-of-life. My father was a medic in Patton’s Fourth Army. [Read more…] about En route to the Frankfurt Book Fair: Day 1
Indian academic calls women writers whores but women wield their pens undaunted
The recent public remarks by an Indian university vice chancellor, Vibhuti Narain Rai, that Indian women writers are no better than prostitutes (chinaal) has unleashed a (well-deserved) storm of controversy and (appropriate) demands for his resignation.
In the name of everything matrilineal, and human, this is the stuff of feudal history. [Read more…] about Indian academic calls women writers whores but women wield their pens undaunted