Massachusetts Statewide Poetry Calendar

Interested in taking your memoir to the next level? Join us for an informal Q&A session on our Memoir Incubator program. Instructor Alysia Abbott and alumni of the program will be there to answer any questions you have about the Memoir Incubator program. We'll give you all the information you need to know about the application process, what the program entails, the schedule, the philosophy behind our approach, and anything else on your mind. To find out more about the program, click here.

Covid-19 Update
GrubStreet is planning to hold all of its classes using Zoom video conferencing until it becomes safe to meet in person in Boston. We are monitoring the public health situation closely, and while we expect this program will be able to meet in person in Boston eventually, all applicants should be prepared to participate via Zoom for as long as necessary.

Prospective applicants should either be local to Massachusetts/Boston area, or able to relocate in the event that the class can at some point meet in person. GrubStreet will be following the lead of health experts and the city of Boston, and working alongside other arts organizations in our decision-making regarding in-person classes. In the event that it’s absolutely safe to meet again, the opportunity will be provided to our intensive programs to gather in person. We will of course offer the possibility to participate remotely if a student is unable to attend in person for health reasons, but as with previous years, local community building is an integral aspect of these programs.

This info session will be hosted using Zoom! You will be able to participate in the event via Zoom video conference from wherever you’re most comfortable. All you’ll need is a laptop or a phone! About 15 minutes before this event is scheduled to begin, everyone who has registered for the event will receive an email with a link to join the event via Zoom – no need to download anything or sign up for Zoom in advance! If you have questions about remote learning, please feel free to reach out to programs@grubstreet.org for more information.

It’s National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, National Book Award–honored authors Toi Derricotte (“I”: New and Selected Poems), Camonghne Felix (Build Yourself a Boat), and Terrance Hayes (American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin) discuss the impact of protest poetry on American literature and American politics with Kyle Dacuyan, Executive Director of the Poetry Project.

GrubStreet's teen summer writing classes give writers aged 13-18 the opportunity to explore all different types of genres, topics, and styles of creative writing in the company of other teens who love words—written and spoken. On June 1st from 6:30-7:30pm, join us for a Teen Summer Virtual Open House & Info Session to learn more about GrubStreet’s teen summer classes, our instructors, scholarships, what the online and in-person class experience will look like, and a chance to win a kit full of creative fun!

In this webinar-style session, a panel of our staff members will give you an overview of GrubStreet’s Young Adult Writers Program. Teens will then have a chance to chat with a few of our summer instructors. At the end, there will be some time set aside for a Q&A.

For any questions that are specific to you and your writing, please email us and we'll send a personalized response! We welcome all questions about all things related to YAWP and GrubStreet.

Please make sure to pre-register, so we can email you the link to join the meeting! To support your continued investment in your creative writing, all teen attendees will be gifted a 10% discount for any one Teen Summer 2022 class.

April is National Poetry Month and what better way to celebrate than with a panel discussion with Porsha Olayiwola, Danielle Legros Georges, Chen Chen, and Dara Wier, moderated by the host of PBS' "Poetry in America," Elisa New. They will discuss diversity in contemporary poetry and how poets use their art form to respond to the world around them.

Join WGBH and Mass Poetry, on April 12th, 2021, at 7 PM EDT for this live, interactive conversation with our panel of local poets. A general admission ticket ($25) includes access to the Zoom webinar discussion and a special digital collection of curated poems from the panel. If poetry is your passion and you want to support WGBH, please consider the Poetry Bundle ticket ($100) that also includes the printed collections of each poet featured at the event.

The Worcester Public Library is pleased to present a virtual panel of poets who’ve written about animals. Featuring poets Maura MacNeil, Susan Roney-O’Brien, and B.G. Thurston, each panelist will share some of their work, discuss what drew them to writing about animals, and tell stories about their pets and other beastie encounters.

Maura MacNeil is a writer, editor and a professor of creative writing at New England College. She is the author of three poetry collections and is the founder and editor of the website Off the Margins. She serves on the board of the Monadnock Writers’ Group and is a New Hampshire Humanities-to-Go program presenter with the interactive writing workshop: Family, Memory, Place: Writing Family Stories.

Susan Roney-O’Brien earned her MFA at Warren Wilson College and is the author of five poetry collections. She hosts monthly poetry readings, teaches workshops and coordinates the Stanley Kunitz summer writing series.

After a career in computers and finance, B.G. Thurston now lives on a sheep farm in Warwick, Massachusetts. In 2002, she received an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College. She has taught poetry courses at Lasalle College, online at Vermont College, and conducted many poetry workshops. Her first book, Saving the Lamb, by Finishing Line Press was a Massachusetts Book Awards highly recommended reading choice. Her second book, Nightwalking, was released in 2011 by Haleys. Her third book about the history of her 1770’s farmhouse titled Cathouse Farm will hopefully be published this year. She hopes to return to teaching and editing poetry as soon as the pandemic recedes.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Please register here: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bgi_ZDqRQnuC6CAlOl2USA

Fred Moten will discuss a poem called "On Listening to the Two-Headed Lady Blow Her Horn," which is from Honorée Fanonne Jeffers's extraordinary collection, The Gospel of Barbecue. He will try to talk - in the wake and under the influence of Manolo Callahan, J. Kameron Carter, Ruby Sales and Frank Stewart - about how the disruption of the metaphysics of sovereignty which the physics of the barbecue undertakes is held, and held open, and released in Jeffers's rich musicality. After failing properly to analyze a musicality that defies analysis, he will ask you to join him in trying to join Jeffers in the incalculable rhythm she lays down, which blurs the line between blur and blue, intoned time and pitch, in the interest of a general, insovereign insurgency.

Fred Moten teaches in the Department of Performance Studies in the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. His fields are black studies, poetics and critical theory and his special concern is the entanglement of social movement and aesthetic experiment. His latest book, written with Stefano Harney, is All Incomplete (Minor Compositions / Autonomedia, 2020).

Phil Klay, author of the recently released Missionaries, and Tom Sleigh, author of The Land Between Two Rivers: Writing in an Age of Refugees and House of Fact, House of Ruin, in a conversation about Klay’s book, Missionaries: "Avoiding Disaster Porn."

Dr. Leo Hwang and associates will offer a workshop on blogging. This panel of experienced bloggers will answer your questions about how to get your voice out there. $5 to benefit A&A festival

https://authorsandartistsfestival.wordpress.com/associated-programming/#Blogging

Dr. Patrick Curry is a writer and scholar living in London, England. He has a PhD from the University of London and has been a Lecturer at the universities of Kent and Bath Spa. He is the author of Enchantment: Wonder in Modern Life(2019), Ecological Ethics: An Introduction, rev. ed. (2017), and Deep Roots in a Time of Frost: Essays on Tolkien (2014), among other books. For more information as well as articles and papers, see http://www.patrickcurry.co.uk

A conversation about Enchantment: We will discuss Enchantment. A more in-depth and personal discussion than his presentation in the festival, together we will find individual sources of enchantment in our lives, and seek ways to keep them alive during this season of glitz and glamour. Free.

https://authorsandartistsfestival.wordpress.com/associated-programming/#Enchant